Super Bowl 2020

Bud Light Seltzer

Don't make Post Malone choose between Bud Light varieties. The tattooed sad boy was thrown into sensory overload when the little people in his brain -- who all sport similar face tattoos -- couldn't decide whether he preferred traditional Bud Light or the new, fruitier Bud Light Seltzer. Turns out he didn't have to decide. But someone, anyone, give this man his pretzels.

Tide ... again?

The detergent brand will not let Charlie Day rest. Nor will it let up on the cross-promotion. Day's thrown into 1984, where Wonder Woman tells him to lay off the laundry. Why is Day washing his shirt, stained in 2020, in a mall, 36 years earlier? Will these ads ever make sense? Maybe in the fourth quarter.

Amazon Alexa

Amazon's Alexa voice assistant has only been around since 2014, and yet it feels like she's been answering our questions and recording our conversations forever. She's so omnipresent that Ellen DeGeneres wondered in this ad what people did before Alexa was around (but c'mon Ellen, 2014 really wasn't that long ago). Without Alexa, she imagines, Victorian maids threw flames out windows. Court jesters were left to think up their own jokes. President Richard Nixon's assistant didn't delete those tapes. It all ends with -- what else? -- a pan flute rendition of an Usher song. Amazon got absurd.

Kia

Las Vegas Raiders running back Josh Jacobs got his Super Bowl airtime in a commercial for the new Kia Seltos. He confronts his younger self and tells him it's hard to grow up homeless -- but to believe in himself and his worth to see who he'd grow up to be. If his NFL career is any indication, he did all right.

Planters resolved the untimely death of their longstanding mascot Mr. Peanut by ... reincarnating him into a roly poly, so very marketable little Baby Nut.

Seriously, it's called Baby Nut. The ad ran during the first half of the Super Bowl, and as viewers witnessed the divine event, the Planters Twitter account changed its name to Baby Nut and proceeded to publish a whole bunch of memes featuring the new nut's adorable little face. Baby Yoda who?

The rebirth solves a thorny problem for the snack food company. A week and a half before the Super Bowl, Planters announced that Mr. Peanut had died saving actors Wesley Snipes and Matt Walsh from the aftermath of a crash in the company's ionic Nutmobile.

However, the company dialed back their focus on the story line days later after NBA legend Kobe Bryant died in a helicopter crash. Although Planters claimed the tragedy didn't affect their Super Bowl plans, the company said they would "evaluate next steps through a lens of sensitivity to those impacted by this tragedy."

Several other brands were shown mourning Mr. Peanut and subsequently bearing witness to Baby Nut's return, including Mr. Clean and the Kool Aid Man.

Mr. Clean tidily summed up the story arc in a post-commercial tweet:

"Everyone deserves a clean start. Welcome, #BabyNut!"

Latin pop queens Shakira and Jennifer Lopez turned Hard Rock Stadium into a dance hall with their energetic halftime show.

Shakira took the stage first, clad in spangly red sequins, and ran through a medley of her top hits, including “She Wolf,” “Hips Don’t Lie” and “Whenever, Wherever.” Puerto Rican hip-hop sensation Bad Bunny popped up for a moment to collab on the classic boogaloo song “I Like It Like That.” 

J. Lo, in a nod to her role in "Hustlers," spun on a pole like a pro before a quick costume change and a J Balvin feature. She sang her biggest hits, including "Get On the Floor," "Waiting for Tonight."

In a poignant moment, Lopez's daughter Emme joined her onstage during "Let's Get Loud." After a quick costume change, J. Lo emerged in a resplendent fur (or was it feather?) coat featuring both the American and Puerto Rican flag (Lopez is of Puerto Rican heritage). As Lopez unfurled the coat, her daughter sang a few bars of "Born in the USA."

Women aren't on the field in the Super Bowl, so at the very least they can star in some ads touting girl power.

Olay's ad starred some superstar women astronauts, including Busy Philipps, Katie Couric, Taraji P. Henson, Lilly Singh and real-life NASA astronaut Nicole Stott, who retired in 2015. Skin care is important in space, too, evidently.

Oh, and for every tweet #SpaceForWomen gets, the company will donate $1 to Girls Who Code, a non-profit that trains young women in computer science.

Secret donated $529,000 to the US Women's National Team in its fight against pay inequality, so it's no surprise the deodorant brand's ad stars USWNT standouts Crystal Dunn and Carli Lloyd -- the latter reportedly fielded some offers from NFL teams after kicking a field goal in Philadelphia Eagles practice. The gold medalists went undercover as the kicker and holder who score a point in a high-pressure game. But surprise, they're women! And they can still kick with the best of them.

Hard Rock

Hey, we know those people! A heart-pounding Hard Rock spot featured Super Bowl halftime performer Jennifer Lopez, her MLB honey Alex Rodriguez, and DJ Khaled, and was directed by Michael Bay. Remember, the Super Bowl is being played at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, so it's a win-win situation for the brand.

Tide

Oh look, it's Tide again -- and the Bud Light Knight, for some reason. Somehow, Charlie Day traveled to medieval times in Beer Brand Land only to be shamed by townspeople for rocking the same stained shirt we watched him complain about in the first quarter. So, does "later" also mean "earlier?" Why has Tide destroyed the concept of time this Super Bowl?

TurboTax

Doing your taxes isn't that difficult. All you need to do is bend your legs inward and shake 'em like you're doing the Time Warp, except taxes are involved. TurboTaxes really wants you to face tax season head on, legs bent, inhibitions abandoned. Dancing it out makes taxes less scary.

WeatherTech

This Super Bowl desperately needed more dogs. You might've heard about this ad -- Scout, the cute pup wagging his tail throughout the clip, underwent chemotherapy for a tumor in his heart. It's almost gone now, and his owner, WeatherTech CEO David MacNeil paid $6 million to thank the folks at the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine who saved Scout's life.

Coca-Cola

Jonah Hill was really about to leave Martin Scorsese on read. Scorsese, the legendary auteur of cinema who directed Hill to his second Academy Award nomination, is left wandering aimlessly around a party where Hill has abandoned him. Hill mulls over leaving him there, but then he drinks a Coke Energy Drink, and that's enough to convince him to make good on his promise.

In case you missed it: Hyundai recruited A-List spokespeople, among them famous Bostonians John Krasinski, Chris Evans and Rachel Dratch and, for luxury brand Genesis, super couple Chrissy Teigen and John Legend. Rick and Morty stacked infinite Pringles. Oh, and Mr. Peanut was reborn as a baby nut after his tragic death. But more on that later.

Teen movie queen Molly Ringwald served up some home shopping humor in the yearly Super Bowl offering from Avocados from Mexico.

Now that we're all thinking green, here's a primer on how to cut avocados correctly. The secret? You cut it into quarters first (make sure to go all the way around!). Then just twist, and pluck the pit out by hand. Easy!

These are the best, most interesting and most talked-about commercials from the first quarter of Super Bowl LIV:

Hulu

Tom Brady lives for drama. That black-and-white photo of Brady's silhouette in an empty stadium? It turned out to be a marketing ploy for Hulu, not a retirement prelude as fans feared. Oh, and after he hawks Hulu's live sports coverage, he drops a small announcement -- he's not going anywhere. Season 21, here he comes.

Tide

It's always sunny in Schitt's Creek until Emily Hampshire wipes her sauce-covered hands on Charlie Day's starchy white shirt at a Super Bowl party. He can clean it later, she tells him. But when is later? Surely not during the commercial breaks -- the Bud Light Knight tells him as much in a cross-promotional cameo. A few decades "later" and a weathered and grey Charlie Day is rocking the same stained shirt. Then "later" never comes -- Tide doesn't condone laundering during the Super Bowl. The ad ends without closure.

Walmart

Try to count the references in Walmart's commercial touting their grocery pickup services. Let's see...we spy The Enterprise (Star Trek), Marvin the Martian, Buzz Lightyear, Bill and Ted, the aliens from "Mars Attacks," Legos, Frank the pug from "Men in Black" ... who did we miss?

Donald Trump

The Trump campaign ran an ad during the first quarter featuring Alice Johnson, a first-time nonviolent drug offender who was granted clemency by the President.

Trump commuted the first-time nonviolent drug offender's life sentence in June 2018 one week after Kim Kardashian pleaded her case in an Oval Office meeting with the President.

The ad featured an emotional Johnson thanking Trump for commuting her sentence.

By now, your conversation topics (and the salsa bowl) are probably running low. How about some trivia?

How the 49ers got their name

It all makes perfect sense, actually.

The "49ers" is the nickname for those who flocked to northern California in 1849 hoping to take advantage of the gold rush. The influx of opportunists was a boon for California's economy, and hastened its admittance into the union in 1850. (A 49er is also a kind of Olympic-style racing dinghy, which would make for an equally rich team name. Alas.)

Read more about the history of the 49ers here.

How the Chiefs got their name

As for the Chiefs, the history of their name is a little more complicated. From CNN's Leah Asmelash:

It started with, of all things, the Boy Scouts. The Tribe of Mic-O-Say is part of the Boy Scouts of America program in Missouri and was created by Harold Roe Bartle in 1925.

Bartle was not a Native American, but claimed he was "inducted into a local tribute of the Arapaho people." Bartle was called "Lone Bear," and went by the name Chief Lone Bear in his Mic-O-Say organization.

Almost 40 years after the founding of Mic-O-Say, Bartle became the mayor of Kansas City, Missouri for two terms. Colloquially known as "chief," Bartle helped convince Lamar Hunt, owner of the Dallas Texans football team, to bring the team to Kansas City.

In name-the-team competitions, "Chiefs" kept popping up as an option in connection to Bartle.

So, they went with it.

Read more about the history of the Chiefs here.

The Trump campaign ran an ad during the first quarter featuring Alice Johnson, a first-time nonviolent drug offender who was granted clemency by the President.

Trump commuted the first-time nonviolent drug offender's life sentence in June 2018 one week after Kim Kardashian pleaded her case in an Oval Office meeting with the President.

The ad featured an emotional Johnson thanking Trump for commuting her sentence.

"Trump got it done," it concluded.

Trump also promoted the ad on Twitter.