Super Bowl Sunday came and went without another “Wazzuuup?” coming into the collective American lexicon. Fortunately, the Giants-Patriots game was one of those once-in-a-lifetime, down-to-the-wire football matchups that kept viewers’ eyes trained to the screen until the game’s final minute. But with so many viewers watching intently, tortilla chips and remote control in hand, Super Bowl advertisers didn’t produce. The $2.7 million ads didn’t seem to have the same punch that they’ve had in the past.

It looked like Gatorade wasted $2.7 million to show a 30-second film of a dog drinking from his water bowl. Audi dropped $2.7 million to show us how their new ultra sleek (and ultra chrome) sports car, the R8, wrecks other sports cars Godfather-style.

Of the 97.5 million Super Bowl watchers – an all-time high – most female viewers likely swooned on Sunday night when Justin Timberlake’s grizzly mug appeared on the screen to promote PepsiStuff.com, but even that minute-long commercial failed to deliver. It’s amazing to see that Timberlake would be allowed anywhere near the Super Bowl a mere four years after Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction” heard ’round the world.

Some of the ads didn’t even make sense. Of all the unlikely spokespeople of the night, a Tide ad featured a talking stain who spoke gibberish. Luckily, Bridgestone tires were able to maneuver around Alice Cooper and Richard Simmons, who happened to be in the middle of a highway in the dead of night. The evening’s Victoria’s Secret ad, in which supermodel Adriana Lima pouted for the camera and fumbled around with a football, seemed like more of a PSA for viewers’ post-game romances than an advertisement.

Next year, let’s hope advertisers give us ads simultaneously smart but stupid enough to get us laughing. Years from now, I won’t remember what Web site had that talking baby, but I will remember when I first heard those inimitable Budweiser frogs.

– Matt Spector

Assistant campus editor