• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, February 2, 2015

The voice of President Kennedy should not have been used to hawk cruises. 

Given the diminished physical state of Muhammad Ali today, the use of the brash younger Ali’s voice in the Toyota Camry spot seemed inappropriate.

The Nationwide Insurance spot featuring the little boy lamenting that he didn’t live long enough to have a full life was a downer that felt out of place in the generally upbeat environment of the Super Bowl.

Those were my reactions to these three commercials seen Sunday night during the Super Bowl. On this morning after the Big Game, I’m learning -- for the umpteenth time -- how different people’s opinions can be.

Apparently, many people liked the Carnival Cruise spot with President Kennedy’s speech about the sea. I thought it was unseemly. And while I am in no position to know what JFK thought and felt, I nevertheless suspect that if he were alive today, he would not delight in his speech being used on a TV commercial which -- by its very nature -- cheapens the message about the sea that he was probably trying to convey. More generally, it just felt tasteless to use this martyred president’s voice in this way. But hey, that’s just me.

Just a few short weeks ago, Ali was hospitalized amidst rumors that he might not make it out alive. He did recover, however, and was seen on the news leaving the hospital slumped over in a wheelchair. With this image so fresh in my mind, hearing Ali’s younger, vibrant self in this Toyota spot just felt jarring.

As for the Nationwide spot, some people resented its sad, tragic message and others applauded it because it served as a warning about household accidents and how they can sometimes be fatal. I get it, and far be it from me to come out against a commercial that warns people to protect their children from dangers that can kill them. But still -- did they have to warn me during the Super Bowl?

I felt the same way about the “empowerment” spot for Always brand “feminine products” in which the phrase “Like a girl” was parsed and analyzed. This also had no place during an event such as the Super Bowl. Aren’t we bombarded enough every day by ceaseless “empowerment” messages? Watching this spot, I felt like I was being lectured for something I didn’t do.

I really don’t get why some Super Bowl advertisers feel they have to clobber us with socially conscious “messages,” or present us with emotional vignettes about “family,” when we’re just trying to watch a football game. For example, Sunday night’s telecast had three different spots about fatherhood -- the Dove for Men spot, a Toyota Camry spot in which a dad was dropping his grown daughter off at an airport, and the Nissan spot featuring the race car driver and the “Cat’s in the Cradle” song. I couldn’t stand any of these spots.

One spot that reportedly ranked high with Super Bowl viewers was the Budweiser spot in which a cute puppy was rescued by the Budweiser Clydesdales. I felt the opposite way, however. When this spot came on, I had two thoughts: A cute puppy? Are you kidding me? And what does this have to do with beer?

Another Budweiser spot seen later in the game was one of the night’s big winners. It was the one that dissed “craft-brew” geeks with a message that said, basically, Bud is real beer. “It’s not brewed to be fussed over,” said one of the lines in the spot. Now this was a beer commercial!

Among the other spots that topped my “best” list: The Snickers “Brady Bunch” spot with movie tough guy Danny Trejo and Steve Buscemi; both Esurance ads -- one with Lindsay Lohan and the other with Bryan Cranston playing Walter White from “Breaking Bad”; the Liam Neeson spot for the “Clash of Clans” video game; the Bryant Gumbel-Katie Couric ad for BMW; the Doritos spot with the slob on the airplane who didn’t want anyone to sit next to him; and the Chelsea Handler-Sarah Silverman T-Mobile spot.

The common thread in all of these? They were meant to be funny -- and perhaps more important, entertaining. I didn’t feel lectured by them, or sad, or feeling like I ought to call my father (who I talk to at least once a week anyway).

These were the kinds of spots suitable for a big, happy, tacky, overly loud national pseudo-holiday like Super Bowl Sunday.

The game was great too -- especially the way it ended -- and so was Katy Perry’s half-time show. That spectacle was the kind of extravaganza that British comic John Oliver was probably referring to when he talked about the Super Bowl with David Letterman on Letterman’s “Late Show” last week.

“It’s patriotic, it’s religious, it’s happy, it’s sad, it’s incredibly dangerous on a personal level … What’s not to love about it!” Oliver said of the Super Bowl. “You have to understand how intimidating the Super Bowl is to the rest of the world,” Oliver told Dave, “because when you beam that around the world, everyone else is thinking: ‘If they’re capable of all of this, what else can they do'?"