Subway Finds A New Slant
Low key one of the biggest double takes I’ve had all year was seeing Bill Belichick in a Subway commercial. The commercials are almost understated. Someone has gross greasy fast food, and then Bill Belichick appears, stands there, and the person realizes the error of their ways and eats Subway instead. The ads completely lean into Belichick’s entire grumpy stoic persona and basically just have him stand there, with maybe 10 words spoken at most. It would be a perfectly acceptable piece of background commercial you could ignore the fact that holy shit, did…Bill Belichick just do a commercial?
I can’t say I ever thought Billy would have the patience to do an ad campaign, even one that clearly required as minimal effort as these ads do. They basically paid him to stand there with his usual dry face. Even when Belichick is genuinely engaged he’s incredibly dry and grumpy looking. I saw some folks defending Bill on the previous comic but no. Even when Belichick is happy and excited, he still has the same grumpy face and exact same affect in his voice. Honestly his media contempt persona is one of his most visual and auditory tones. I’ve watched a lot of Belichick media because I find him hilarious and fascinating and even when he was watching his own daughter get married he still had the same basic face on. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen his eyebrows go up. Even getting choked up about his time in NY his voice pretty much stays flat the whole time. The only time his voice changes is when he’s yelling. If you didn’t know who Belichick was and watched an interview with him, you’d think he was the dullest, most boring man on the planet. An absolute void of charisma. He’s not, but it takes a lot of time to realize that.
None of this is me judging him, I love our grumpy football overlord. I just never took him to have the patience to do a fucking Subway ad.
Also of note, Billy’s friend Nick Saban is also doing commercials, for Aflac. Another guy I thought would have no patience for this kinda thing. Maybe in their annual meetup they made a pact to sell out this season. These, imo, are significantly worse. Subway was at least smart enough to know who they were dealing with and leaned into Belichick’s persona and lack of charisma. Aflac makes Nick Saban try to act, and the results are painful.
Since I apparently make a comic about the commercials at least once per season we may as well use this post to complain about the rest.
TONY ROMO CORONA ADS – If I hear that LIME TIME chant one more time I might murder someone. These ads are a complete waste of Tony’s charisma. Dude belongs on TV but they give him nothing of value to work with.
STATE FARM ADS – State farm’s weird ad campaign where Aaron Rodgers and Mahomes are friends with their insurance agent and hang out piss me off. Nobody would be friends with their insurance agent. Nobody likes their insurance company. Aaron Rodgers doesn’t even like his family, he would not hang out with Jake from State Farm. They’ve even managed to run Mahomes putting ketchup on steak into the ground.
GEICO BAIT AND SWITCHES – Geico continues their outstanding marketing strategy of having commercials that are charming and witty the first time you seen them and then by the end of the game you’ve seen them 20 times and you hate them. That Casper one especially. I don’t mind the Aunts and Fencing ones as much, because I’m a sucker for a good pun and that is exactly the kind of stupid ad I would write.
BAKER MAYFIELD AT HOME – Not gonna lie, these are probably the best insurance ads in a while. Baker is great on camera and the gimmick has a lot of mileage. Huge step up from anything Flo related, who I want to throw in a pit.
NFL SHOP ADS – they picked two much better songs this year than THE CHAMP IS HERE, as such, they are okay, if too frequent as usual.
NFL SOCIAL JUSTICE ADS – honestly not too bad as far as these normally go, far better than “No More”, but I can’t help but laugh at the one that starts with “RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN THE BLACK COMMUNITY AND THE POLICE ARE HISTORICALLY COMPLEX” because I can tell he wants to be way harsher than that but he can’t because the NFL is footing the bill and he has to be as diplomatic as possible. It’s still more of an effort than I expected overall.
CAMPBELLS SOUP – the ad with Kevin Harlan announcing the dad jumping over toys is cute, but I take exception to the “SOUP THAT EATS LIKE A MEAL”. It doesn’t. Campells chunky sucks. Progresso soups are better, fight me
PIZZA HUT – Every time I hear the commercial say “no one out-pizza’s the hut” my mind immediately flashes to Pizza the Hut from Spaceballs, who is disgusting, and makes me hate Pizza Hut even more, who I already do not like.
CAR COMMERCIALS – they are all shit, every year, forever. There are no good car commercials. There will never be good car commercials. Fuck car companies. The worst offender of all is that stupid truck ad where the young 30-something husband and the 30-something wife who are beautiful are sitting in their multi-million dollar mansion, and he’s bought two massive fucking trucks without her knowledge (an insane amount of money) and she takes the one he wanted. That ad makes me want to scream and firebomb every car dealership. Eat the Rich.
LARRY FITZGERALD ROCKET MORTGAGE – honestly these are extremely milquetoast and worthless. Always happy to see my man Larry.
DAK SLEEP NUMBER BEDS – I just feel sad watching Dak walk around in those ads knowing what happened to him
PEYTONVILLE NATIONWIDE ADS – fire them into the sun. Peyton made one good nationwide ad (the first one where he hums the jingle) and every single one since has been an unfunny nightmare that has, for me, tarnished his legacy
I’m sure there are more ads but those are the ones I can think of right now. What you got?
Car commercials get even more obnoxious during Christmas time. There are two Chraistmas car commercials, one where a red car is driving behind a bunch of silver cars to look like Santa and his reindeer, and one where some rich asshole buys an expensive vehicle to surprise their spouse with on Christmas morning because money is a joke to them.
What’s insane is that those expensive car for Christmas ads have been going on since the 90’s. But it seems that until a few years ago they were exclusively Lexus’ thing.
You do get to see the actor playing the husband in the ad Dave mentioned lying in a pool of blood in the first episode of Ratched on Netflix though (it’s the patient she convinces to kill himself).
Two ads I do like (though I’m sure I’ll get sick of them within the next two weeks) are the Liberty Mutual boardwalk ones with the Castlevania-style video game and the guy in a cell phone outfit).
See like at least with Lexus they are an expensive car so if you’re the kind of person that buys a Lexus you probably are also the kind of person in those ads. Their whole shtick is being a luxury car.
It’s weird seeing more normal companies, I think I saw a Nissan one recently?
When I saw the topic of annoying commercials, I IMMEDIATELY thought of the GMC christmas ad: “I just spent six figures on two trucks that I’m now going to resent because you’re such a pushy bitch. Oh, and thanks for the watch…”
BTW… why the hell does Lexus Voiceover Woman have a BRITISH accent?
Same, and so glad to see comments calling this out. I get that it’s meant to be light hearted, but showing someone rich enough to buy two super expensive trucks impulsively? During a pandemic? How out of touch is GMC?
Reading emotions and gauging someone’s emotional state is craaaaazy subjective, so I can’t say you’re wrong or throw a brick at your head… but I disagree with most of your take on Billy. Sure, if you evaluate “emotional content” purely on voice, then yea, he’s nailed the flat delivery over his career. But everyone smiles differently. For him, his eyes and cheeks are the two biggest indicators that he’s genuinely smiling. I don’t know if that’s a muscular restriction, if he was never taught how to smile with his mouth, or what. But if he’s legit smiling, it’s mostly in his eyes and his cheeks. For kicks I googled pictures of him walking his daughter down the aisle – it looks awkward, but he’s totally smiling. Eyes and cheeks check out – https://jillperson.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/2018-06-22_0001.jpg
In the clip of him getting choked up, c’mon, his voice is clearly cracking, it’s not flat. He is TRYING – and failing – to keep it flat, but if they kept that camera on him another minute or two, he’d be full on sobbing, which is probably why the clip ends so abruptly. Adjust your volume and listen again, you can clearly hear the cracks coming through. And if you still think it’s flat, you probably dislike Johnny Cash’s rendition of “Hurt,” too, YOU MONSTER.
I also have no idea when I became a Bill Belichick apologist. I think it’s because he hates Robert Kraft, he hates Tom Brady, and he’s making my obnoxious Pats-Fan neighbor pull what little hair he has left out. X’D
In conclusion, I HATE YOU for reminding me of “The Champ is Here”. @#*$&@#*$&@#$&@#%*#*
THE CHAMP IS HERE
This will be the face I wear for the rest of the YEAR.
https://i.imgflip.com/1j1nxw.jp
I’m so irked I can’t even paste straight. XD
https://i.imgflip.com/1j1nxw.jpg
All Hail Emperor Palpatine!
He definitely has smiled in other instances, like when he dressed as a pirate for Halloween!
https://sports.cbsimg.net/images/blogs/Belichick-pirate-Halloween.641.png
Thats probably my favorite Belichick pic to be honest.
The fact that I can’t remember the songs used for NFL Shop this year is so nice. Last year you made a comic about THE CHAMP IS HERE and it was one of the most relatable you’ve ever had. I hated those commercials so THE CHAMP IS HERE much by week 2 of last year that I actually THE CHAMP IS HERE watched less of the casual interest games THE CHAMP IS HERE than I normally watch.
As for Bill in the Subway ads I like it. The man who won’t license himself to be in Madden will sell you sandwiches. Removing Brady from New England has made me appreciate Bill more than ever. To see how his team is still *decent* even though they really did go all out for Brady’s last few years leaving the roster bare after the opt-outs. Plus it’s easier for me to hate Brady when he plays for Tampa.
Each time i read THE CHAMP IS HERE i could hear the drum build up that used to make me want to crawl andd ie in a corner
Yeah, I always assume Pizza Hut is banking on no one of a certain age or less having seen Spaceballs, because I think Pizza the Hurt, too.
“PIZZA HUT – Every time I hear the commercial say “no one out-pizza’s the hut” my mind immediately flashes to Pizza the Hut from Spaceballs, who is disgusting, and makes me hate Pizza Hut even more, who I already do not like.”
Oh my God, me too. We are right in the heart of the demographic they’re trying to reach hardest and they didn’t catch that their new tagline evokes an unlikable minor villain from one of the most famous movies everyone between 25 and 40 has seen at least once?
I like the Baker Mayfield at home commercials. They just have the right ammount of silly and funny to them.
I don’t get the VW series with the celebrity accountant(?) and his client(?) in Vegas(?). What does this even mean about the car?
The Porsche movie thing is cool, but no one would take the Taycan over the GLORIOUS 917K IN GULF LIVERY.
Screw every commerical with Santa in it.
Hey Verizon, how do you build a 5G network “the right way” instead of the “easy way”? Asking for a friend.
the easy way is rona-free, the right way transmits virii… somehow
I’m pretty sure the VW commercial is Paul Giamatti as the accountant and Kieran Culkin as the celeb. What a waste of talent…
And it definitely doesn’t mean a bloody thing about the car.
I’m pretty sure the point of the VW commercial is you don’t have to spend a lot to get luxury. The accountant is use to the celebrity making frivolous purchases, so by that point, impulse buying a VW looks like a stellar decision. And the celeb buys it because it fits his aesthetic (so, luxury?). At least that’s what I’m getting out of it. I’ve literally been driving a 2005 Buick for 16 years, so I really know nothing about cars.
Not football related, but the Allstate commercial with the guy who lives on a one square mile island DRIVING to go get like 3 things and be back in time before his tea water starts boiling.
1. Why does he even have a car
2. Why are you driving said car? Get on a bike or walk, fucko.
3. Why does anybody on this island have a car
4. Of course you have safe drivers discount asshole, you live on a 1 square mile island
It’s crazy how you can merely rename the Team in panel 1 and it still totally holds water today – http://www.thedrawplay.com/comic/bad-comedian-eli-manning/
Imagine if Bill Belichick ran Subway. Would we consider it the best or would it be a good option to go eat it would get boring after the first few times. Just other food chains couldn’t compare so we are kinda forced to go back but every once in a while Subway dies off for a little bit for a new contender of food. Then they eventually comeback and ruin everything with brand new things that are still boring and stay the same but it still wins and is effective and tasty. We all one day want the downfall that happens but at times it seems it just won’t die. Being better than a food chain that should be really good but is just off twice but lose to a weak and soggy brand of expired fries. You don’t know if their gone or not. They are always there
The GOAT of awful NFL commercials was a more-boring-than-usual car commercial that covered a horrible song that got played several times per break. Remember Saved by Zero?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNzcRNrkdCw
I also have a particular hatred for the Howie Long toxic masculinity Chevy Silverado commercials where bells and whistles were seen as effeminate, as well as small breed dogs and ’80s pop. This series was disgraceful.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGI8IRXRqpo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPHfg8tPH-A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cagPZOAtZp4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgVYOX-ZFAc
Oh, dave remembers the saved by zero ad
To me those Subway ads are pretty weak and a wasted opportunity. After the initial shock of seeing Belichick doing an ad, there’s nothing interesting to see. It’s not like we’re seeing his grumpy reaction to the same tired questions from press conferences, he’s just there doing nothing. At least there’s no one screaming THE CHAMP IS HERE, so it’s easy to tune out of them anyway.
The best Peyton Manning commercial is and always will be the one where hotel workers in different cities tell him off and he reacts like they’re just giving helpful suggestions.
I miss the one with him yelling CUT THAT MEAT! CUT THAT MEAT!
Just watched it, yeah, that one’s pretty good. Still like the hotel one better, though.
Peyton and Eli are comedy gold together in commercials. The Sportscenter one where they are misbehaving during an ESPN tour (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KpwT3ihBBw) and when Eli locks Peyton in the closet before they meet in primetime (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmiNmMhYHm8) are my favorites.
Bill Belichick doing an ad campaign for Subway honestly adds to what I was saying before about the Patriots being unpredictable as hell this season. Literally nothing they have done in 2020 makes a lick of sense.
Also, thank you for channeling everyone’s internal hatred of every car commercial ever. I started to go insane thinking that I was the only person who had an irrational hatred of their existence. Like, I usually get annoyed by most ads, but that’s only because they get overplayed to hell and back and I’m probably just tried of them. I get irrationally mad at car commercials. They’re just so… terrible for a multitude of reasons and I can’t really describe it without going on a tirade.
Also fuck Nationwide for even possibly tarnishing Peyton Manning’s legacy.
no more bill belichick ads please
They’re pretty hit or miss. Once you get past the shock of Bill Belichick doing commercials, they’re kind of bland. I don’t mind them though, since they aren’t as obnoxious as most ads we usually get every year.
Not sure if these are national or not, but Eric’s Job’s ads must die.
Every third word is “job”. need a job? we got jobs! eric’s jobs! job job job job job…..
And of course, the 10000 erectile disfunction ads while I’m watching football with my kids….
“Eat your fucking sandwich and die”
LOL!
I hope there’s a State Farm ad where Jake is turning down some tail because there is no Riley Reid rate.
Panel three is really making me wonder if Dave is an Off With Their Heads fan.
I only like ads with Bengals in them.
Guess how many ads that is.
there’s ummm… there’s that one with the steelers-packers-titans-bengals family one. there’s uuuuh, wasn’t AJ Green in an ad for like… cars… or headphones a few years ago?
Bring back Arts and Crafts Tony Romo.
it’s not an NFL-related ad series, but the one that’s got my very confused attention recently are the Experian ads with John Cena and the oddly-colored livestock…
Miller Lite and the “Men of the Square Table” was one of my favorite commercial series.
I’m just glad there’s at least one other person who likes the Baker Mayfield at home ads.
LIME TIME
LIME TIME
LIME TIME
LIME TIME
LIME T-
gets stabbed*
I’m just glad we’re finally through with those god-awful medieval Bud Light ads that somehow managed to equate working class anti-snobbery with a literal fucking monarchy.
Those Bud Knight commercials have easily been some of the best of the past years, and I don’t even like Bud Light.
Tony Romo does plays like he has corona whenever the stakes are high so that works.
You forgot J.G. Wentworth ads. The one with the guy calling while his mom(?) cleans up after his sloppy ass is only mildly annoying…the fucking opera one though…
Call J.G. Butthurt 877-ASS-POUND.
Insurance commercials are the fucking worst. All of them try to be quirky and funny, and end up being neither.