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Super Bowl Ads 2012: "Mean" Joe Greene Shows A Softer Side

Many of you folks out there reading this will remember the iconic commerical for Coca-Cola that showed a young child giving former Pittsburgh Steelers' great "Mean" Joe Greene some of his delicious beverage, getting the Hall of Famer's jersey in exchange.

Well, the folks from Downy have given that commerical a nod in their advertising spot for Super Bowl XLVI. And by "given a nod," what I mean is "completely ripped it off." In this case, they have replaced the young child with actress Amy Sedaris, who you may recognize from the television series Strangers With Candy or the movie Elf, among other things.


It doesn't have nearly the charm of the original, obviously, and parents are probably going to have to explain to their kids who "Mean" Joe Greene was and exactly why this is funny. But this is a pretty decent nod to the original ad for those of us that are old enough to remember it.

Photographs by Micah Taylor, clairity, and Fibonacci Blue used in background montage under Creative Commons. Thank you.