Tony Kornheiser: So Who Won?

So Who Won? No, Not That! The Tony for Best Commercial!
By Tony Kornheiser
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, February 6, 2006; E02

Here are my choices for the best TV commercials aired during the Super Bowl -- or, as I like to call them, "The Tonys":

1. The fabulous monkeys-in-suits ad for CareerBuilder.com, whatever that is. It's simply impossible to resist dressed-up monkeys, especially when they're using burning $20 bills to light cigars to celebrate what they erroneously think was a record profit year. You give me some monkeys, I'll give you a great ad. Monkeys are gold .

2. The subtitled FedEx ad, where the prehistoric man fails to send a package on time -- because a dinosaur eats the messenger bird. Then at the end of the ad an elephant squashes the guy, a la Monty Python. Hysterical.

3. The big production-number Burger King Whopper ad with women dressed as lettuce, tomatoes, onions and pickles awkwardly flopping onto a burger. I loved it. (Though my friend Dawn, a therapist, said the commercial was insulting to women, especially when the words "have it your way" were intoned as the costumed women flopped on the burger. But, as I said, she's a therapist.)

4. The Sprint ad for a cell phone with a "crime deterrent" feature, the deterrent being when the guy throws the cell phone at his friend's head. Twice. Unexpectedly funny.

5. (tie) The charming Budweiser ad in which the usual Clydesdales football game is interrupted when a sheared sheep runs onto the field and is identified as a "streaker." And the cowboys watch and say, "Didn't need to see that."

The smart Aleve ad featuring Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock at a Trekkie convention, using Aleve to get past his arthritis and make the split-fingered Vulcan hand sign. Live long and prosper.

The worst ads were:

1) Those overwrought Gillette Fusion ads. Honestly, what hairball needs a five-blade razor?

2) The weird and somewhat skeevy Ameriquest ads, where people find themselves in embarrassing situations, and it's never explained why a mortgage company would be thinking like this.

3) The overproduced, pedestrian Diddy/Jay Mohr Diet Pepsi ads.

4) The infantile GoDaddy.com ad that lacked all steam. (Speaking of which, what happened to the erectile dysfunction ads? You can't spell erectile dysfunction without N-F-L. Are we to infer Paul Tagliabue has somehow solved this problem? Wow, the NFL is a can-do league. Next up, bird flu.)

By and large the ads were loaded with cute animals and absent hot babes. Some people may welcome this trend. I'm not sure I want to party with them.