Viral video chart: Budweiser soaps up the Super Bowl…

Viral video chart: Budweiser soaps up the Super Bowl and transfer deadline day explained

Horse + dog + friendship = thirst for lager.

We kick off this round-up with a couple of Super Bowl-flavoured videos, as the US integrated media markets gear up for their biggest weekend of the year. And there’s also at least 17 minutes of fevered sport packed in there somewhere.

US advertisers seem to have been watching their UK colleagues clean up with the traditional soft-focus winter wonderland purveyed by the annual John Lewis ad and thought: why don’t we do some of that.

Budweiser’s Super Sunday spot ticks all the boxes: cute animals, everyman protagonist – and even a plinky-plonky easy-listening cover version (The Proclaimers’ 500 Miles). And with more than 11m YouTube views, it seems to have had the desired effect. If only Budweiser could make their beer taste of something, I’d say the brand might have a future.

For UK readers unacquainted with the work of the American duo Key & Peele, their latest Super Bowl trailer extends their brilliant work in mocking the exotic alphabet soup of NFL players’ names. I think some of these people may even be real – though I have my doubts about Swordless Mimetown.

Sticking with sport, Kim Sears became an Twitter sensation while watching her fiance Andy Murray play tennis. Her expletive-laden tirade bears comparison with the best work of Muttley from Wacky Races. Not being able to make out what she says makes it far worse, as you attempt to second-guess the filth. And Andy actually won! I dread to think how bad her language gets when he loses …

Andy Murray and his girlfriend look like they love a good swear https://t.co/EsAqDfOG5N
— Richard Ösley (@RichardOsley) January 29, 2015

Now over to American politics. (Bear with me here …) US president Barack Obama gave his State if the Union address this week, and alluded to the fact that his term in the White House would be drawing to an end in the not too distant future. Naturally, Republicans were delighted by this, but the Prez had a cracking way of curtailing their cackles. And, apropos of nothing, here’s a little montage of the big cheese singing Uptown Funk by Mark Ronson.

Is there life out there? This is something your writer asks himself while watching Leyton Orient every week, but for most people the question centres on outer space. One would think Nasa would be a good starting point for answers, but (put on your tin-foil hats, folks) in this clip, the space agency’s live camera feed cuts out when a mysterious grey object appears above the earth. Even though it’s likely doctored, it’s quite a nice video of the Earth anyway.

Ever get fed up of having to be decorous and keep that British upper lip stiff? Tin-foil hats off to this lady who lets check-in staff at a ferry terminal know exactly how she feels.

Do you know someone who loves to do impressions, but falls apart when they are forced to do more than their well-rehearsed single line? Well this guy is the king of that guy – his 100 impressions in 3m 42sec are impressive nonetheless.

This Star Wars trailer in neon is exactly that. I don’t know about you, but the last time I saw that trailer I thought, I really want to see that again in a video made using only fluorescent moving lines.

And finally, if you’re confused about why football fans are even tetchier than usual in the dying days of January, it’s probably because they’re wondering if their team has finally signed that star striker they’ve been linked with for the last two years. Yes, it’s transfer deadline day on Monday. If that means nothing to you, here’s a handy guide to why it’s become one of the highlights of the off-the-field soap opera of football.