The Philadelphia Eagles are NFC champs. The Kansas City Chiefs are AFC champs. So you know what that means! It’s time for giant corporations to spend a mountain of money for a big game commercial starring celebrities! This year, Michelob ULTRA is getting in on the Super Bowl fun with Willem Dafoe and Catherine O’Hara. The beer company’s pricey promo has the two beloved actors stalking pickleball courts to hustle players White Men Can’t Jump style. And they’re doing it with some weird Challengers-esque sexual energy tossed into the mix.
Young, unsuspecting, and arrogant pickleball players are no match for the chaotic energy of Willem Dafoe and Catherine O’Hara in Michelob ULTRA’s Super Bowl LIX ad. In the commercial, the two veteran actors roam pickleball courts looking for suckers. Their goal? Free beer. And they’re out to not just win, they’re out to destroy their enemies. Because while Dafoe and O’Hara might look DaFriendly and O’Vera the hill, they’re anything but. They’re absolute killers on the court.
And it’s not just nameless butts they’re whooping with a combo of little paddles and unsettling intensity. NFL great Randy Moss, WNBA star Sabrina Ionescu, and three-time Olympic gold medalist Ryan Crouser are also no match for the two Hollywood legends.
That’s just what the commercial can show, though. There’s more going on in this ad. Unaddressed during their reign of terror reign of dominance and beer winning is the sexual tension they have with both each other and the defeated. This isn’t a Challengers parody at all, and yet…
Of course, this is a Super Bowl commercial, so there’s only so much Michelob Ultra can do. Even when you spend a mint-worth of money hiring famous celebrities for a single commercial there are still limits to what you can show. Our imaginations know no such limits, though.
