Super Bowl commercials: Jon Hamm narrates Mercedes-Benz, the tortoise, and the hare

In capping off our Super Bowl commercials series today, we are writing about a silly commercial for Mercedes-Benz that we’re still somewhat confused about. In two ways, this was the best ad by a mile of the night. After all, you had cute animated characters, and you also had Jon Hamm serving as the narrator. The play on “The Tortoise and the Hare” was beautiful to behold, but we still wonder: Was there something missing in the execution? Did the tortoise just go a step further than deflate-gate?

As we’ve done all night long, let’s dive into this particular commercial piece by piece.

The good – As we’ve said, probably the most stunning commercial visually that we’ve had a chance to see all night long. Great animations on the tortoise and the hare. Also, Hamm remains exceptional as the narrator for these commercials. He never misses a beat.

The bad – What was the message here? Are we supposed to believe that the tortoise cheated his way to winning the race? We know it is probably supposed to be funny, but this is supposed to be a fable. Now, the moral is “slow and steady may not win the race, but finding a car in the middle of the woods does!” Also, we don’t really think that the luxury of owning one of these cars was shown off that much. Instead, it was all about speed, which doesn’t really benefit anyone since there’s no where in North America that you can just open a car up to those kinds of speeds legally.

The verdict – Despite our confusion, still a charming-enough ad, and one of the better ones on the night. Grade: B.

What did you think about this commercial? Share with a comment, and head over here in the event that you want to see the rest of our coverage of the big game! Also, sign up to score some additional TV updates via our official CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: Mercedes-Benz.)