The Super Bowl is as much of an annual tradition for most Americans as nationally recognized holidays are. Fans devote months watching football games, rooting for their favorite team, hoping their pick will make it to the championship game. I anticipate the big game as well, but not to watch who will be the ultimate victor.

I watch for the commercials. What I spend the other 364 days fast-forwarding through I actually aim to watch during the Super Bowl. It’s the one time a year when bathroom breaks are hard to come by because of the high probability one might miss out on something during the game or commercials that will no doubt be topics for water cooler conversations for the next few days (and who wants to be the outsider who missed out on the hot topics because of an overactive bladder?) Football fans and commercial enthusiasts got a spectacular show this Super Bowl Sunday.

It seems as if talking babies and cute animals are winning elements in a commercial, which companies like E-Trade and Budweiser featured this year. There’s something oddly interesting about talking babies who give financial advice in the E-Trade commercials. The fan-loving Clydesdales were back in the Budweiser ads stirring up a bit of viewer nostalgia.

The Doritos commercials were original, from a little boy who sternly let his mom’s impending date know he was the man of the house to a yellow lab placing his bark collar on a man who taunted him moments earlier for not being able to “speak” for a chip. It was apparent viewers really did choose which ads should air.

The Volkswagen commercial is definitely a contender for one of the best of the Super Bowl. Watching an assortment of people play the “punch dub” game, in which a person who spots a Volkswagen punches the person next to them while shouting out the color of the car, brought back many memories of family trips and sore arms. I think the company tapped into a great pastime people associate with the Volkswagen brand.

Coke’s commercial featuring The Simpsons was amusing and quite relatable in today’s economy. In the commercial, the wealthy Mr. Burns loses all of his possessions and strolls through Springfield mourning until a Coke lifts his spirits. I’m not sure if the product produces the same emotion for people going through a similar ordeal, but it’s certainly a hopeful thought.

The David Letterman, Oprah and Jay Leno commercial was surprising and happened so quick that I’m sure it left other viewers wondering the validity of it. It’s rare to see the three mega TV stars appear together and might help Leno’s highly controversial return to the time slot that puts him back into competition with Letterman.

With most things, with the good comes the bad. Tim Tebow’s highly hyped and controversial pro-life commercial was more effective from the publicity that surrounded it than the actual commercial was. While I understand I am not the intended audience for the GoDaddy commercials I felt the company that sells domain names fell short on creativity compared to a lot of the other ads. Sex sells, yes, but put it in some clever context.

There will certainly be discussions for days to come about the surprise champions of the Super Bowl, the New Orleans Saints, as well as who came out on top in Super Bowl ads.