Big Game Commercial Recap
Joey

Missed the game? That means you missed the year’s best commercials!

But don’t worry, we’ve got you covered in case you decided to take the day off from watching the big game this year.

Lot’s of violence… sheesh!

Check out all of the ads that ran during the game right here >

Super Bowl 44 took place at the Sun Life stadium in Miami, Florida. The New Orleans Saints beat the Indianapolis Colts 31-17 in an exciting game, which included an onside kick to start the second half that lead to a Saints touchdown and turned the tides towards New Orleans. Ashton Kutcher, Demi Moore, Brad Pitt, Hilary Swank, Harry Connick Jr and former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice were all spotted in the stands in Miami watching the big game.

MUSIC AT SUPER BOWL XLIV

IN THE BEGINNING:
Jay-Z kicked off the pre-show for Super Bowl 44 with a rendition of his song “Run This Town.” Hov was accompanied by the Rutgers Symphony Orchestra.

PRE-SHOW!
Queen Latifah sang “America the Beautiful” surrounded by a chorus of children dressed in blue and red. Latifah sang in a black shirt, jeans and grey jacket. The singer added a little gospel flare to the traditional song, at its finale.

NATIONAL ANTHEM!
Carrie Underwood gave a rousing and dynamic a capella rendition of the “Star Spangled Banner” before the start of the Super Bowl. The former American Idol winner and country singer was in an all white outfit with white heels.

HALFTIME SHOW!
The Who provided the halftime entertainment playing a 12-minute montage of some of their biggest hits, including “Pinball Wizard,” “Baba O’Riley,” “Who Are You,” “See Me Feel Me” and “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” Several times during his rousing guitar playing, viewers at home got a glimpse of original Who member Pete Townshend’s white belly, as the bottom of his button-down shirt kept blowing open.

The legendary rockers performed their music on a circular stage that was surrounded by lights, which at times projected different images and patterns. Fireworks and green laser beams were also part of the rocking stage show. Roger Daltrey also performed an awe-inspiring harmonica solo during the set.

Will.i.am’s remix of The Who tune “My Generation” was shown during a commercial break right before halftime. The music video was an advertisement for FloTV but proceeds from the remix benefit OxFam.

Jay-Z and Rihanna’s tune “Run This Town” was remixed and played right after the halftime show with images of football displayed during the song.

Beyoncé‘s song “Beautiful Nightmare” was played during a Vizio TV internet commercial that also featured internet sensation Tay Zonday and his song “Chocolate Rain.”

MOST TALKED ABOUT:

THE TAME LEBOW AD!
The commercial featuring Heisman trophy winner Tim Tebow and his mother was supposed to be heavy on the anti-abortion message and caused of lot of controversy in the days leading up to the game. It turned out to be a tame, slightly humorous 30 seconds clip.

BETTY WHITE TACKLED!
Betty White is a Golden Girl and America’s favorite elderly actress, so seeing her get body slammed by a sweaty dude during a pickup football game seems to have made people laugh.

LENO & LETTERMAN!
While the ad itself was short and somewhat boring, seeing Jay Leno and Dave Letterman share a couch together is worthy material for a Super Bowl commercial timeslot. Oprah Winfrey sitting in the middle seat is just a cherry on top. We would have loved to see Conan O’Brien on that couch too!

CELEBRITIES IN COMMERCIALS!

Larry Bird, LeBron James and Dwight Howard appeared in a commercial for McDonald’s that featured Dwight and LeBron in a dunk-off.

The controversial anti-abortion ad featuring Heisman trophy winner Tim Tebow and his mother Pam was shown early on in the game. It ended up not being as risqué as people believed. The 30-second clip didn’t have any overt anti-abortion messages, rather it drew watchers to the Web site FocusOnTheFamily.com.

Betty White appeared in a Snickers commercial, where she was tackled during a muddy touch football game.

Racecar driver Danica Patrick has starred in GoDaddy.com Super Bowl commercials before, and this year was no different. She appeared in several versions of commercials for the domain name Web site.

T-Pain made an appearance in an auto-tune song themed Bud Light commercial. The commercial was sort of like the auto-tune the news clips that can be seen on the internet.

Football great Joe Montana’s voice was featured in a Sketchers Shape-Ups shoes ad during the big game.

Jay Leno, Oprah Winfrey and Dave Letterman starred in an advertisement for The Late Show with Dave Letterman.

NFL quarterback Brett Favre appeared in a Hyundai Sonata commercial set in 2020, when future Favre was contemplating retirement.

Rock band Kiss appeared in a commercial for Dr. Pepper Cherry and at the end Kiss and little people dressed up as Kiss, jammed onstage.

The Simpsons characters starred in a commercial for Coca-Cola. The ad featured “Mr. Burns” going bankrupt and having to sell-off all his possessions. In the ad, his spirits were lifted when someone gave him a Coke to drink.

Megan Fox appeared in a campaign for Motorola phones. The hot actress was in a bathtub and snapped a photo of herself. The commercial featured what would happen if men received the photo she took.

Bicyclist Lance Armstrong was in a Michelob Light commercial.

Former NBA player Charles Barkley sang a rap song for Taco Bell advertising a new box deal at the fast food chain.

Tracy Morgan and Stevie Wonder appeared in a “punch buggie, no punch backs” Volkswagen car commercial.

ODD COMMERCIALS

Doritos chips aired several bizarre commercials during the Super Bowl. One featured a dog putting a “no barking” electric collar on a guy to steal his chip bag, another featured a young child slapping his mom’s boyfriend in the face telling the boyfriend not to touch his chips. Another featured a chip ninja of sorts, where a man at a gym was covered in Doritos chips and used the snack as a weapon.

Denny’s commercials for their “Free Grand Slam breakfast” on Tuesday February 9th, featured chickens dressed as humans, freaking out and screaming about having to produce enough eggs for the 9th.

Both CareerBuilder.com and Dockers.com had commercials where people were shown with no pants on. CareerBuilder was making a joke of casual Fridays, while the Dockers’ ad showed men marching in a field with no underwear on. Interestingly, these ads were shown back to back during the first commercial break in the second quarter.

Emerald’s Nuts and Pop Secret teamed up for an unusual ad that had an aquatic theme. People were shown swimming in a large pool, acting like dolphins and seals, and getting fed the snack foods while in the water.

How I Met Your Mother character “Barney Stinson” (played by Neil Patrick Harris) gave his phone number out to people watching the Super Bowl. MTV Radio called the 877-987-6401 number and got only a busy signal, but a lucky few who called got a nice recorded message from NPH as “Barney” telling them to meet up at a non-existent bar on October 12th, 2016.

FLASHBACK COMMERICIALS!

Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo revisited their classic characters “The Griswold’s”, from the 1980’s National Lampoon’s Vacation comedies. The ad was for HomeAway.com.

A remake of the Super Bowl Shuffle performed by the Chicago Bears in 1985 was shown during the big game. The ad featured Mike Ditka, motorized wheelchairs and leopard thongs and was a commercial for Boost Mobile.

What’s a Super Bowl these days without the talking baby commercials? E Trade didn’t disappoint this year, and had at least three different versions of their “talking baby” commercials. One showed a male baby talking to a scorned female baby and another’s plot included two babies on a plane flying home from a bachelor party.

Budweiser also debuted another spin on their Clydesdale horses’ advertisement. This time a bull calf and a Clydesdale pony made friends.

GoDaddy.com also aired their commercials this year; once again they featured Danica Patrick and tried to draw people to their Web site.

BEER COMMERCIALS & CAR COMMERCIALS!

Beer commercials and car commercials took up most of the advertising time during the big game.

Standouts from each format include Budweiser’s human bridge campaign, where people from a town form a bridge to help a Bud beer truck get into their town. Another ad from Bud Light was about a man showing his friends his home, and the whole house was built using full cans of beer. Bud Light also had a commercial reminiscent of the TV show Lost, but in this case survivors of a plane crash were more excited about a refrigerator full of beer, than a working radio.

Check out all of the ads that ran during the game right here >