Andy DehnartThe ads during Super Bowl LI may not have been the best ever, though they ranged from touching and poignant to hilariously unexpected. A few ads used reality TV—and reality TV stars—to capture attention. For example, new Celebrity Apprentice star Arnold Schwarzenegger was in an ad for the game Mobile Strike, though he’s done many of these ads previously.
Here are some of the new ads. I’ll update as the game progresses with any reality TV-related ads that air.
T-Mobile: Martha and Snoop
First, Martha and Snoop’s Dinner Party stars Martha Stewart and Snoop Dogg appeared in an ad for T-Mobile. It didn’t really highlight their great, improvisational chemistry—but what it lacked there, it made up in wonderful marijuana puns.
Teensy House Buyers and Real Awful Moms
An online game used two 15-second reality TV spoofs for its ads, and the first one was the first ad during the Super Bowl to genuinely surprise me.
It’s really difficult to parody bad reality TV, because basically this exact kind of show has already aired, but the parodies were valiant efforts, and the punchline is worth the so-so setup.
Watch:
And here’s the second World of Tanks ad, which has a similar conclusion:
84 Lumber’s scripted, censored story
Speaking of tiny houses, a creator of actual tiny homes, 84 Lumber, aired an ad that had to be continued online because Fox wouldn’t allow the full version, declaring it was “too controversial.”
So the ad’s ending—and this extended version—ended up online. The story is, yes, fictional, but I think it deserves a wider audience, and it’s worth a watch.
Update: This piece about the ad is worth a read, as it deconstructs its message, and also points out that the company’s intent was to illustrate one of Donald Trump’s proposals: a “big beautiful door in the wall.”