Fan Essentials: Best Super Bowl Commercials Ever
By Tom Bogert, CBS Local Sports
When it comes to Super Bowl commercials, humor is typically king when selecting the best. That and specific breeds of draught horses, according to multiple analysts who were asked what they would choose as the best Super Bowl commercial of all time.
Watch: Best Super Bowl Moments Of All Time
How many Americans would know what a Clydesdale was if not for their starring roles in Budweiser's iconic Super Bowl commercials? Well, their adverts got a pair of partial votes from a pair of personalities for a pair of different reasons. Evan Roberts of WFAN and Brian Jones of CBS Sports Radio offered their thoughts.
Roberts prefaces his answer by asserting that he doesn't really care much for the commercials, but conceded that most of America does. So he chose the "most patriotic" option by default, any version of the Clydesdale commercials, even though that particular horse's origins are native to Clydesdale, Scotland.
Meanwhile, Jones mentions the Super Bowl XXXVII rendition of the Clydesdale commercial in 2003, the one where the horses are playing football against each other and a zebra is refereeing the game, under the video replay veil checking on the prior play.
But the former linebacker had another one that edged the horses in his opinion, for obvious reasons. It was Reebok's commercial from the same year: Terry Tate: Office Linebacker. Tate runs around in a combination of football and work attire at the office leveling coworkers for various rationales.
A giddy Tiki Barber, CBS Sports Radio, quite enjoys the Office Linebacker commercial and crowns it as his best Super Bowl commercial of all time. Barber admitted:"I don't even remember what the product was!"
Going further in the past than 2003, CBS Sports Radio's Gregg Giannotti chose an advert that reaches back to Super Bowl XIV in 1980. Coca-Cola's commercial that features longtime Pittsburgh Steelers defensive tackle "Mean" Joe Greene tossing his shirt to a kid in the tunnel after a game. The iconic "hey, kid" line can be found in innumerable amounts of videos everywhere.
Giannotti goes away from the humor for his other choice as he ranked it the most uncomfortable commercial of all time. The Nationwide Insurance promotion that caused initial confusion, eventual discomfort when the big ending of it revealed the character the camera had followed, a little boy, was dead.
Best and most effective are two different stipulations, according to Damon Amendolara of CBS Sports Radio. Amendolara says Apple's commercial from Super Bowl XVIII in 1984 is the best in general, but least effective because it doesn't actually show an Apple product.
As shown from the lack of nominations from recent years, Super Bowl 50 is due to be a renaissance for commercials.