A Couch Potato's Guide to the 16 Best Super Bowl Ads of All Time

1967 Sixty-five million Americans tune in to Super Bowl Iat the time the most ever for a sporting event.

With an audience of 111.5 million viewers, the 2014 Super Bowl was the most watched TV show in U.S. history. As the number of at-home spectators soars, so too have the rates advertisers pay to reach them: A 30-second spot in 2014 went for $4 million. Heres a couch potatos guide to what after-game polls have deemed the most memorable Super Bowl commercials. Not-to-be skipped ads 1973: Joe Namath and Farrah Fawcett for Noxzema

1976: Xeroxs (XRX) monks

1979: Mean Joe Greene for Coke

1984: Apples (AAPL) board balked at the Ridley Scott-directed 1984 spot, but it spurred strong initial sales of the first Macintosh computer, even though it aired only once. Hear Lee Clow tell the real story behind Apples 1984 Super Bowl ad here.

1984: A 1984 ad from Wendys (WEN) immortalized the phrase Wheres the beef? The tag line worked its way into the Democratic primary pitting Walter Mondale vs. Gary Hart.

1992:Pepsi (PEP) enlisted supermodel Cindy Crawford in 1992 to herald its redesigned can.

1995: Two years after its Bud-wei-ser frogs were a hit during the 1995 Super Bowl, Budweiser (BUD) hired Goodby Silverstein & Partners to kill off the amphibians. We settled on lizards, says agency co-founder Jeff Goodby. They would be like Goodfellas-type characters. Jersey guys. So we cast the thing, and it sounded like these guys were really going to kill the frogs. It wasnt funny, it was scary! So we went, Oh s, its not funny!

1998: Tabascos exploding mosquito

1999: With such memorable lines as When I grow up I want to claw my way up to middle management, a 1999 spot put online job search board Monster.com on the map.

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A Couch Potato's Guide to the 16 Best Super Bowl Ads of All Time

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