Burger King recruits a Whopper-chomping Andy Warhol for weirdest Super Bowl ad of 2019

The Super Bowl is usually regarded as one of the biggest days in the advertising calendar, to the point where the actual sporting offer on show can feel secondary to the uber-flashy spots, campaigns, and ads that dominate headlines in the days after the event.

One of the strangest and most striking of this year’s batch of Super Bowl commercials came in the shape of pop art icon Andy Warhol delicately tucking into a Whopper. Yep, that’s right: Burger King decided to use the most highly-coveted night of the year to broadcast footage of a sadly departed 20th Century icon eating, well, a burger.

The amassed art historians and film buffs out there will remember that back in 1982, Andy starred in Danish director Jørgen Leth’s 66 Scenes from America. In said film, the be-wigged wizard spends the best part of four and a half minutes tucking into BK’s signature dish making one of the more oddly hypnotic acts of eating ever committed to camera.

Now, obviously, broadcasting the entirety of the scene mid-Super Bowl wasn’t an option, so the ad agency David Miami snipped the footage down to 45 burger-chomping seconds. The viewer is then instructed, by an on-screen hashtag, to “#eatlikeandy”.

If you were tucked up in bed during last night’s big match and missed Andy in full-flow, why not start the day right and watch one of modern art’s most familiar figures slowly — oh so slowly — chew his way through a burger below?

Of course Andy Warhol wasn’t the only star of the evening’s schedule. Amongst a whole slew of probably-very-very-very expensive adverts, most of which are a little too US-centric for our British sensibilities, a couple stood out.

The first was Bumble’s #InHerCourt spot starring the one and only tennis ace Serena Williams. In the advert, Serena implores all of us to, in essence, grab life by the scruff of the neck and go out and get what we want. Whether it’s a record-breaking collection of grand slam victories, or a nice new partner to ease out of winter with, we’re informed that waiting for the ineffable it — the “it” that dominates our personal and professional lives — is ours for the taking.

“You already have it,” Serena says. “So make the first move, in work, in love, and in life.”

Our other favourite spot was delivered — sorry — by online retail behemoth Amazon, who hooked up with Lucky Generals to deliver a sequel to last year’s much-loved Alexa Loses Her Voice advert. Running us through a serious of comically botched Alexa prototypes, including a Harrison Ford-annoying voice-command dog collar, Not Everything Makes the Cut is one for fans of Queen, hot tubs, astronauts, and canines with serious gravy problems.