Be honest: Did you tune in to Super Bowl XLVIII this past weekend to watch the Seattle Seahawks maul the Denver Broncos, or did you tune in to the latest Puppy Bowl showdown? Negative brainer, right?
Now into its 10th year as the premier canine showdown sports event, Puppy Bowl X was dominated by Loren, who scooped up the Most Valuable Pup accolade after notching four touchdowns. You can enjoy Animal Planet’s showreel of highlights here.
You can also meet all official Puppy Bowl contestants at Animal Planet’s site, including a Poodle named Alvin whose favorite color is raspberry. Here’s Big Al.
Beyond the realm of the Puppy Bowl, pups pepped up advertisements between the main game’s quarters. On the surface, Budweiser promoted their puppy-pee-colored brew with an all-out cuteness attack: A furball at the Warm Springs puppy adoption home seems to bond with a horse and then keeps running back to those pastoral equine fields even after he has been adopted.
Beyond the adorable eye-candy, though, isn’t that a shocking lack of puppy training being broadcast to the world? Judge for yourself in the flick below.
Cheerios likewise invoked the spirit of the if-in-doubt-throw-a-pup-in-it approach to ad-making by having a devious little girl coerce her parents into getting her a puppy after she hears the news that she’s getting a baby brother. Well played, young lady.
Taking a different tact, Audi won the bizarro Super Bowl ad contest with the Doberhuahua spot. In it, a computer-generated hybrid of a Doberman and a Chihuahua causes mischief around a city. “It’s disturbing to look at it directly,” notes one savvy judge at a dog show.
By the time Sarah McLachlan and her guitar turn up, the advert comes off like a missing episode of American Horror Story: Coven but with the ASPCA spokeswoman playing the Stevie Nicks role. It’s a curiously hypnotic experience.
Finally, we come to DoritosDogGate, wherein a huge controversy has arisen after an unwitting canine was entrusted to help spread propaganda about the dark art of time travel via cardboard box.
Here you can watch said dog fueling up on tortilla-styled chips before warping the very moral fabric of the world. Be strong.
Finally, in less contentious Doritos advertisement news, the processed snack brand also promoted wholesome down-home family values by having a kid dress up as a cowboy and romp around on the back of his pet dog. Marvel as his stampede draws ambiguous lines all over the righteous high ground!
In fairness, when they were tiny kids my sister and her best friend used to ride around on the back of the next-door neighbor’s German Shepherd named Pippa. The dog was fine and seemed to quite enjoy it. No idea how Pippa would have fared had she cultivated a Doritos habit, though. Pick your lessons wisely!
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