The Best Super Bowl 2023 Commercials We've Seen So Far

As the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles prepare to square off at Super Bowl LVII, another fearsome battle is brewing for the title of best Super Bowl commercial. Every year, advertising agencies bring out the big guns, big stars, and big bucks, filling the airwaves between plays with the most attention-grabbing commercials they can imagine. At best, a winning Super Bowl ad can have a lasting impact, like when the 1996 teaser for "Independence Day" changed the way blockbuster films are promoted. At worst, it can be a humiliating tombstone for a company that wasted millions on a splashy campaign and then promptly went out of business.

Every year it seems that the war for Super Bowl commercial supremacy starts earlier and earlier, with brands premiering their spots online days, if not weeks before the game. In 2023, more than a dozen high-profile ads and teasers hit the web well ahead of the big day, featuring major celebrity cameos, movie tie-ins, and even the return of one of television's most iconic duos. These are the best Super Bowl 2023 commercials we've seen so far.

One of the more head-scratching ads of the night was in support of not just one brand, but two. Or three. Or maybe four? Marking the first Super Bowl ad for Miller Light and Coors Light in 30 years due to a contract stipulation with parent company AB InBev, the commercial purports to be for either one brand or the other, with a Coors Light guy and a Miller Light guy fighting it out in a bar. Of course, the ad is for both light beer brands, though a twist at the end makes it "officially" a commercial for Coors' craft brew imprint Blue Moon.

The spot itself is fine, but the most notable aspect is what came before: The ad's teaser was actually a commercial for online betting palace DraftKings, where you could visit the DraftKings site and place free bets on the number of people with facial hair who will appear in the ad, or what type of dog will be featured (if any), or which low-calorie beer brand will "win" at the end. It's an odd gambit but makes a certain amount of sense. People have been pitting Super Bowl ads against each other since seemingly the beginning of time (see the very story you are reading), so why not put some money on it?

DraftKings' online betting rival FanDuel has also gotten in on the Super Bowl publicity stunt action, though theirs is a little easier to parse. Simply put, retired NFL tight end and current pitchman Rob Gronkowski is going to kick a field goal at some point during the big game, and FanDuel customers have the chance to win part of a $10 million prize if he makes it. When Gronk protests to his agent (Karen Malina White) that he is a catcher, not a kicker, she seems unconcerned: "Kick, catch, who cares? It's football!"

The ad was the first of a series of ads leading up to the big event — the "Kick of Destiny," as it is known. Supposedly taking place live somewhere in the Arizona desert (though looking suspiciously like a soundstage), the commercial is comically straightforward. Gronk attempts the kick and misses by a mile. But don't worry, bettors, FanDuel will still dole out your share of the $10 million.

One of the few athletes starring in a Super Bowl commercial this year is NFL legend, MLB outfielder, broadcaster, and coach Deion Sanders. In the ad, the man known as Prime Time hosts a family reunion cookout where his relatives show off various feats of strength, from his son and daughter crushing footballs and tackling each other to more superhuman acts, like Aunt Tracie knocking a football piñata into the sky and an elderly Sanders relative (Deion in old man makeup) breaking a picnic table with his bare hands.

What is the source of the Sanders family's phenomenal strength? Why, protein-packed Oikos yogurt, of course. The commercial is a follow-up to the Oikos Super Bowl commercial from 2022 that featured Deion and his son Shedeur (with an assist from Sanders matriarch Connie Knight). This year's ad continues the theme of the Sanders clan being incredibly strong thanks to their Oikos-centric diet while expanding the size and scope of the production.

Pop culture nostalgia is a tried-and-true strategy for Super Bowl commercials (and advertising in general), and this year online coupon site Rakuten (formerly Ebates) is aiming straight for the geriatric millennial feels with a "Clueless"-inspired campaign starring Cher Horowitz herself, Alicia Silverstone. Shopping bags in hand, Cher struts through a classroom full of stylish high schoolers to debate her old nemesis Amber (Elisa Donovan) on the finer points of shopping with Rakuten.

Silverstone cycles through many of Cher's most recognizable moments, from the rotating clothes rack in her closet to crashing her white Jeep into a delivery van. With its bright photography, the soundtrack of "Alright" by Supergrass, and the ageless Silverstone (one of several preternaturally youthful "Clueless" stars with Super Bowl ads this year), the commercial does its best to recreate the experience of Amy Heckerling's teen classic, and as a meeting of product and pop cultural reference, it doesn't need to strain too hard to explain itself.

Beer commercials and the Super Bowl go together like, well, beer and football, and this year has a full slate of flashy brewski ads. The most disappointing of the bunch is the one that seems to be trying the hardest. Busch Light's new campaign features actor Gerald Downey as the Busch Guy, a salt-and-pepper outdoorsman whose "Busch Guide" teaches you what you need to survive in the wilderness: Food, drink (specifically, ice cold Busch Light pulled from a mountain stream), and shelter.

At the mention of shelter, the flap on Busch Guy's tent opens to reveal Canadian singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan sitting with a wolf. The ad then pivots into a spoof of McLachlan's famous SPCA commercial before Busch Guy cuts in to remind her that he's talking about a different type of shelter. McLachlan deserves credit for lampooning her own performance (for a cause that she has long been passionate about), but the second half of the ad feels disconnected from the first, killing the overall experience.

Dutch beermaker Heineken is using the upcoming Marvel sequel "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania" to push their zero-alcohol alternative Heineken 0.0. In the quick fifteen-second commercial, one of Scott Lang/Ant-Man's (Paul Rudd) specially trained soldier ants — nicknamed Anton — appears to be giving him a hard time about drinking a Heineken while on superhero duty. Scott takes offense at Anton's assumption and assures him that he's staying sober while still enjoying the great taste of Heineken.

Rudd — the other fountain-of-youth-bathing "Clueless" star with a Super Bowl ad this year — can do this sort of thing in his sleep, one-upping a CGI ant but still seeming like the immature one. But the ad also brings up some strange, uncomfortable questions about Ant-Man's conduct. If the ant is this troubled by Scott's drinking, this can't be the first time the subject has come up, can it? It's probably best not to overthink such things.

Sometimes the Super Bowl is the stage for high-concept, mind-bending displays of promotional prowess. Sometimes, though, all you need is a wrestler-turned-surprisingly-good-comedy-actor and a song. That's the strategy taken by Experian this year, whose commercial is refreshingly simple, not just in execution but in its intent. Experian, you see, would like everyone to know that paying rent on time will improve your FICO score through its Boost program, and what better way to communicate that simple but important message than to have John Cena sing it at you.

The former WWE star and current DC anti-hero wakes up in his city apartment, so thrilled that it's the first of the month and rent is due that he breaks out into a musical number. Soon he is joined by other renters who are gleefully watching their credit scores rise thanks to Experian Boost. Cena's natural charisma works overtime to sell the ad as both a parody of peppy musical numbers and a tribute to them.

While most beer brands go comic and/or meta with their Super Bowl commercials, Budweiser has never been afraid to play on sentimentality. The Budweiser Clydesdales are among the most recognizable mascots in the world, and over the years these horses have done everything from raising puppies to honoring the victims of 9/11. The horses are taking this year off; Bud's newest Super Bowl ad focuses on the connections that Budweiser can form, as seen in the adventures of a wandering six-pack. The commercial cleverly draws a parallel between the six bottles in a pack of Bud with the famous notion that everyone in the world is just six degrees of separation from each other.

The six-pack moves from a pair of construction workers, to the cooks inside a food truck, to the players in a game of street basketball, to musicians laying tracks in a home studio, to a block party. The ad gets a fun twist from its narrator, actor Kevin Bacon, whose extensive filmography inspired a parlor game version of the "six degrees" idea. The only disappointing thing about the ad is that Bacon doesn't actually show up in it. "It should have ended with Kevin Bacon himself getting the beer," one YouTube user said in the comments section.

Despite the fact that it takes place so close to Valentine's Day, romantic Super Bowl commercials — and especially romantic Super Bowl beer commercials — are exceedingly rare. But this year, Bud Light is going down that exact route, presenting a charming slice of domestic life featuring Hollywood A-lister Miles Teller, his real-life wife Keleigh Sperry, their super-cute bulldog Bugsy, and arguably the most well-known hold music of all time.

As Keleigh waits on hold and Tim Carleton's "Opus No. 1" drones through her speaker, Miles comes to the rescue with a pair of Bud Lights and some impromptu dance moves. Soon, the couple are grooving to an updated take on the corporate music standard, dancing around their tastefully appointed living room and having such a good time that when a customer service rep finally answers the phone, they don't want the hold to end. It may sound saccharine on paper, but Teller and Sperry's chemistry is so infectious that it's hard to begrudge this beautiful, famous couple a moment of happiness.

In January 2023, M&Ms found themselves in the culture war crosshairs due to some drummed-up controversy regarding their long-standing spokescandies. In response, M&Ms released a statement on social media declaring that the spokescandies would be placed on "indefinite pause" and that they would be replaced with a less controversial spokesperson, actor and comedian Maya Rudolph. The oddness of this turn of events, and the fact that it all happened so close to the Super Bowl, led many to suggest that this was all a viral marketing stunt.

In a pair of teaser ads, Rudolph, in her capacity as the new M&Ms spokesperson, declares that all of the candies will have a picture of her face printed on them, and shall be henceforth known as Ma&Yas. The endgame for this promotion is still unclear, though one can probably assume that Rudolph will be displaced as spokesperson — either by the returning candies or something new — by the time the Super Bowl is over.

If Rakuten is making a play for old millennials with its "Clueless" pitch, then Michelob Ultra is swinging straight for their older siblings and parents with a series of ads evoking the classic 1980 comedy, "Caddyshack." Former Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo steps into the droopy lip of Bill Murray's Carl Spackler, dreaming of fairway glory while whacking the buds off flowers. Meanwhile, boxer Canelo Alvarez tools around in Rodney Dangerfield's tricked-out golf cart (filled to the brim, of course, with Michelob Ultra), and Serena Williams takes on Brian Cox as Judge Smails, with original film star Michael O'Keefe on hand to offer advice.

Michelob Ultra's 2022 Super Bowl ad, the "Big Lebowski"-biting "Superior Bowl," had a similarly high-profile rollout, though the final product felt anticlimactic. Similarly, the big game featured two "Caddyshack"-themed spots that had been released more than a week before: the Williams-starring "New Members Day" and another that also served as an ad for the Netflix golf reality show "Full Swing." The three-minute extended "New Members Day" spot, available online, is the best of the bunch for fans of the original movie.

This year, web hosting platform Squarespace is taking a leap into the conceptual with a commercial starring Adam Driver and ... Adam Driver. Many Adam Drivers, in fact. When the actor learns that Squarespace is a website that makes other websites, the knowledge sends him into an existential crisis that results in him splitting into multiple clones; meanwhile, Squarespace's unimpeded growth takes over all of existence, visualized as a very "Everything Everywhere All at Once"-style black hole, and sucks all the Adams Driver into oblivion.

While the commercial itself is interesting and distinctive, the teaser that came out before it was arguably more effective. A week before unveiling the Super Bowl ad, Squarespace released a two-minute "behind the scenes" video featuring all the Driver clones preparing to film the spot. The teaser takes the "Multiplicity" route, giving each of the Drivers a slightly different personality; what unites them, though, is a shared lack of knowledge (or interest) about what Squarespace is or what it does.

Samuel Adams Boston Lager has changed its formula, apparently. It's now brighter in hue. Whether that means that it tastes any different is unclear, nor is it very clear if the darkness of the beer was a problem that really needed to be solved. Nevertheless, the new and possibly-improved Sam Adams has inspired what is currently the frontrunner of best 2023 Super Bowl commercial — certainly the best commercial that has been released before the game.

The ad is a bigger, better entry in the long-running "Your Cousin from Boston" series. As Your Cousin (Gregory Hoyt) buys a pack of the new, brighter Sam Adams, he allows himself to dream of "A Brighter Boston," where all the aggressive stereotypes that Boston has cultivated over the years are upended. Suddenly, strangers are friendly on the street and gladly give up their parking spots. Red Sox and Yankees fans embrace warmly, and Celtics legend Kevin Garnett reads from his new book titled "Don't Talk Trash, Spread Love." Witnessing all of this, Your Cousin is shocked, bewildered, and amazed, but alas, it's just a beautiful dream — he's brought back to reality when his card is declined. The beer is still brighter, though.

Upstart snack food brand PopCorners is making a splash this Super Bowl by heading to Albuquerque — that is, the fictional Albuquerque of Vince Gilligan's landmark television series "Breaking Bad." After a pair of teasers featuring Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul — once again in character respectively as chemistry teacher turned drug lord Walter White and his accomplice Jesse Pinkman — the full 60-second ad features the duo developing the popped-not-fried snack in their mobile meth lab Winnebago and bringing a bag to Season 1 villain Tuco Salamanca (Raymond Cruz) for distribution. When Jesse brags that they have six signature flavors, Tuco furiously demands seven.

Though the show has been off the air for almost a decade, this will actually be the second time in the past year that Cranston and Paul have reprised their most famous roles; both actors returned for a few episodes in the final season of the acclaimed spinoff, "Better Call Saul" (Cruz also returned as Tuco for several episodes in that show's early seasons). And while it may feel odd for such a dark show to be resurrected for a corn chip commercial, "Breaking Bad" always had a strong sense of humor, especially in the bickering banter between Walt and Jesse, and we already know that both men have strong opinions on snack food.  

Sometimes a commercial doesn't work because it was poorly planned and or executed, but sometimes an ad is doomed by forces beyond its control. Take this year's ad from phone and internet provider T-Mobile, which features their current spokesmen, Zach Braff and Donald Faison, singing and dancing it up alongside John Travolta. The song is a T-Mobile-centric riff on the show tune "Summer Nights" from the beloved musical "Grease," which in its 1978 film adaptation was sung as a duet between Travolta and Olivia Newton-John.

Newton-John passed away this past August, and less than six months later here is her duet partner performing a parody with the guys from "Scrubs." And while notions of bad taste or "too soon" may be in the eye of the beholder, the commercial raises some logistical questions, such as whether its premise was come up before or after Newton-John's death, whether she was meant to be involved with it at some point, and either way, what rationale T-Mobile might have had in choosing to continue with the ad after her death. No matter the answers, these are questions that T-Mobile would prefer us not to ponder in the middle of their very expensive Super Bowl ad.

Just like this year's T-Mobile ad, there's a tinge of real-world sadness that unavoidably dampens the reasonably clever idea behind this offering from office software company Workday. Taking aim at the ridiculous corporate-speak in which office workers call each other "rock stars" for doing their jobs well, a group of actual rock stars — Ace Frehley from KISS, Billy Idol, Joan Jett, Ozzy Osbourne, and contemporary blues singer Gary Clark, Jr. — demand that this bit of office puffery cease immediately. And to ensure that it does, they have infiltrated offices across the country, glaring down anyone who would dare call their colleague from Accounting a rock star for getting the quarterly reports done, or whatever.

It's a cute idea, and taken on its own one of the better "random celebrity gathering" ads airing this year. But nothing exists in a vacuum, and unfortunately, this ad was released just over a week after Osbourne declared that he has canceled the rest of his 2023 tour, and likely will never go on the road again due to chronic spine issues stemming from an accident four years ago. There's a new poignancy to Osbourne's presence that perhaps makes it a more interesting viewing experience for the audience, but a less effective advertisement for whatever Workday is meant to be selling.

US rapper and Grammy-nominated artist Jack Harlow fronts this year's star-studded Doritos ad, a silly fantasy in which Harlow finds inspiration in Doritos' signature triangle shape and decides to make triangles (both the percussion instrument and the shape in general) the next big thing. Missy Elliott thinks he's crazy, but Harlow must chase his muse, and suddenly triangles have conquered the worlds of music, fashion, and finance.

Like the ads for Workday and Uber One, this ad falls squarely into the "random celebrity gathering" genre of Super Bowl ads, with Elliott and a mugging Elton John providing a momentary "Hey, they got that person!" endorphin shot. The British music icon even wins an award for triangle player of the year over Harlow. And while there are a couple of fun absurdist details (like triangles replacing the British Pound), ultimately Harlow and the ad are never quite as exciting as they think they are.

Sean "Diddy" Combs is an underrated comic actor. After stealing scenes in films like "Made" and "Get Him to the Greek," Combs mostly has limited his film work to music videos and playing himself in commercials like this one for rideshare app Uber's new membership program, Uber One. Tasked with producing a hit song for the program, Diddy imagines a parade of one-hit wonders like Montell Jordan, Kelis, and Ylvis singing their big hit in the studio, but with Uber-centric lyrics swapped out for "This is How We Do it," "Milkshake," and "What Does the Fox Say?"

The ad is a cut above most of its "random celebrity gathering" rivals thanks to the somewhat mean joke that has gathered these random celebrities together, but what sells it is Diddy's deadpan reaction shots to moments like Haddaway singing "What is Love?" but about Uber. ("You like milkshakes?" he absent-mindedly asks his engineer during Kelis' audition.) It's easy to imagine that this is only slightly more surreal than his normal life.

Like Experian, travel site Booking.com is banking on the old-fashioned appeal of a charismatic star belting out a song-and-dance number. Here, it's Melissa McCarthy as a restless woman dreaming of the beautiful and exotic resorts she could stay at through the famous online travel agency. A mountain cabin, a beach hotel, a ski chalet — as the song goes, "Somewhere, anywhere, as long as it has childcare."

Each locale gives McCarthy a different luxurious fantasy to try on, from movie star glamour by the pool, to wearing a mud mask and having her feet massaged, to being a caked-up snow bunny on the slopes. The commercial has no twist ending or meta conceit, just the eminently relatable sight of a woman scrolling through her phone in bed, dreaming of a vacation. McCarthy's husband and frequent collaborator Ben Falcone even has a quick cameo as a sexy gardener (sorry, "landscape architect").

The non-profit marketing consortium Avocados from Mexico engages in some light Biblical revisionism this Super Bowl Sunday with an ad that wonders aloud what would have happened if Eve had taken a bite from a delicious avocado as opposed to an apple from the tree of knowledge. Anna Faris stars as Eve, naked but for her long, strategically placed hair, who sheepishly confesses to Adam that she may have taken a bite of something she wasn't supposed to when dark storm clouds surround Eden. A helpful talking gopher gives her an Avocado from Mexico to munch on instead, promising that it will make everything better.

And sure enough, it does. Fast forward to the modern day, and the world is an avocado-filled utopia; New York City's nickname is even the Big Avocado. And of course, everyone is naked and shameless, even the Statue of Liberty. Faris' considerable comic chops are mostly wasted, though her quick glance downward when she realizes that Adam is also naked is well-played; the concept is the real star of the ad, plus those delicious avocados.

General Motors is launching a new fleet of electric vehicles and has partnered with Netflix to showcase them in the streaming giant's original programming. There was a time when such blatant product placement would be an embarrassment rather than something to trumpet in a massively expensive ad campaign, but this is where we are now, apparently. To illustrate how these new EVs might be deployed, the commercial has Will Ferrell take a drive through some of Netflix's most popular offerings, whether it makes sense for him to be there (like the zombified Las Vegas of "Army of the Dead") or not (the sexy and diverse Regency England of "Bridgerton").

The ad is well-made, and Ferrell is a welcome guide through this new era of corporate synergy, whether he's dressed up as Dustin from "Stranger Things" or slowly succumbing to the zombie virus. But for such a new initiative, the ad's references feel oddly stale. "Army of the Dead" premiered two years ago in 2021, and the high point of "Bridgerton's" cultural saturation was back in 2020. Perhaps this is an unintentional acknowledgment that these days Netflix is better known for canceling beloved shows than airing them.

Jon Hamm loves to make fun of his own name, especially on "Saturday Night Live," and for this year's Super Bowl commercial from Hellman's mayonnaise he's brought some of that SNL energy with him — though without the edge of barely-suppressed anger. Hamm and fellow actor who shares a name with a type of food, Brie Larson, find themselves trapped in a giant refrigerator (or perhaps they have been shrunk) full of leftovers and a big jar of Hellman's. Larson quickly surmises that they are there because a dinner of ham, brie, and Hellman's would be delicious. Pete Davidson apparently agrees, as he opens the fridge door and declares to the two actors that he plans to eat them.

Davidson's sudden appearance nearly knocks the ad into "random celebrity gathering" territory, but there is a certain amount of stoner logic to the whole scene, where Hamm and Brie are themselves but also simultaneously ham and brie, which makes it work. And not for nothing, the grilled ham and brie sandwich featured at the end of the commercial is mighty appetizing.

It's the commercial so nice they made it twice. After over half a century of diet drinks being on the market, soda companies are apparently still insecure about how they taste and are desperate to tell you that they are indistinguishable from their full-calorie siblings. This year, Pepsi Zero Sugar is leaning into their anxiety over flavor with a pair of ads featuring Ben Stiller and Steve Martin as themselves, illustrating how their job as actors requires them to convincingly fake emotions. At the end of each ad, they take a drink of Pepsi Zero Sugar and are blown away by the taste. But was it real or just acting?

It's a bold gambit, to court the notion that their product doesn't taste good not just once, but twice; other than a quick appearance by Stiller's beloved Derek Zoolander character, he and Martin perform essentially the exact same commercial. The ploy is to get the audience to try Pepsi Zero Sugar for themselves in order to determine whether Stiller and Martin's enjoyment was real or not, and there is something refreshingly honest about a commercial allowing for the fact that some people will not enjoy its product.

The teaser to this year's ad from canned potato chip brand Pringles centered around an appearance by singer Meghan Trainor, but the actual commercial is surprisingly light on celebrity content, opting instead for a Tina Turner-backed montage of Pringles enjoyers getting their hands stuck inside the tube. As a grandfather explains to his tube-handed grandson at an afternoon house party, this sort of thing happens to "the best of us," and proceeds to list off a cross-section of society, from judges to bowlers to  Trainor to apparently the grandson's unknown biological father, all of whom are forced to carry on their lives with an empty Pringles can stuck to them.

Like the Workday ad's crusade against office "rock stars," Pringles has offered a clever twist on one of the more annoying and relatable quirks of using their product — and unlike Pepsi Zero Sugar's weirdly ambivalent commercials, this one subtly emphasizes that people only get their hands stuck in the tube when they like Pringles so much that they eat the entire thing.

Downy Unstopables laundry detergent started its Super Bowl campaign over a month ago, with a set of teasers featuring an unnamed, unseen celebrity whose head was covered up by a still-fresh-smelling hoodie. The teasers treated the celeb's identity as a secret to be revealed, though anyone who has seen a comedy film in the last 15 years or watched "The Righteous Gemstones" on HBO would have no trouble recognizing the voice of Danny McBride — or rather, Downy McBride, as the incredible long-lasting freshness of Unstopables has inspired him to change his name and become a detergent evangelist, speeding through his neighborhood in a golf cart and shooting bottles of the good stuff at his neighbors with a t-shirt gun.

There's little more to the final ad than McBride's typical incompetent overconfidence, though for fans of his abrasive brand of comedy, that's more than enough. There's a certain amount of novelty in seeing him do his thing without a barrage of profanity or other R-rated descriptors; if ever a commercial called out for an unrated cut, this is the one.

"You remembered her favorite binky, right?" With those chilling words, the odyssey begins for the hapless dad at the center of Kia's commercial for the new Telluride X-Pro SUV. As his wife waits at the hotel they've checked into with their ticking time bomb of a baby daughter, Dad races back home to get the one pacifier that will actually pacify her. Luckily for him, the Telluride X-Pro is an all-terrain vehicle, so when he needs to take a detour through the woods or speed down the LA river basin, it's no problem at all.

The importance of his mission is picked up by the local news, and soon all of America is glued to the screen, willing Dad to succeed as Bill Conti's theme from "Rocky" plays. The ad is a fine display of what the SUV is capable of but more than that it is a vivid illustration of young parenthood when the whims of the little monster in your care feel very much like a national emergency.

For years, Google's ads have positioned its services and hardware as a positive force in the world, bringing people together and generally improving humanity through effortless connectivity. This year, however, the online behemoth has taken a different approach: they want to keep people apart. Specifically, they want to get rid of all the weird strangers, pooping animals, and ill-considered t-shirt graphics that are in your favorite photos. The Google Pixel 7 phone comes with advanced photo editing software that can clarify and repair old blurry photos, as well as remove any unwanted elements — people included.

The ad features a few celebrities delighting in the Pixel's new features; Amy Schumer excitedly removes all her ex-boyfriends from her pics, while rapper Doja Cat corrects a blurry photo taken with a fan and Milwaukee Bucks player Giannis Antetokounmpo brushes out an opposing player from a picture his slam dunk. But the real star of the ad is the phone itself; this is one of the rare Super Bowl commercials that actually unveil a new product that people might want, rather than reminding them of a product that already exists.

It's rare, but not unheard of, for Super Bowl ads to stand out by poking gentle fun at other Super Bowl ads. That's the tack taken this year by streaming service Peacock, which uses the hero of its new throwback detective series "Poker Face" to remind us that commercials are just that, commercials — or, put another way, lies. Natasha Lyonne's amateur investigator Charlie Cale, who has the extraordinary ability to tell when (but not why) a person is lying, sits with a friend at the bar and politely disabuses him of the notion that friends in a beer ad really like each other, or that the little kid licking the glass in the Google ad is actually a little kid ("that's a 19 year old"), or that the M&Ms spokes candies were ever really fired.

One thing that's not a lie — at least according to Peacock — is that "Poker Face" is a hilarious and clever spin on the type of mystery series that used to be a dime a dozen in the '70s and '80s, where charmingly disheveled shamuses went after fat cats who thought they could get away with murder. Even the commercial itself is a throwback, the streaming era equivalent of a network airing a big episode of its best show right after the big game.

Dunkin' (formerly Dunkin' Donuts) is a New England institution, and so it only makes sense that they would be repped by Beantown's own Affleck brothers. But while younger brother Casey is only a donut pitchman in late-night comedy sketches, big bro Ben gets the primetime slot, literally, in this Super Bowl ad. The actor, writer, and director mans the drive-through booth in this hidden camera-style spot, having fun with the customers who recognize him — or don't — in the case of one unimpressed townie.

And since it's 2023, where Affleck goes, so does his wife, Jennifer Lopez (and vice versa). J.Lo cameos at the end of the spot, shocked and horrified to find her husband working a shift at Dunkies. Affleck stammers in response when Lopez asks if this is where he's been going every day when he says he's at work, and sheepishly walks off the job — but not before taking one last order.

There's nothing like a little old dog love to get your eyes watering in the middle of the game. Pet food subscription service The Farmer's Dog goes hard for the heartstrings in this 60-second spot about the lifelong love between an adorable little girl and an even more adorable chocolate lab puppy. As Leon Bridges' throwback-soul jam "Don't Worry" plays, we see a girl and dog stick together through major life changes, from her going off to college, to getting married, to having a brand new baby.

If the company's aim was to reduce any dog lovers in the audience to a giant puddle of tears, the ad was a massive success if a cursory glance down the video's YouTube comments is any indication. But other than a subscription box in the background of one shot — and presumably the dog's long and healthy life, made possible by high-quality food — there's little indication of what this commercial is actually selling. The logo at the end could have been for an insurance company or Coca-Cola and the ad would have made just as much sense.

Arguably the most creative ad of the night was one of the shortest, a 15-second burst of Andy Kaufman-esque mischief courtesy of streaming service, Tubi. The ad-supported app does not have a roster of original programming to lure in subscribers like Netflix or Disney+, but what it does have is an incredibly vast catalog of eclectic movie and TV choices; it is perhaps the streaming service that gets the closest to the old days of "let's just see what's on" channel surfing.

Tubi shows off its odds-and-ends assortment and the ease with which you can find it with an ad that starts as if you've returned to the game from a commercial break. Fox commentators Kevin Burkhardt and Greg Olsen are on the screen when suddenly a menu pops up on the bottom of the screen; the cursor scrolls to the Tubi app and selects the Brad Pitt-Angelina Jolie action comedy, "Mr. and Mrs. Smith." Designed to send viewers into a panic that someone at home has switched off the game (or perhaps just sat on the remote), the commercial is clever, attention-grabbing, and blessedly brief.