Counting down the top 10 ads from the Super Bowl

                    

	Kevin Federline's Nationwide Insurance spot shifted the script, putting K-Fed in on the joke for once. AP

I was tasked this year with watching the Super Bowl broadcast and selecting the best commercials. I'm usually not much of a commercial consumer, but I am a conspicuous consumer, so I vowed to the folks at SI.com that I'd pay my most strict attention while the game wasn't being played and try and make some sense of things. And fittingly, our top 10 includes a certain gap-toothed talk show host.

1. K-Fed's Revenge

When word spilled that Kevin Federline would be appearing in a Super Bowl ad for Nationwide Insurance, I was mildly interested. When I saw the ad online last week, I smiled. And then after seeing it during the game, I laughed, particularly at the way K-Fed jumps when his manager yells at him. My favorite thing about the Nationwide ad is how the insurance giant and erstwhile rap star refused to bend or bow to the mighty hue and cry raised by furious burger-flippers around America and ran the spot anyway. I also enjoyed this ad because it shifts the public paradigm: For once K-Fed is in on the joke, and aren't we all better off for it?

2. The Snickers Kiss

Two auto mechanics are working on a car. One of them pulls out a Snickers bar, and this somehow eventually leads to the two of them accidentally kissing on the lips. (Think the shared spaghetti plate in Lady and the Tramp.) The mechanics agree that they need to do something manly afterwards, but instead of just overcharging their customer like most mechanics they each rip out a patch of chest hair. I think I tore a patch out my self.

3. Grand Theft Coke

This ad for Coca-Cola was highly stylized, beginning with an animated car lifted straight out of Grand Theft Auto. (For the record, I believe it was supposed to be GTA: Vice City.) After buying a Coke from a deli, the faux Tommy Vercetti stalks out and his life turns around: The sun shines brighter, random people sing and dance, and his world seems to turn into a shiny Bjork video. Makes me want to play Grand Theft Auto again. Guess I'll have a Coke while I play.

4. The Blockbuster Mouse

A rabbit and a guinea pig in a pet store attempt to get online (and order DVDs from Blockbuster) by clicking and dragging a mouse. Problem is it's a real mouse, which is squeaking and crying its disagreement. It's way funnier than I made it sound, particularly the way the little mouse's eyes bulge every time the rabbit "clicks" his back. Bonus to Blockbuster for having an unbilled Alec Baldwin narrating the spot.

5. Welcome to the Jungle

Ever have one of those days where it feels like your office is a jungle, and all you can do is try to survive? I haven't really, but maybe that's because I could be considered "at work" right now and I'm on my couch wearing a faded ABA T-shirt and haven't shaved in a week. Anyway, the three careerbuilder.com spots detailing how tough work environments can be were really well done. I especially liked the first ad as well as the follow-up, which featured people battling it out in a "promotion pit" while girded in office supplies. The whole trilogy was oddly evocative of Mel Gibson's Apocalypto. Except for the guy dressed in sticky notes.