Super Bowl LIII: Budweiser & Oklahoma Wind Energy

Anheuser-Busch seems to make waves with every Super Bowl commercial, every year, without fail.

This year the largest brewing company in the U.S. Hosted a set of absolutely hilarious commercials for their Bud Light, Stella Artois, and Bon & Viv Seltzer brand of alcoholic drinks but above all of those was their iconic annual Clydesdale commercial for the Budweiser brand...and our dear state played a pretty big part in it. So big, in fact, the entire ad was built around Oklahoma.

The beer juggernaut paid for an almost unprecedented five minutes of screen time during Sunday night's Super Bowl LIII against the New England Patriots and the Los Angeles Rams, and it peaked in the games second half with the haunting and idyllic vocals of folk-music icon Bob Dylan's “Blowin' in the Wind” as the camera pans out from the close-up of a Dalmatian- ears flopping carefree in the wind- to reveal he's riding on the back of a wagon pulled by Anheuser-Busch's iconic horses. We continue to pan out showing that they're traveling through a field full of electric windmills with the tagline coming up “Now brewed with wind power for a better tomorrow.”

That wind power they mention? Well it came sweeping down the plains of Oklahoma. Right in our back yard.

The Thunder Ranch, as reported by News 9 in a story they ran prior to Sunday's game, has 120 turbines and “on a windy day produces enough electricity to power 100,000 homes”. That energy, if you were wondering, is able to be harnessed to brew “every Budweiser in the United States”. Thunder Ranch's turbines can be seen just outside of Blackwell and spread across Noble, Garfield, and Kay County.

This all began in 2017 when Anheuser-Busch announced plans to draw virtually all of its electricity from renewable sources by 2025 and, thus, inked several large figure deals to buy energy from places like Thunder Ranch which commenced operations on January 1, 2018.

So just sit back and think...wow, everyone who was getting drunk on Super Bowl Sunday was doing so by the graces of our great state! Incredible. I know I was definitely reaping the fruits that Thunder Ranch helped sow.

Anheuser-Busch's Bud Light brand also had a spotlight with their running series of medieval themed ads featuring the character of a comical king, his party-going people, and their guardian “The Bud Knight”. Sunday's two Bud Light commercials featured the Bud King, the Knight, and several others on a quest to return Corn Syrup to the kingdoms of Miller Lite and Coors Lite...the direct attack ad didn't sit well with “big corn” or the two respective beer companies.

Their second ad was a comical and surprising tie-in with HBO's hit television series “Game of Thrones” featuring the Bud Knight being executed Oberyn Martell style by the undead abomination known as The Mountain at a joust before one of Daenerys Targaryen's dragons swoops into light the whole tournament on fire. The ad comes as HBO is is ceasing to put any brakes on the hype train for the final season of their hit fantasy-drama which airs in April.

While the Super Bowl was a dull, boring affair there were at least a few commercials to entertain. T-Mobile had a few comical texting ads; Pepsi had the hilarious “Is a Pepsi okay?” ads featuring Cardi B, Lil John, and Steve Carrell; Marvel debuted trailers to the awful looking CAPTAIN MARVEL and the ominous and exciting AVENGERS ENDGAME; and...that's really about it.

It was a shockingly tame Super Bowl with almost no “major landmark” debuts or first looks excluding the CBS network's triple threat of their “Twilight Zone” reboot, Ziva's return to NCIS, and Spock's mysterious new origin story in “Star Trek Discovery”...so one of those three is definitely up someone's alley, right?

Stick with me next week for a Valentine's Day movie segment!