Johnny Galecki of “The Big Bang Theory” and comedian Richard Lewis may have been the big names in Hyundai’s Super Bowl commercial, but it was the Alabama-made Hyundai Elantra that was the real star of the ad.
“I’ve always loved Super Bowl ads,” Galecki said in a statement. “The commercials during the game are always the highlight for me. In this Hyundai spot, there’s a car chase, there’s explosions and even a car jump — it’s exciting, cinematic and filled with humor.”
He was, unfortunately, one of the few who saw the commercial that way.
Superbowl-Commercials.org, a site that’s entirely devoted to, well, Super Bowl commercials, named the ad the single worst commercial that aired during the game.
Here’s their stinging critique of the 30-second spot:
This commercial sucks. We’ll go on, but we don’t even feel like we need to, just watch the spot and you’ll agree. It starts out with a woman being needlessly cold to a gentleman who compliments her car, and then takes an immediate nosedive from there. Why does the road start blowing up all of the sudden? Why is there suddenly a ramp in front of that man’s Elantra? Why the hell is Richard Lewis in the back seat? Ah right, we know why! Because the “creative” executives charged with making a Hyundai commercial couldn’t come up with anything good, so they phoned it on in!
Ouch!
“Looks expensive,” Maura Judkis of The Washington Post added. “But there’s not too much of a payoff in this rather forgettable ad.”
“[W]e can’t help but think that this spot falls as flat as the land mines that Galecki is dodging,” NJ.com concluded.
But in spite of the commercial getting universally negative reviews, the car itself looked great, and the Montgomery-area workers who made it continue to prove that Alabama deserves its reputation as a budding manufacturing juggernaut.
Follow Cliff on Twitter @Cliff_Sims
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