Super Bowl Ad Finalist Humanizes Unborn Child with Humor and Delightful Twist

By Dave Andrusko

Inadvertently or by design, ads aired during the Super Bowl occasionally carry powerful pro-life messages. Humor is the mainstay of these ads which cost a large fortune. And as is often the case, humor can humanize the unborn child in clever and subtle ways.

Take this proposed Doritos ad that may run at the 50th Super Bowl February 7. PepsiCo, the parent company, has run what it calls the “Crash the Super Bowl” contest for a decade. It offers “anyone with an idea and a camera a chance at the big leagues by making their own 30-second spot,” according to AdWeek.

Enter “Ultrasound,” which is one of the three finalists, which you can watch at youtube.com.

Understand, this is not exactly “Citizen Kane,” but it is quite funny.

The scene is of the very pregnant mom, who is watching her baby, (about to be born any day) on the ultrasound. The dad, less enthralled than his wife, is chewing away on his bag of Doritos.

Understandably the mom is not overjoyed and voices her displeasure. Meanwhile you see the baby on the ultrasound reaching for the Doritos chip. Baby and dad play a game of reaching forth and pulling back, which causes the mom to toss one of the chips.

The camera flashes to the ultrasound image. We see the baby disappear–as in he/she is exiting to find that chip!

Mom yells, dad yells, ultrasound technician yells. Cute.

The ad is the brainstorm of Peter Carstairs from Perth, Australia. We learn the inspiration for the ad from the website.

Peter recently had his second child, Freddy, who’s now nine months old. When he was with his wife getting an ultrasound during the pregnancy, an idea popped into his head – wouldn’t it be funny to have a little fun in the hospital room, where everyone is supposed to remain poised, calm and collected. The baby in the ultrasound image is Freddy himself – of course with the help of a little camera magic.

Take a half-minute and watch Freddy make his acting debut at youtube.com.