Video Round-Up: Super Bowl XLV Edition

Video Round-Up is a weekly post collecting an assortment of videos from around the web. Whether they be music videos, creative viral marketing, just plain cool, or just plain ridiculous, they will all be found on Video Round-Up.

This year's batch of more than sixty commercials--all original, it seems--that aired during the most-watched television program in America were relatively enjoyable. Compared to previous years', I laughed more. (The majority of the ads were comical, which is par for the course.) I also saw 1000% more superhero movie trailers. While you won't see any Hollywood teasers here, you will find my favorite Super Bowl ads of the year.

I'm not totally acquainted with Jewish culture because I wasn't raised Jewish. However, of the stereotypes with which I'm familiar, my favorite is that Jewish people are brutally honest about the minutest of details. Avoiding discrimination myself, let me simply say that Richard Lewis plays out this stereotype. And it is funny. But Roseanne could be completely cut out of this.

I won't spoil the ending, but this commercial is an idea whose time came a very long time ago. Now, with some decent CG and editing, we can see the famous race-bug take to the fast and furious forest paths.

Perhaps one of the more cerebral ads during the big game (oh, ha, "cerebral pop"--I just got that), it's also pretty funny. Locking up moguls, CEOs, and heirs could totally happen something like this, complete with leather chairs, champagne, and show dogs. But the weakness to Kenny G is the best element of this video.

Probably the funniest commercial of the Super Bowl, there's a je ne sais quois about this ad that fits right in with my young adult sense of humor. I think the key is the main character's combination of panic, haste, and haphazard problem-solving.

Bonus: Worst Super Bowl XLV ad

At first watch, this ad is a giant WTF. At second viewing, you might start to see how the Groupon marketers might have thought this idea was funny. However, it insists on the dirtiness of the joke; it wants you to laugh at how disparate the economies of Tibet and America are. Now, I am normally a huge fan of politically incorrect fuck-yous to PR, but, again, the only part of this commercial that attempts to be funny is how shitty Timothy Hutton's life isn't. If, say, the Tibetan waiter had slapped Hutton in the face in the end, this might not be the worst commercial of the Super Bowl. But alas, Groupon. You were not funny enough.