There were two Super Bowl winners: The Colts, and the mouse.
Blockbuster’s first-quarter commercial featuring longtime computer-generated pitchmen Carl and Ray (the former a rabbit, the latter a guinea pig) easily ran away with the popular vote on MSNBC.com's highly unscientific readers poll.
As of this afternoon, the spot led the field of 32 ads with 18 percent of the vote. Budweiser's "Rock, Paper, Scissors," was a distant second with 12 percent. More than 80,000 readers cast votes.
The Blockbuster ad features the duo attempting to access the company's new Total Access online rental service by clicking and dragging a mouse. The cheese-eating kind, not the one cubicle drones have their hands permanently fixed to. They don't succeed, with Ray finally yanking it up by the tail saying, "We didn’t plug it in," and the abused rodent quickly responding, "Don't even think about it."
The ad, dubbed "Mouse Click," was an important part of the campaign to get out news about Total Access, said Margaret Landis, Blockbuster's vice president of advertising and customer communications.
"We really had a big venue like the Super Bowl in mind. … We really wanted to wait for the right time," she said. "What better way to talk about online rentals than with Carl and Ray?"
James Woods is the voice of Carl, Jim Belushi is Ray and mouse (he hasn't been given a name yet) is played by Bob Goldthwait. Carl and Ray made their debut in a 2002 Super Bowl Blockbuster spot that won numerous industry awards.
The ads have proved a hit with viewers as the characters are "very entertaining, unexpected and lovable. People always say, 'I can’t believe they said that.’ They’re just fun," Landis said.
She said the company would consider creating another mouse spot: "We'll see, if reaction is as positive as it is today, possibly."
MSNBC.com readers voted by using our unique brackets format, which allowed them to advance ads to different matchups, or simply vote for the best one.
Rounding out the top 10 were Budweiser's "Dogs," Nationwide's "Federline," Snickers' "Manly," Bud Light's "Slap" and "Class," Doritos' "Checkout," GM's "Robot Arm," and Coca-Cola's "Vice."
