You can only fit so many celebrities into a headline to communicate the essence of a story, but damn, Paramount+ brought out the big guns for a Super Bowl commercial that started making the rounds on social media already on Thursday.
The streaming service falls under the Paramount Global corporate umbrella, which includes CBS. Obviously that’s a major carrier of NFL games, so it’s no surprise that Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa is front and center for the ad. Whatever disappointment Tua feels not actually playing in Super Bowl LVIII, he can take solace in the fact that he probably lost to the eventual champs (the Chiefs), and he got to do a bonkers, unhinged, amazing commercial to boost his profile.
Beyond the Tua inclusion, the rest of this ad is off its damn rocker. Sir Patrick Stewart of Jean-Luc Picard Star Trek fame among many other credits has a key supporting role. He offers to use his throwing talents to get a who’s who of Paramount+-affiliated cast members up the face of a cliff to presumably find refuge in the bitter cold. All these folks are on the actual Paramount Mountain, y’all!
Stewart’s solution to the conundrum? Chucking the titular animated character of Hey Arnold with a pick attached to him so it can lock in and everyone else can climb up. Anxiously looking on are the likes of Drew Barrymore, the Idris Elba-voiced Sonic villain Knuckles, Survivor host Jeff Probst, Thomas Lennon’s lieutenant Jim Dangle from Reno 911! and, WTF, Creed’s Scott Stapp and Mark Tremonti rocking out with their hit song “Higher.” Dangle is a fan, too:
If you’re going to jam out Creed for a Super Bowl commercial, IMO, it was a missed opportunity to not get Kirk Cousins. That man has been a driving force for making Creed cool again.
Oh, and as that song is playing and Arnold is flying through the air off a beautiful pass by Stewart — who strips down into old-fashioned, leather helmet football garb — Halo main character Master Chief gets a close-up as he witnesses the football-shaped head soar high in the sky. Those who indulge in actually getting high and happen to stumble upon this commercial are in for quite a trip.
I seriously can’t believe this is a real ad. I haven’t been this confused since that trailer for Jennifer Lopez’s album/musical/whatever-the-hell This Is Me…Now: A Love Story. In this instance, I’m delighted.
Paramount+ might already own the title of best Super Bowl LVIII commercial. Too bad it started blowing up everywhere before Super Bowl Sunday. I’m not a fan of these companies dropping their Big Game spots before the actual Big Game. It would’ve been such a delight to see this for the first time and to be completely blindsided during a break in the action from Chiefs-49ers.
Oh well. Glad this exists above all else. About 55% of all commercials are for cars, and about 95% of those commercials make no f**king sense or are just so forgettable that I often wonder, when I’m not completely tuning out from said commercials, who’s behind these harebrained marketing schemes. NO OFFENSE.
Bravo, Paramount+. This couldn’t have been cheap, and I think you just might win over a wave of new subscribers on the strength of this ad alone.
AND… if this commercial peaked your Paramount+ interest, you can get a 7 day free trial by clicking HERE. From shows like 1883, 1923, and Lawman: Bass Reeves to sitcoms, live sports, and movies, Paramount+ is bound to have something for you and the 7 day free trial means there’s no harm in checking it out.
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