I’m a Kansas City Chiefs fan. And if you saw Super Bowl LV last Sunday, you should understand the gravitas of that statement.
Yes, my beloved Chiefs literally got pounded into the ground (see: Patrick Mahomes) by the guy everyone hates to acknowledge is actually really good, Tom Brady. I drove four hours home to watch the game with my dad, one of the only other people that can match my game-watching intensity (think: screaming at refs for bad holding calls from our couch, my mom shooting us concerned looks over top of the book she’s reading in the corner recliner). So, you can imagine the pain once we realized our hopes to #RunItBack were about to be replaced by front pages featuring Tom Brady’s weirdly perfect, probably surgically altered face.
We found ourselves increasingly longing for the comfort of Super Bowl commercials to distract ourselves from the massacre of our dear team. As such, the following rating system rewards those ads which made me forget, at least for 30 seconds, that Tom Brady was about to be on my Twitter timeline for the next month.
Drake from State Farm
If the Chiefs had been winning at this point, I would’ve loved this commercial. It has everything I could want. Paul Rudd existing. The Rodgers/Mahomes bromance. Drake also existing. But since Mahomes was in it, I was reminded of how much our O-Line was letting him down during the game.
Standout Moment: Paul Rudd throwing a football.
Rating: 2/10 > Mahomes deserved better.
Bud Light
You’ve gotta love the Bud Light Cinematic Universe coming together. They got all the legends back for this commercial, including the Bud Knight and Post Malone. This ad truly had it all—from the star power, to the nostalgia, to the humor. If only they could’ve banded together to save my Chiefs like they restocked all those beers.
Standout Moment: Bud Knight getting yeeted off a cliff (may he rest in peace).
Rating: 7/10 > Marvel better watch out, the BLCU is coming for its crown.
DoorDash Sesame Street
Listen. I’m a huge Hamilton stan. Like, solely-listened-to-that-album-my-entire-junior-year-of-high-school kind of stan. The second I saw Daveed Diggs (who played Lafayette and Jefferson), my brain automatically fell back into that familiar high school theater kid enthusiasm—the kind you definitely don’t want to let loose in public around any non-theater kids, lest you be marked forever. Regrettably, this commercial was at the very beginning of the game, so I was still expecting a good showing from the boys.
Standout Moment: When Daveed Diggs tap dances for .5 seconds.
Rating: 5/10 > I could’ve used this distraction in the fourth quarter after Patrick Mahomes hit Darrell Williams in the helmet 30 yards downfield while he was falling down. And Williams dropped it.
Will Ferrell Goes to Norway (Kind Of)
Will Ferrell is my favorite kind of Will Ferrell in this ad: Crazy Will Ferrell™. They knew how to get our attention on this one. Just put celebrities in crazy outfits, doing crazy things, in crazy circumstances, and you’ve got yourself a Superbowl commercial.
Standout Moment: Awkwafina existing.
Rating: 9/10 > General Motors did the world a service by preparing us for an inevitable Jeopardy question.
Oatly! Jingle
This commercial made me forget where I was, never mind how behind the Chiefs were. It was a literal out-of-body experience that I’m not sure I’ll ever have again. It’s meme-able, absurd and—dare I say?—catchy. Massive respect to the CEO of Oatly for putting his scratchy voice on the biggest television event in America.
Standout Moment: Wõw, wõw, no cõwwww
Rating: 100/10 > This commercial deserves the world.
