Super Bowl 2013: The Funniest Commercials of the Night

Super Bowl XLVII was all about the Baltimore Ravens and the San Francisco 49ers. Or Beyonce performing at halftime. Or the 34-minute power outage that stopped play in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. 

Actually, it was all about the commercials.

Some commercials hit home, some were thrilling—and then there were the hilarious ones. The following is a list of the funniest Super Bowl commercials. 

Taco Bell’s “Viva Young” commercial of seniors enjoying a wild night out on the town was hands-down the funniest of this year’s Super Bowl. 

Many were confused when a Spanish version of fun.’s “We Are Young” played over a montage of senior citizens having a wild night out on the town, but it all came together in the end for one of the funniest of this year’s Super Bowl commercials. 

Featuring seniors sneaking out of their assisted-living facility, bathroom make-outs and pranks normally reserved for teenagers, the ad was the most over-the-top of the Big Game and was like a miniature sitcom of sorts. 

Axe’s “Nothing Beats an Astronaut” makes the list because of its all-time great tagline. The short clip features a handsome lifeguard saving a beautiful swimmer from a shark. Just as he resuscitates her and is about to go in for a kiss, she spots a geeky astronaut down the beach and abandons the lifeguard for him. 

The ad itself is clever if a bit clichéd, but the winning tagline is so bold and out there, the commercial belongs on this list. 

Perhaps the most star-studded commercial on this list is Mercedes-Benz’s “Coolest Man in the World,” featuring appearances by the pop star Usher, model Kate Upton and Willem Dafoe as the Devil. 

The Devil tries to make an innocent young man sign away his soul for a new Mercedes “and everything that comes with it.” The young man envisions what life would be like with his new car—women chasing after him, dance-offs with Usher, red carpet appearances and appearing on the cover of magazines. 

Just when the young man is about to sign on the dotted line, he sees on a billboard that the new car starts at a more reasonable price than he originally imagined, and he tells Dafoe he can handle this one on his own. The ad wasn’t the most original, but Mercedes went all out in its execution.

Oreo earns an honorable mention for its “Dunk in the Dark” social media campaign. While it was a digital advertisement that did not make it to television, the cookie brand issued a clever response to the power outage in New Orleans.

Within minutes of the now-infamous incident, Oreo tweeted from its official account the statement “Power out? No problem.” Attached was an image of light shining on an Oreo cookie with the tagline “You can still dunk in the dark.” 

The image has been re-tweeted nearly 15,000 times as of 12:35 p.m. Monday afternoon and has been favorited more than 5,000 times. While all of the other Super Bowl ads were planned months in advance, the Oreo tweet was timely and clever, and the perfect way to make light of a disappointing situation.