The Super Bowl is one of America’s most treasured televised events of the year. Not just because we get to watch the two best teams in the NFL go head-to-head to make history, but also because of all the entertainment value that goes on besides the game itself, mostly due to the halftime show and the commercials.
Nowadays, Super Bowl commercials are mostly trailers for upcoming blockbusters due to come out later this year, or they are nostalgia-based advertisements using classic movies to promote their brand, or they’re just straight up comedy. That last one is what viewers look forward to the most when the commercials air. With that said, here were the five funniest commercials that aired during Super Bowl LVII.
5. Dunkin’ ‘Drive-Thru’ starring Ben
Spoiler alert: This won’t be the last Massachusetts-based commercial on this list, but the headline isn’t so much about Massachusetts itself as much as it is about Ben Affleck, who worked at Dunkin Donuts for a day, disguising his voice with a Boston accent so that the soon-to-be shocked customers wouldn’t recognize that it’s him.
The comedy of this commercial stems from the genuine reactions to seeing Affleck at the drive-thru, especially the one customer who doesn’t recognize him. Even if the interaction between Affleck and his wife Jennifer Lopez is clearly scripted, the commercial’s comedy sticks the landing anyway.
4. Uber One — One hit for Uber One
Now this is a nostalgia-centered commercial, but at least they utilize it well. Some may think it’s corny, but the commercial seems to recognize that using previous hit songs from years ago like “This is How We Do It,” “Milkshake,” “What is Love?” and “What Does the Fox Say” to try to boost Uber One’s popularity is a fruitless endeavor.
Particularly when using the context of those songs, it gradually grew more ridiculous as it kept going on. Because we’ve seen companies try to use classic songs to promote their brand, the satire flows smoothly here.
3. Samuel Adams’ ‘A Brighter Boston’
Even if this commercial is funnier to anyone who hails from Beantown, the city’s widespread reputation for having hotheads with short tempers made it hilarious to non-Bostonians regardless. This commercial nails the Boston Utopia where citizens don’t argue about “pahking spahts,” Bostonians welcome New Yorkers without a second thought to a Sox game, and to top it all off, having Kevin Garnett, i.e. the Boston Celtics’ most iconic trash talker, have a book signing to spread love makes this one of the more clever commercials to air.
2. The Busch Guide
Busch Light deserves credit for not only subverting expectations as both a survival and a beer commercial, but also mocking those overly sentimental dog shelter commercials with “In the Arms of the Angels” playing in the background that aired for years. And what better way to parody that than to bring in the very singer who orchestrated that song? Better yet, it’s even funnier to have Sarah MacLachlan mistaking a dog for a wolf. Also props to MacLachlan for having a sense of humor about herself.
1. Tubi interface interruption
Let’s face it, for a second there, you were probably wondering who was changing the channel while the Super Bowl was currently on the air. Everyone who fell for it was probably freaking out, trying to shift the blame, thinking the sky was falling, only to realize that it was all an expertly done deception, which makes it the funniest commercial that aired that night. Not just because plenty were fooled, but probably because we’ve all been there. Maybe not during the Super Bowl, but we’ve had those moments where someone changed the channel at the absolute worst time.