#4: Bud Light Meeting
Great ad placed in a corporate setting. How do we save money? Let’s find out!

#3: CareerBuilder.com: Tips
Hilarious ad for CareerBuilder. Seems that since the job market is slow that it is a prime time to strike with the job placement website.

#2: Cash4gold.com
This one was tough. Between Cash4Gold.com and Careerbuilder.com I’d say that they were pretty close in competition but the addition of Ed McMahon and MC Hammer (basically) making fun of themselves just put this one over the top for me. You gotta love Ed looking at his solid gold toilet and saying, “Gooddbye Old Friend” Or how about MC Hammer saying he could send in his gold sledge hammer! Another thing that put it over for me was the fact that I thought it was a real commercial. Ed’s not doing well financially, that’s been well documented, so seeing him in a commercial like this (making light of said situation) just makes it even better! Here it is:

#1: Pepsi: Refresh Anthem
By far my favorite of the night. The Pepsi Refresh Anthem featuring Bob Dylan’s “Forever Young” off the “Planet Waves” album. Not only is it one of my favorite renditions of “Forever Young” but the commercial itself is just awesome, mixing old and new with clips of Bruce Lee, John Belushi, and Bob Dylan along side with Will I Am from The Black-Eyed Peas, Jack Black and a little tribute to our fighting forces overseas. And even though it’s a Pepsi commercial it gave me a great feeling and just made the overall ad more memorable. *Note: Planet Waves rendition of Forever Young does not include rap by Will I Am… Just throwing that out there in case I get any Dylan haters. Check it out!

So those are my top picks for Super Bowl commercials this year. They weren’t the best ever, but certainly better than most that I’ve seen over the past couple years. Also, I didn’t include any of the 3D commercials since you needed the glasses to really appreciate them. While they were good and entertaining… and yes, those glasses worked, they were over produced, especially for the Super Bowl and required the glasses… in other words, they had an unfair advantage so I didn’t include them.

A few weeks back I had heard that Bruce Springsteen was going to be performing for the halftime show. I was very psyched to see The Boss bring some good music back to the Super Bowl Halftime Show. The NFL has tried for a number of years to get a valid and entertaining performer for the show. Recent memory brings Prince to mind, however I think that the response for Springsteen was much better. I had my doubts, but seeing the crowd sing the old favorites and seeing how they reacted to him made me think twice. The entire E-Street band was on stage and Bruce began with a tune that I didn’t recognize but turned out to be “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out”. He later dropped into “Working On A Dream” as the 3rd song. The obvious highlights of the show were the second and last song, “Born To Run” and “Glory Days” respectively. It’s understandable why he would put some less-popular tracks or newer tracks into the mix, but I am of the opinion that when you have such a huge career and some many popular songs to pull from, why not just stick to the standards? I’ll be honest, the first and third song did nothing for me, but as soon as I heard the familiar riffs of Born to Run and Glory Days, I immediately perked up. In my opinion, it was a great halftime show. Well done, Boss… Give it up for the legend! In addition to the halftime show… well ahead of it actually were the three “Real 3D” movie and show trailers that followed the end of the second half. I had ordered some 3D glasses to see these commercials, one being for the new movie “Monsters Vs Aliens”. I was very surprised at how well the glasses worked and the quality of the commercials themselves. Understandably so I would think since I haven’t seen a 3D movie or had 3D glasses since I was in the single digits. (I do remember when TNT showed “Hondo” in 3D, I think I was in middle school, but I never watched it… Sorry, Duke) Anyway, the halftime show was worth sitting through this year, at least I would say it was. =)

The second half began and by the 4th quarter the Cardinals had the Steelers sweating. The Arizona Cardinals came back from one of the greatest deficits in Super Bowl history… actually, THE greatest deficit in Super Bowl history. The only problem, they didn’t win. It was truly a nail biter at the end of the game. The quiet Larry Fitzgerald sprung to life in the 4th picking up 2 very much needed touchdowns and putting the Steelers behind 20-23. The Cards began celebrating early but the Steelers weren’t phased. With the focus of a laser, Roethlisberger took the Steeler offense into the red zone paired with the 2 incredible receptions from Santonio Holmes and the final 3rd reception for a Pittsburgh game winning touchdown! With the good extra point the score was now 27-23 requiring the Cardinals to make a final touchdown with only seconds remaining on the clock. Unfortunately for the Arizona Cardinals, there was no coming back and the Pittsburgh Steelers clenched their sixth Super Bowl title, the most in NFL history. It was definitely one of the best Super Bowl games I have seen and the commercials weren’t too bad either, but that’s another post for later!