Honda’s Super Bowl Commercial for the 2017 Ridgeline is Not Baaad
The recently revealed 2017 Honda Ridgeline has several selling points, but the automaker seems to be particularly proud of the vehicle’s industry-first in-bed audio system, which allows drivers to keep listening to music even after they have left the cabin.
When the pickup debuted in Detroit last month, Honda pitched the built-in bed speakers as ideal for tailgating. However, the new Honda Super Bowl commercial—which will officially debut during the third quarter of Sunday’s Panthers-Broncos matchup—imagines a very different use for the audio system.
Take a look:
Car Shopping? Buying versus leasing a new vehicle
The one-minute ad was directed by the Oscar-nominated Bryan Buckley, who has helmed over forty Super Bowl commercials during his career, earning him the nickname “King of the Super Bowl.” So apparently he’s kind of like the Pittsburgh Steelers of commercials, except I don’t hate him with every fiber of my being.
And if you are one of those people who feels that unrealistic CGI is ruining action movies/car commercials, take heart: Honda says that real sheep and a real trained sheep dog were used for this ad, and “the special effects were produced staying true to the anatomy and natural behavior of sheep.” Apparently, this fidelity to the realistic portrayal of glam rock-loving lambs “included study of the movement of sheep’s mouths to determine how their facial muscles might react while singing.”
So when science eventually makes singing sheep a reality, this is what it will look like. Good to know.
Car Shopping? Save big with the HondaGrad program
Patrick Grieve was born in Southwestern Ohio and has lived there all of his life, with the exception of a few years spent getting a Creative Writing degree in Southeastern Ohio. He loves to take road trips, sometimes to places as distant as Northeastern or even Northwestern Ohio. Patrick also enjoys old movies, shopping at thrift stores, going to ballgames, writing about those things, and watching Law & Order reruns. He just watches the original series, though, none of the spin-offs. And also only the ones they made before Jerry Orbach died. Season five was really the peak, in his opinion. See more articles by Patrick.