• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, February 5, 2025

A CBS special airing Wednesday night that curates comedic Super Bowl commercials from years past revives a recurring theme in the TV Blog’s postmortems of the big-game telecasts and their high-profile commercials.

The topic is the apparent difficulty of creating comedy, since the TV Blog seems to have noted more unfunny duds in the post-Super Bowl coverage over the years than ones that scored bull’s-eyes.

Disclaimer: Defining what is funny and what is not is a matter of personal taste. And one might say that the creators of Super Bowl commercials may know more about the comedic tastes of the general public than I do.

The CBS show will take a stab at gauging the public’s taste in comedic Super Bowl spots by offering viewers the opportunity to vote on two spots seen on the one-hour show.

Titled “Super Bowl Greatest Commercials: Funniest of All-Time” and airing at 9 Eastern on Wednesday, the show is co-hosted by Nate Burleson, “CBS Mornings” co-host and “NFL Today” analyst, and actress Daniela Ruah (both pictured above).

The show even coins a new acronym (at least it’s new to me): “FOAT” for Funniest Of All-Time, which is patterned after -- and much better than -- the unfortunate acronym GOAT (Greatest Of All-Time).

The show marks the 24th year for this annual showcase of Super Bowl spots, which always airs in the days before the big game, whether CBS has the game or not. 

This year, the Super Bowl belongs to Fox, but this CBS special will nevertheless originate from this year’s Super Bowl venue, the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans.

In the show, a selection of FOAT Super Bowl commercials will be presented -- positioned as being ranked by Burleson and Ruah themselves.

At the end of the show, they will reveal their top two picks, at which time a QR code will be posted on-screen so that viewers at home can vote on which of the two will be named this year’s FOAT.

The TV Blog has done day-after columns on the Super Bowl since 2015, and each year, some of the so-called comedic spots are hailed and others are not.

At the risk of repeating myself, my wonderment at some of the more egregious ones persist, such as two spots for Cure Auto Insurance.

In the first one in 2019, a couple were having a heart-to-heart talk across a table, but the man was distracted by a screw impaled in the woman’s forehead.

Out of frustration, he brutally yanks it out. “So, basically, this was a TV commercial that used a vignette of male rage and aggression to sell auto insurance,” I wrote at the time.

In 2020, a Cure Auto spot had the woman retaliating for the 2019 attack by slapping the man this time. I have no doubt that these spots were intended to be funny.

The same goes for a notorious Doritos spot that had an unborn fetus shooting out of a woman’s womb like a ballistic missile because the about-to-be-newborn was so eager to taste a Dorito chip for the first time. Who thinks of this stuff?

By contrast, truly funny and entertaining Super Bowl spots greatly outnumbered the bombs in 2021. 

These included the “two-dimensional” Matthew McConaughey spot for Doritos 3-D (also featuring Mindy Kaling and Jimmy Kimmel) and the GM Ultium battery “Norway” spot starring Will Ferrell with support from Kenan Thompson and Awkwafina.

That year’s Super Bowl also included Post Malone and Cedric the Entertainer in a “Bud Light is missing” spot, Martha Stewart and John Travolta for Scotts Turf Builder, and a Corona beer spot with Snoop Dogg and Bad Bunny.

Also that year: The Jason Alexander spot for Tide that spoofed his George Costanza character from “Seinfeld,” and the reunion of Mike Myers and Dana Carvey in a “Wayne’s World” commercial for Uber Eats.

As always, hope springs eternal for a motherlode of funny, lighthearted Super Bowl spots this Sunday in conformity with the mood of national happiness that characterizes this unique, annual, de facto holiday known as Super Bowl Sunday.

All that and the Eagles too.