TV

Close of the third quarter, opening of the fourth is bookended by Coke's two Superbowl commercials. The first, contributing to the animation trend, isn't a cartoon but features three cartoon characters. It's parade time in NYC, and Underdog and Baby Stewie (from Family Guy) start a high-flying fight through the downtown canyons of highrises over a giant balloon coke bottle. Just as the coke seems about to fly off, out of nowhere appears a giant balloon Charlie Brown to snag the Coke and finally, after decades of missed footballs and treebound kites, be the winner.

Up next is a spot pairing up political opposites, democratic pundit James Carville and former Republican frontman Bill Frist. They're arguing on some talk show, James ends up having to buy Bill a coke. They take off for an impromptu sightseeing tour of D.C. that includes zipping around on Segways and taking in a basketball game. It's, you know, cute in a syrupy-sweet kind of way. But this is Coke, after all.

In one corner we've got the Bud light cavemen who are straining to move their stone cooler of Bud to the cave party. One of their hairy buddies comes along with his new invention, the wheel. Problem solved, right? No, those stupid cavemen use that stone wheel as a three-ton tray to carry the cooler. Closing joke: a caveman smashes a bottle of bud with a rock and exclaims that the other new invention, the bottle opener, is no better.

In the other corner, you have the Geico cavemen sitting on a couch obviously having just watched the Cavemen sitcom based on their Geico commercials. They complain about the make-up ("why not just use real cavemen?") and praising the actors' diction. A commercial based on the sitcom based on the commercial -- it's the circle of onscreen life.

Add Carmen Electra to the star-spotting list of Superbowl ads. She's apparently dropped off the call list of top-shelf advertisers, so here she's is playing her super-sexy self for Ice Breakers Ice Cube gum -- hoo-rah. It's a silly-stupid spot with no real concept beyond having Carmen, flanked by bodyguards, making some sort of appearance. She's, needless to say, beseiged by smitten fellows, but when one of them makes the brilliant play of offering her a cube of gum, she's touched and her bodyguards are forced to take action by slamming the offending fellow to the ground. "Beware the spontaneous whoa" is the closing tagline. Whatever that means.

Forget beer or soft drinks, water is the hot beverage this Superbowl. Once upon a time it was Michael Jordan and Pepsi, this time it's Vitaminwater and Shaquille O'Neil. He's a jockey, riding his horse to an improbable victory. It's a funny sight gag, the giant Shaq on horseback amid a field of tiny jockeys. One of the jockeys slaps him in the crotch to get his attention while he's standing in the winner's circle -- you gotta love that.

The second animated spot from salesgenie.com. Again, I like the animation -- it is this year's clutter-cutting gambit. And the animated spots do stand out -- one of the best spots thus far was also one of the simplest and quietest with GMC's spot for the Yukon hybrid that was a black-and-white, pen-and-ink-looking depiction of Sisyphus pushing a boulder up a hill. In this one, a family of cartoon pandas bring perhaps the unsexiest tag line in Superbowl advertising history -- "100 free sales leads for every sales rep in your company." whoo-hoo. But the animation is fun.

The first spot was a tattooed warrior and the circle of fire death match. Now it's a witch doctor and shrunken heads. Same set-up: customer buying a car who is super-prepared thanks to cars.com. His plan B was a witch doctor, sitting in the waiting room, who would shrink the salesman's head. The punchline -- can you guess -- is another salesman walking in with a shrunken head and a helium-voice. Second time is not better than the first.

As a preview to the Sobe Lifewater halftime show, we got the spot featuring dancing, candy-colored lizards. What's the deal, how to explain advertisers' fascination or their presumption of our fascination with dancing/talking and otherwise anthropomorphic lizards. If beer or car insurance commercials weren't enough now we have lifewater, which as far as I can tell is Madison avenue slang for colored and no doubt vitamin-fortified (and caffeinated, perhaps?) water. A beautiful woman dances with the troupe of polychromic lizards who occasionally snap up a bug or break wind (funny stuff), all to the tune of Michael Jackson's Thriller. It's all intended to get you interested in clicking over to www.thrillalicious.com.

One of the ads that everyone is sure to be talking about and, for once, this big-name, big budget commercial delivers. The spot is for PepsiStuff.com and it opens with Justin Timberlake hanging out with his buddies in bar. He's suddenly sucked out into the street by an invisible force that continues to pull him down the street, up walls. There's a funny cameo from SNL alum and digital short pal Andy Samberg (the two made a splash on YouTube with a funny musical video, "d--- in a box") and a moment later, there's Tony Romo almost running over Justin. The spot ends with Justin being sucked into the backyard of a pretty young thing drinking her Pepsi. Justin starts to act all rico sauve but then he's brained by some flying appliance. It's a hilarious real-life roadrunner-styled cartoon with Justin as the hapless coyote.

The inevitable Bud spot featuring those giant hairy horses intended to put a lump in your throat. Again, I don't get the fascination and depth of emotion that are supposed to attend beer and beer commercials. But in this spot, Hank the clydesdale doesn't make the cut to be on the wagon-drawing team (which I think would be good news, as in oh boy I don't have to pull that wagon and can just hang out and eat oats). So the dalmation pals up with Hank and as the Rocky theme starts crescendoing, the dog puts Hank through a series of heroic workouts. The ad culminates with -- can you guess -- Hank making the team the next year. Oh boy, now Hank gets to be harnessed to that giant beer wagon and drag it around. Hooray.

Among all the web sites spots and high-tech trickery it's weird to see an ad for such an old-world product as Tide. But this isn't old humdrum, laundry detergent Tide, this is Tide-to-go, which comes in a stick for today's on-the-go world. It's a funny spot, A young man is sitting across from the old boss in a job interview. He's talking, obviously trying to sound confident and informed, but the whole time he's talking, the boss is staring at the big orange stain on his white shirt which is making gibberish noises that drown out what the young man is saying. It's a clever bit, referring viewers to the website www.talkingstain.com

Funny is, as it usually is, is the way most spots are going. Cars.com brings the funny with a spot in which a guy buying a car explains he already knows everything he needs to know, thanks to cars.com. and then introduces the salesman to Gondar, a tattooed, muscle-man warrior who is grinding broken glass into his wrapped knuckles in preparation for their "stone circle death match." The salesman looks apoplectic. The customer advises "I'd step out of the circle if I were you."

The first big budget, special-effects spot, this one from Federal Express, and it's funny. Boss and underling striding through a bustling office, full of ... pigeons. Carrier pigeons, it's the underling's breakthrough scheme. "What about the big stuff?" asks the boss. "We've got it covered," says the young man as the camera pulls back to reveal a giant pigeon taking off from the roof of the building, carrying a piano-sized crate. A second later, the crate drops, crashing to ground, revealing a chaotic scene where dinosaur-sized pigeons are wreaking havoc on the terrorized citizens. Final scene: a car flies through the office window, rolls to a stop in front of boss and underling. "Let's use Fed Ex," says the boss. Funniest yet.

GoDaddy, the domain-name-buying web site, has made a name for itself by producing racy ads for Super Bowls that are either banned or exclaimed over. GoDaddy plays with that reputation this year with this clever-clever example of a super bowl meta-ad (an ad that knowingly refers to itself and/or the absurd hype of superbowl ads). At a superbowl-watching party, one guy sits over at the computer, while his friends bug him about not watching the game and missing all the hot spots -- "thank you wardrobe malfunction" wheezes his buddy.

Next two up: The second Bud Light spot, this one working the familiar theme that all guys are so slavishly devoted to drinking beer that they will do anything. In this case, it starts with a guy being the dutiful date, bringing a giant wheel of cheese to a party. He takes it to the kitchen where the other guys are hiding out. He opens his chees to reveal a six pack of bud light. another guy removes the bottles he's stashed from a hollowed-out loaf of french bread and so on. Is anybody else as sick of beer commercial humor as me?

Two more after field goal: The first big Pepsi ad, this one for Diet Pepsi Max (whatever that is, god forbid the commercial should actually tell you anything about the product being advertised). It a montage of comical scenes of people nodding off intercut with assembly-line images of bobbleheads -- we're all bobbleheads when we get nappy. The ubiquitous Troy Aikman is one of the celebs popping up, as is LL Cool J. The best moment comes when Chris Kattan walks through at the end, a funny Saturday Night Live reference since the song booming throughout the spot is "What is Love" the theme of his (and Will Ferrell's) Roxbury douche-bags skit.

The first two big shots fired in the Super Ad Bowl. The first of seven A-Busch spots. This one a Bud Light spot. The scene: a romantic dinner. The punchline pitch: That along with "superior drinkability," Bud Light now also offers the ability to breathe fire. The guy gently blows and lights the candles, but then -- hee hee -- he sniffs, asks if she has a cat and then starts wildly sneezing in a series of allergic-reaction fireballs. The final line as the apartment smolders: "Fire breathing no longer available." An opening burst of funny.

And then, it's a familiar cinematic scene: a rolling hills mansion as the Godfather theme builds. Then it's cut to the regal bedroom, a grey-haired man, satin sheets, silk pajamas. It's Daniel Defoe, but we know who he's supposed to be -- that no-good Hollywood producer who wouldn't give Johnny his big starmaking role. Then he -- wait for it -- pulls back the sheets, revealing not blood and a horse head, but grease and grime and a car's grill. He screams in horror. Cut to out front and the new super-cool Audi A8 peels away. An opening burst of clever-cool.