Bridgestone Fails to Dazzle, Pays God-Knows-What for Alice Cooper and Richard Simmons

Don't get us wrong. Richard Simmons impressions are funny. Richard Simmons in the flesh is funnier still. How Bridgestone fucked up the formula we don't know, but we're guessing it probably had something to do with the mild shock we experienced from the squirrel ad, which it featured first.

Oh yeah, Alice Cooper's in this ad too.

Cars.com Redefines 'Plan B'

If all goes awry in a job interview, fall back on Plan B. (Which is apparently more than birth control.)

By Plan B, we mean bring in the witch doctor for vengeful head-shrinkage. Give demonstration on future colleague if necessary.

This spot: Lamer than we hoped.

Zantac Makes Cosmetic Surgery Just That Much More Accessible

This year's Zantac Super Bowl ad featured a woman whose facial features improved significantly after a giant thumb and forefinger airbrushed it with a minty Zantac pill.

Because Zantac ain't just for heartburn -- it's tomorrow's surprise contender in the insta-nip/tuck game. Big incentive: minty-fresh breath comes stock! We live for the incentives.

Tom Petty Delivers Pleasing Super Bowl Halftime Show

OK, we're not complaining but if half time Super Bowl acts keep going in the direction they have been, they're going to have to resurrect Chuck Berry. At the risk of igniting the firestorm we did last year when we seemed to be the only people who had unkind things to say about Prince's halftime show, we're going to go easy this year. And with good reason. Tom Petty did a fine job.

Petty performed all his usual classics on a very cool looking stage shaped and designed like a guitar. We actually enjoyed the show. See? We can be nice sometimes.

CareerBuilder Kills Off Sleepy Ideals with Reality's Spider

We dug this Career Builder ad where a Jiminy Cricket-type character brings inspiration to a despondent white collar grunt -- then gets eaten by a spider. Looks like CB's learned how to make good use of irony for its new slogan: "Start building." We thought it would be a lamer campaign than it's turning out to be.

Way better than the cheesy high-intensity office-as-jungle thing they were doing last year. And hey, you can't go wrong with maul-by-spider. LOTR did it, and so did Steven King in It.

Dwayne Wade, Charles Barkley Fail to Excite For T-Mobile

It's not always a good thing to be in someone's T-mobile Fave 5 as Dwayne Wade soon finds out after finally getting Charles Barkley to put him into his Fave5. Sometimes it's just better to be unreachable. The storyline is humorous enough but, for us, it just fell a bit flat. It lacked something. We're not sure what but it just didn't hold the attention like Justin Timberlake did in his Pepsi Stiff commercial.

Angela: "Barkley's getting fat."

Modern-Day Frida Wins Hearts with Eau de Peanut

Planter's Super Bowl ad this year featured a dowdy chick with one eyebrow, felling men left and right with peanut perfume.

Weird. But not as weird as that one ad where a person in a mouse suit kicks somebody's ass for Dorito's ... to the theme song from Carmen. Very The Shining (though we're not sure why we feel that way).

GMC Airs Sisyphus Complex for All to See

Halfway through the game, this hand-drawn spot for GMC feels like the longest spot we've seen thus far.

But kudos to them for being so honest about their Sisyphus complex. Probably few things are more futile than being the one-trick executive team of a senile company. The immortal who rolled stones uphill, then watched them roll down again, makes an apt patron saint.

Adland credits the spot to Campbell-Ewald.

Lizards, Naomi Campbell Get Thrillicious For Sobe Life Water

We saw the teaser. We saw the lizard telling his parents he'd be staring in a Super Bowl commercial with Naomi Campbell. Well, this is the result and we like it a lot. We like the effects, the production value, the creativity, the interaction between Naomi and the lizards. Oh, and then there's Michael Jackson's Thriller, a reminder he once was almost normal. Nice job, BBDO. See the commercial here.

Hearts Divorce Bodies, Strike Out for CareerBuilder

So this woman's at her computer, typing away innocently, when her heart -- still pumping -- leaps the hell out of her chest (tearing an unfortunate hole in her sweater) and walks over to the boss' office, where it goes, "I quit."

At first we thought it was an American Heart Association ad. But actually it was for CareerBuilder. The bottom line: "Follow your heart." Definitely didn't see that coming.

If innocent watercooler bitching actually yielded dramatic ultimatums from our organs, we'd all be fucking dead!