TVSquad

A new column here at TV Squad, where we talk about all of the things you're missing when you hit fast forward on your DVRs.

I thought I'd kick off the very first Brought To You By...column by talking about yesterday's Super Bowl ads (apparently there was also a game of some sort played...). USA Today did their annual ranking of the best and worst of the ads, having a bunch of viewers watch the ads with meters and give an opinion on the good and the bad, and for some reason Bud got the top spot, the way they do every single year. It must be that the people who vote on these things like horses, wacky comedy, or they're all drunk (on Budweiser). The company got three of the top ten slots, and number one went to the spot where the dog trained the horse, accompanied by the Rocky theme. It's bad enough that Bud seems to win over viewers every year, but this dog/horse ad wasn't even the best of the Bud ads yesterday!

Anyway, I have my own thoughts on the best and worst, and I'll list them after the jump.

Sketch comedy troupe (and future stars of Fuse) Whitest Kids U Know are claiming that Budweiser stole one of their sketch ideas for a Super Bowl ad - specifically a sketch about how slapping is replacing bumping as the guy greeting du jour. Between How I Met Your Mother's "Slap Bet" episode and all the "slap fights" on YouTube, I'm not sure anyone gets to claim slapping as intellectual property. You can't stop the zeitgeist.

Decide for yourself. You can check out both videos after the jump.

In the tradition of the frogs, and the lizards, we have the crabs. We didn't get the usual punchline that we expect from these ads, but it was still good. There is some really nice CGI going on there with the crabs stealing the cooler of Bud and then worshiping it. The mimicking of the motions the cooler makes as it settles was cute.

Budweiser is just solid. They aren't all home runs, but they are always enjoyable. I'd be up for seeing them develop a couple of the crabs into characters for a future series of spots. There's got to be a sand in the crack joke just waiting to be unleashed, right?

This is classic Budweiser stuff. It calls to mind the little Clydesdale that wants to pull the wagon. I'm not a dog person, so I have no idea what sort of dog it is that gets sprayed with mud to make him look like a dalmatian. If I had to guess I'd say it's some sort of a lab, but that's my generic guess for any dog I don't know.

Not a lot to the story, and no laugh out loud punchline, so probably not one that we're going to hear a lot about later. But the feel-good nature of it, and the beauty queen getting slathered with mud are fun. It's a decent entry from Budweiser, but I'm sure they have something better up their sleeves.

With beer commercials being known for their originality and popularity, Budweiser is hoping that they will be able to get more bang for their buck by drawing people to their bud.tv webpage.

The idea behind bud.tv seems to be a somewhat similar one to those used by networks that stream shows: give the viewers what they want, when they want. Basically it is more or less an internet video-on-demand service, except for product advertisements.