Super Bowl Commercials 2012: Mean Joe Green Gets Soft in Downey Super Ad

Downey stuffed as much funny and poignant moments in one 30-second Super Bowl spot and tugged at enough heart strings to have us all smelling fresh well after the big game. 

Yet another company has leaked their Super Bowl spot, and this time, it's for a product you wouldn't think we would see on Sunday. 

A day dominated by cars, beer and snack commercials is getting love from the laundry room. Downey has their own take on a Super Bowl classic, and it works, even if constrained by the demands that come from paying $4 million for 30 seconds of commercial time. 

Here is the video of Mean Joe Green going up to the locker room after what we presume to be an old-timer's game or a really gnarly trip to Denny's for the early-bird special. 

He is greeted by Amy Sedaris, who would like Mean Joe to take some Downey so he can take the funky level from 11 to about springtime fresh. 

Let me say I love Sedaris. She made me laugh on Strangers with Candy and continues to do with anything she does. The only thing that is missing here is more Sedaris. 

Now take, for example, the original video that was a full minute long, and you can see what kind of back and forth is missing between Sedaris and Mean Joe. 

Here is the original Coke commercial from 1979. 

Downey squeezes a minute's worth of magic and iconic lore into 30 seconds, and they do the best with what they can do. 

Sedaris is the queen of facial expressions, but leaves you wanting more from the half minute we get. 

I would have loved to see a little more banter from an old codger that plays the grump so well, and Sedaris thank can take hyperbole and just slay it. 

Welcome to the new Super Bowl ad era, where we now have the cushion of a few days to dissect every last nuance of these spots. 

Now you can really look like a commercial snob when you break down a spot to its barest minutiae on Sunday afternoon. 

You can tell your friend's that Downey's spot was a fresh take on an old classic, and its only crime was that it skimped on the Mean. 

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