The Super Bowl's Best Food Commercials

Some people watch the ">Super Bowl for the game, some watch for the halftime show and others watch for the commercials. Costing a record-breaking $5 million for 30 seconds, this year's Super Bowl commercials better have been great. But with iconic ads like Oreo's impromptu "You can still dunk in the dark" spot of 2013, these days "great" isn't enough. Ads must stand out and be memorable enough to keep people talking days later.

Though none of this year's food and drink commercials compared to Oreo's slam dunk, some were fun and, for better or worse, memorable. Ads for candy, from Snickers and Butterfinger to Skittles—despite the latter's Steven Tyler appearance—fell short, while beverages made a strong showing.

Overall, there were as many references to recent pop culture phenomenons, like #thedress, as there were nostalgic touch points, like Madonna's "Express Yourself." Some ads—and this is not exclusive to the food and drink category—reminded us just how weird we all are. (See Puppy Monkey Baby if you're scratching your head right now.)

Here are our favorite food and drink commercials from Super Bowl 50.

⑦ Death Wish Coffee's "Storm A-Brewing"

Winner of a small business competition to land a spot during the Super Bowl, Death Wish Coffee won before the night even happened. A small brewer from Upstate New York, it definitely impressed with a viking-themed ad, to go along with its pirate flag logo. Whether or not Death Wish is indeed the strongest coffee in the world, as it claims to be, is up for debate. What we can agree on is that the commercial rocked.

⑥ Helen Mirren's Budweiser Moment

Dame Helen Mirren, a "notoriously frank and unsensitive British lady," brought a refreshingly international and refined moment to the Super Bowl in her Budweiser spot against drinking and driving. Sassy and serious, Mirren told viewers that anyone who drives drunk is "a shortsighted, utterly useless, oxygen-wasting human form of pollution, a Darwin Award-deserving, selfish coward. If your brain was donated to science, science would return it. So stop it." Bravo.

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⑤ The Bud Light Party

"The Bud Light Party," featuring Amy Schumer and Seth Rogen, with a cameo by Paul Rudd, was topical and entertaining, if a little predictable. While Schumer's penis joke may have been a little uninspired, it only felt right to see her in a Super Bowl ad this year, and alongside Rogen it felt even better. Rudd's cameo ("Everyone loves Paul Raud"—and they do!) was also a great moment. The best may have been the suggestive double entendre of the ad's closing line: "Americans have seen the light, and there's a bud in front of it."

④ Taco Bell Quesalupa Ad

Bouncing through a series of trends, Taco Bell's commercial announcing its new Quesalupa hit some powerful innovations that were, or are sure to be, "big." From man buns and Tinder to self-driving cars and drones, nothing is going to be quite as big as the quesadilla-taco hybrid. The best part was definitely George Takei's cameo at the end.

③ Janelle Monáe Pepsi Ad

Short and sweet, this ad followed Pepsi's feel-good sing-along theme, this time with the one and only Janelle Monáe. Dancing from a sock hop into Madonna's world and then into what looked like present day, Monáe was captivating as ever in every decade. The super-talented, stylish and badass singer can pretty much do no wrong.

② Avocados from Mexico

In this avocado ad, a friendly, big-eared alien showed fellow aliens around the Earth museum. Showing off humanity's most notable achievements, including the Rubik's Cube, the emoji alphabet and the #dress, the commercial was cute and hit all the familiar pop culture references to which football watchers, no matter where they were, could relate. The best and inexplicable (following the general theme of the evening) reference was Happy Days actor Scott Baio. Ultimately, the crown jewel of the museum was the avocado, which drove home the point that the fruit has become astronomically popular in recent years.

① Heinz Weiner Dogs

The clear winner of the night was Heinz's weiner dog commercial that had already sent the internet into a frenzy last week. Though many people had already seen it, the ad was no less adorable. It was no dog-and-horse friend ad from Budweiser in 2014, but it pulled at the heartstrings just the same. Dogs are always the way to go.