#stacked bowls

[huariqueje]

Small Stacking in Chinese Blue - Ingrid Smuling , 2014.

Dutch, b.1944 -

Oil on canvas, 15 x 18 cm.

[saleintothe90s]

506. Super Bowl Commercials, 1997

(previously)

Who played that year? Wait, lemmie guess, the Patriots and the Denver Broncos? *googles*, no wait, it was the Packers vs the Patriots.

This its the best copy I found of the commercials that aired that evening.

We start things off by Jason Alexander apparently living in 2020 and having a cyber date with his girlfriend.

I completely forgot that Dennis Miller used to do M&M commercials. He was trying so hard to be cool back then, and Mr. Cha Cha I just can't imagine him doing commercials. Of course later on in the 90s and the early 2000s he did commercials for 10-10-220, but man everybody did those. Dennis was so cute when he was on SNL. Too bad.

Pizza Hut, that's too much pepperoni! 65 slices of pepperoni? Grease city.

I didn't make a screen cap for this one, but why was it in Party of Five commercials, Lacy Chabert was always screaming or crying or whining and moaning about something?

In my twisted, damaged mind, middle school looked exactly like those Pepsi Generation Next commercials. I imagine myself looking something like the girl with the neon star crown back then.

Man, remember when Nissan was cool? They stopped being cool when they discontinued the Xterra. That little chihuahua looks like the Taco Bell Dog's girlfriend. Keep your 'wawas bucked in you guys.

In the Luxottica eyewear commercial, but one lady says "I want you to see how silly I'd feel in rhinestones." yeah ok we get it you don't like dressing up.

Oh WOW. Our friends at Breathe Right had Super Bowl Money that year! It was about $1.2 million to air an ad back then. 1

Another oh WOW moment, Twig Boy makes an appearance in a King of the Hill themed Super Bowl Commercial. Hank is boomering it up at a grocery store, demanding this his beer is more important than Twig Boy's hum-uuus. Stupid small minded Hank.

Oh I remember there was a little bit of controversy with the Fred Astaire Dirt Devil Broom Vac commercial. All though the 90s there was a trend for re-animated dead celebrities to advertise things. Fred's wife didn't see the issue, however:

Robyn Astaire said she agreed to give the makers of Dirt Devil vacuums permission to use movie clips showing her husband performing in the movies Royal Wedding and Easter Parade.

She said it will be the first time she has let an advertiser use her late husband's image after turning down hundreds of proposals. This time, she said the proposal was "artistically suitable."

Mrs. Astaire said her husband would have seen nothing wrong with using the vacuum cleaners as dance props. "He was always receptive to new proposals. He would have used a vacuum cleaner in a minute. Why, he used a mop in the '30s," Mrs. Astaire said. 2

I feel like a Senator who was also a Presidential Candidate being in a Visa commercial totally wouldn't fly today.

lil Bridget Jones cameo.

The Cadalliac Catera commercial with Cindy Crawford that later got pulled airs. I'm still mad about that. Doug DeMuro recently did a video about the Catera! Car had no cup holders! Cindy Crawford needs a cup holder for her Pepsi!

We all love an Odd Couple parody. In this one Wayne Gretzky is kicked out of the Blues' house and moves to NYC.

Hold up. There were two commercials, from two different car manufactures about birds poopin' on cars. One for Nissan, and one for Honda. Someone got fired for that blunder, I'm sure.

Ok, what is this guy doing online outside at an airport in this USWest commercial. He has to just be writing a novel Brian Griffin style. I mean, it was still difficult to go online outside of our office or home back then, right?

I want to be a fly on the wall back in like, late 1996 when someone ordered the cakes for this Fox ratings commercial for the local station in New Mexico where these commercials came from. "you want a cake with the cops/America's Most Wanted logos on them?"

Pepsi absolutely owned this Super Bowl. Even Mr. Unsolved Mysteries got involved.

For some reason, every local commercial for the Fox channel is completely washed out. What was going on, KASA?

Oh here we go, bby, the most controversial commercial that year. Holiday Inn compared their new renovations to someone who transitioned going to a high school reunion. Kenny Bania was one of her classmates! I imagine that Bania bullied her all though high school.

From MarketSmith's:

This spot—perhaps the first to deal with transsexualism—was very popular in the ad industry and garnered positive reviews. Naturally the ad also upset a lot of people and so (predictably) Holiday Inn was forced to boot the spot shortly after its Super Bowl debut. But, shockingly, the franchisees—the mom-and-pop owners with the most to gain or lose—loved the ad. Gary Schahet, president of the International Association of Holiday Inns, said that calls ran 5-to-1 in favor of Bob Johnson. Others said 75% of the people polled thought that the ad did a good job of explaining what was happening at Holiday Inn. That sounds like a win, so why was it pulled? A bunch of old fuddy-duddy Southern Baptists complained. “It was the older people who didn’t like it,” Schahet said. “But then they aren’t our customers. We are trying to get the young business executive back into Holiday Inn.”

So, marketing mavens, here we have Holiday Inn successfully relaying its ad message to its key targeted demographic, but they still had to pull the ad after only a few airings. That’s a fail, right?  Maybe. Maybe not. After the ad’s initial airing during the Super Bowl, Holiday Inn branches across the nation reported thousands of new reservations—all under the name of (you guessed it) Bob Johnson. In a statement, Holiday Inn Exec VP-Chief Marketing Officer John Sweetwood said: “We spent only $2 million on TV time and production, but we got $10 million in publicity. One might say all that publicity isn’t bad.” Change is good. 3

Ok guys, I'm telling you this for the last time. Publisher's Clearing House did NOT have Ed MacMahon. He was American Family Publishing. This time around, Tom Bergeron was the face of PCH. Fox After Breakfast was a short lived morning show Fox tried to do in the mornings. Here's a great video about it.

I feel like I remember this one time my mom and I joked that we should stay up just a little bit longer one Super Bowl night thinking they may show up. My mom fell for all those sweepstakes.

I feel like I've said "wait" about 20 times watching these commercials, today, but Wait, when did Brandon on 90210 learn how to play hockey? I remember an episode where he fell in love with a skater, and the only reason why I know that episode is because it was on a tape a friend sent me with old Simpsons episodes. So I guess he did play hockey on a regular basis?

Scottie no tippin' Pippen stealing all the fries.

The X-Files was the closing out program that year. Never forget that time I looked into bombs after the Super Bowl. The bomb years were way beyond us at this point.

Related: "Super Bowl marketers set a festive mood, to only mixed results." (gift article)

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Yomtov, Jesse. “How Much Does a Super Bowl Commercial Cost in 2025? 30-Second Ads Hit New Heights.” Ad Meter. Accessed February 9, 2025. https://admeter.usatoday.com/story/sports/ad-meter/2025/01/29/super-bowl-commercial-cost-history/78032191007/.

Tampa Bay Times. “Astaire Taps into TV Ads.” Accessed February 9, 2025. https://www.tampabay.com/archive/1997/01/09/astaire-taps-into-tv-ads/.

Yoakum, Jim. “Badvertising: Holiday Inn’s Bob Johnson.” MarketSmiths, n.d. https://www.marketsmiths.com/2014/badvertising-holiday-inns-bob-johnson/.

[weezerlvr228]

they look half dead ☹️

[biggerbagingos]

Artoria, our gluttonous king. Long may she gain... Er, reign

Long live the king('s appetite).

source

May her waistline ever grow, until she has made a mountain out of herself...

Or maybe a celestial body, even...

[endeus]

i love you being bitchy i love uou whining and most of all i love you COMPLAINING TO MY SUPERIORS!!

[dashiellqvverty]

the thing about having roommates is like i cant even be mad because you DID empty the dishwasher and thats GREAT. but also YOU CANT CREATE AIRTIGHT SEALS ON DISHES THAT HAVENT DRIED YET PLEASEEEEE

[carldoonan]

This Bashful Li’l Balancer says: “M-m-my name… is Bowlulon… I… c-c-cannot ever move… lest it all… c-come t-t-toppling down…” 🥣⚖️🫣

[marietheran-archived]

when I was six I played I was a princess in a tower being saved by by my brother who was two and now I realise a sjw mother would have been horrified and forbidden it and written a thinkpiece. and now I'm horrified because it was one of the best games I remember playing and I could have been deprived of it by a quirk of birth lol

[authorityissues]

my honey foisted her vegetable drawer on me before her trip to ny so I'm playing around in some new recipes. cooking is nowhere near as satisfying to me as baking but I like vegetables infinitely more than I like baked goods. alas alack

[dyna-myght]

On one hand. I feel I should be thankful that my roommate’s boyfriend washes the dishes when he’s here. But on the other hand. He doesn’t fucking do them right and so I end up having to rewash half of them anyways.

[supercantaloupe]

the gasket to the lid of my travel mug is missing here's hoping one of my roommates didn't fucking throw it out or something

[little-ceramic-head]

Been practicing stacking bowls. It's a fun challenge to make sure they all fit together.

[minasweep]

shark mode ! (cleaning for hours)

[atypi-cals]

so tired. majorly eepy. I sure hope my house isn't haunted. ooh they have teal emojis now! 🩵🩵🩵

[ebitenpura]

faceless characters that are instantly recognizable by what they wear on their "face" are so endearing to me like what if your face was sunglasses or a mask pattern

[alisonsbow]

Pool - Contemporary Pool Huge trendy backyard concrete paver and custom-shaped infinity pool fountain photo