There are two kinds of people that watch the Superbowl. Those who are watching for a great game and those who are watching for the commercials. I’m the third kind, the one who watches for both. The commercials have become almost as much of an event as the game itself over the years, introducing us to new ad campaigns, characters and the fantasy of Danica Patrick disrobing. However, there is one thing that is missing during the Superbowl, and it’s been missing since about 1998. The year there was no Bud Bowl.
The Bud Bowl was the most fantastic piece of advertising ever created for Superbowl commercialism. The first time I saw one I was a mere 11 year old child, but the mix of stop motion animation and simulation of a football game was enthralling. I never so much wanted to drink a crisp, cool Budweiser then play pretend football with the bottle. While there is no proof or even controversy that the animated bottles led to underage drinking, you have to admit that as a child watching a four hour football game, the funny bottle cartoon was fucking awesome. This is why they need to bring it back. There is a whole new generation of children that have never experienced the gritty realness of a simulated football game played by beer bottles.
It wasn’t some back room donkey show either. Bob Costas and Paul Maguire called the first one. In coming years Terry Bradshaw, Chris Berman, John Madden and other football legends would call the game. Even Joe Namath stopped by one year to coach. They parodied the Heidi Game and The Play. When a rough and tumble can showed up one year, it was ejected for excessive celebration and foul language, several years before that penalty became so stiff in the NFL. Groundbreaking? Perhaps, it was still just an animated can of beer.
Every year from 1989 – 1997 the battle was fought on the mini gridiron between Budweiser and Bud Light. All time record is 6-2 Budweiser. The dominance by the Budweiser team was a clear advertising angle, as this was during a time while America may have been fat, but hadn’t totally realized it yet like we do now. So the Bud Light team wasn’t nearly as popular. One would have to wonder how Budweiser Select would perform now, the assumption being that it would be a completely all-star team.
So what happened to the Bud Bowl? Well, starting with the fourth Bud Bowl they started to tie in advertising and promotions with the Bud Bowl. This slowly degraded the product and turned it into a straight up advertisement rather than a subconscious one. By the end, the Bud Bowl was reduced to a shortened air time and pre-determined results (that is, the audience knew who was going to win.) This created boredom, because the bottles themselves were no longer stop-motion animation but computer animated instead. The creativity was gone, the magic was gone.
Which is why this is the perfect time for a comeback. Bring back the stop motion, have some inter-league play with Coors or Milwaukee’s Best. Ditch the scratch off cards and shit, and go back to what made it grand. Advertising beer to children. Bring back the Bud Bowl!!
Curtis Silver does NOT advocate underage drinking. Thems just jokes! Follow on Twitter @cebsilver
