The biggest irony in current pop culture: advertisers pay millions of dollars for a 30-second commercial spot on the Super Bowl, only to have their hard work and money wasted while tens of millions of eager viewers skip their efforts to take a dump or refill the salsa. Still, some of us actually enjoyed the new commercial parade on Sunday. Here's a rundown of the best, the worst and the weakest pitches from the biggest corporations of our universe.

BEST NEW COMMERCIAL OF SUPER BOWL XXXIII
Hal 9000 on Y2K-- Apple

Creepy, creepy, creepy, and oh so sweet. The crux of the ad is that Hal 9000 is talking to Dave about the Y2K problem, and how computers had to revolt against humanity because the programmers had screwed up. The visual is simply a medium shot of Hal's glowing red eye, which slowly zooms into the eye until the entire screen is filled by the eerie red light. It sounds like they got the original actor to perform Dave's voice, making for a truly unsettling sixty seconds of television. Will it sell? Uncertain. It's definitely a highbrow concept for an ad, and the combination of little visual action and Hal's monotone voice makes for a stagnant combo. The idea is extremely clever, but it might not survive the channel surfing challenge outside of its Super Bowl placement.

Phrase that pays: "You like your Macintosh better than me, don't you, Dave."

WORST NEW COMMERCIAL OF SUPER BOWL XXXIII
E.T. sells car insurance--Progressive Auto Insurance

When was E.T. released? 1982?!?!?! What's the strategy behind roping him as an auto insurance pitchman NOW?! For that fact alone, it's a crappy ad campaign. But the commercial is also just LAME, picking up where the film left off (again, WAAAAAY BACK in 19-frickin-82) and following E.T. as he meets up with his family again and starts telling them about life on Earth. The big news? There are LOTS of auto accidents. Thankfully, there are some companies who are "progressive" and want to help insure drivers. I'm sure that's the first topic that other civilizations will want to address once they explore our planet.

As if all that wasn't bad enough, there was the ugly spill-over into the commercials before the halftime show (sponsored by Progressive) and the little teaser-intro to the halftime show itself, in which Stevie Wonder shamelessly greets E.T. with, "My man! I thought I recognized you!" It was a vulgar moment of celebrity schmooze, and even though Wonder sang his heart out during the show itself, this moment very nearly shot all that credibility to hell. All in all, a shameless bastardization of a beautiful film into boring, flaccid and absolutely unentertaining advertising. Spielberg should be shot for this one. Will it sell? God, I sure hope not.

SOME OTHER MEMORABLE MOMENTS
The "Frogs are fired" series--Budweiser

Is the "Buuud-Weiiii-Serrr" series of frog commercials ever going to end? It sure looks that way, as the frogs are actually fired by that slimy (in a personality sense) lizard. Then the two frogs start hitting the lizard with their tongues in the next ad. Hopefully this will bring a fitting end to an ad campaign that's been losing steam for months. At this point, I'd rather watch E.T. sell beer than those frogs. Will it sell? Ad companies usually run their campaigns into the ground rather than recognize when they've run their course, so an active end to one of the most popular campaigns in recent years should lend a lot of power to these ads. Plus, they are funny.

Phrase that pays: "Who's your daddy?"

Victoria's Secret fashion show

Most commercial breaks might be used for bathroom runs or beverage refills, but you can bet that every pair of male eyes in America was glued to the set for this parade of luscious flesh. Unfortunately, it's an ad for a fashion show that's appearing only on the web--at www.VictoriasSecret.com. So while it's thrilling to see hot women, it's a bummer that you need a speedy Internet connection to watch them prance live for your pleasure. Will it sell? Almost naked supermodels. You do the math. Victoria's Secret should see some brisk business this Valentine's Day season.

Crispy M&M with Halle Berry in pool

Yowza. The scrumdiddilyumptious Halle Berry, clad in a skimpy white bikini, eager to eat one of those new crispy M&M's. Man, if I'm a crispy M&M, I'm lettin' Halle eat me all day until I'm all gone. Hootchie-mama. Will it sell? Is the Pope Catholic? I'm trying some crispy M&Ms tomorrow.

Really, really big bag of Cracker Jack

One of the few unforced laugh-out-loud ads from SBXXXIII, it featured this massive bag of Cracker Jack being thrown around at football games and knocking down aisles of products in the supermarket. And the prize inside your average giant bag of Cracker Jack? A pony. Will it sell? Cracker Jack isn't exactly the snack du jour these days, so agressively pursuing a hip, funny ad campaign could put it back toward the top, and bring in some older customers who are still hankering for a taste of those caramel-drenched bits of popcorn and peanuts.

Hank Hill does the full monty--King of the Hill

Fox used its Super Bowl ad time to hype just about everything but the Star Wars prequels, including Matt Groening's new series Futurama and next week's tell-all episode of The X-Files. It's these ads that were easily the funniest and most memorable. Hank and his buddies have been promised free tickets to next year's Super Bowl if they go "full monty" on a commercial. When they drop their helmets away from their most private region, Dale is wearing his underwear still, and screams, "They're prescription!" Funny stuff.

Building the bank--First Union

ILM's big entry in this year's Super Bowl ad sweepstakes featured buildings colliding in midair and lots of construction workers walking around on girders standing very high into the air. Though the visuals were really neat, the ad itself is pretty boring. It sure can't beat the drinking ducks flying through the air.

Seinfeld's treatise on reality--American Express

Jerry might have been funny on Seinfeld, but he's just plain annoying as an ad pitchman. They're clearly trying to maintain a breathless and wacky pace for these ads, but it just comes off as grating. Plus, they make a few clever references to Jerry's old TV show, and yet there's no cameo from Jason Alexander, Michael Richards or Julia Louis-Dreyfus? Now THAT would have been classic. For a Super Bowl commerical, very lifeless and uninteresting.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Bud Light's "Paper or plastic?" scenario, where two guys choose beer over toilet paper...that violent lobster escaping certain death and stealing a Budweiser to boot...a wide assortment of classic cartoon characters doing their schtick for MasterCard...Discover Brokers' series of truck driver/millionaire ads ("Al Island?")...Monster.Com's insanely funny parody of your standard black-and-white dream ad, with kids announcing "I wanna have a brown nose," "I want to get paid much less than I'm worth" and "I wanna be forced into early retirement"