No Super Bowl commercial this year could match the bizarre spectacle of waiting half an hour for the power to come back on at the Superdome. 

But that did change the momentum...it ended up being a close, exciting game. 

There were a few ads that made an impression... only 3 that I hadn't seen before the game, Tide, Oreo and Taco Bell:

Tide's commercial about a 49ers fan who gets a stain on his jersey that looks like JOE MONTANA was pretty funny and it told a full story with a beginning, middle, and end, which is pretty tough to do in a short Super Bowl commercial.

Oreo had a good moment with the people getting into a huge BRAWL in the library . . . while whispering the whole time.  But they REALLY cashed in during the blackout.

When the lights went out at the Superdome, they whipped up an image for their Twitter that said, quote, "You can still dunk in the dark."  That FREE tweet got way more publicity than their EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE ad. 

Taco Bell's "Viva Young" commercial was a lot of people's favorite.  It had the old people breaking out of a nursing home, partying all night, and acting like young people.  But setting it to a SPANISH version of "We are Young" by Fun was kinda distracting.

Good ones we saw before the game:

The Bad

#1.)  Amazingly, E*TRADE trotted out their stupid talking baby AGAIN. 

#2.)  Wonderful Pistachios pulled out PSY for a "Gangnam Style" parody ad.  In this era, fads don't last that long.  "Gangnam Style" already passed through its "parodies are funny" window.  Now it's just old news.

#3.)  And a weird cover of BLACKSTREET's "No Diggity" from a fish for Beck's Sapphire beer.