A 3-month-old boy will reportedly “chug a cold one” in Budweiser’s Super Bowl commercial.
The beer company has garnered fame in past years for its exploitation of puppies, horses, nature, nostalgia, and basically anything else that makes viewers “feel all the feels” (in the words of a Budweiser spokesman) on game day.
But it seems this year, Budweiser is going for something a little different: shock value.
“Bold,” stated Hal Kohall, a Budweiser media spokesman. “The boss wanted something bold— something new, something ‘as refreshing as our product.’ Sure, everyone’s a sucker for puppies and ponies, but he thought it was time for a change.
“I guess he didn’t want to beat a dead horse, so to speak. Wanted to prove you can teach an old dog new tricks. Get it? Horse? Dog? Like… in the commercials?”
As we assured Kohall that we fully understood the punniness of his remarks, he reached into the front seat of his pickup truck, cracked open a can of beer, and continued.
“So anyway, we’re sitting in our weekly meeting, tossing back a few cold ones, and the boss asks us to brainstorm. Says he wants to make an impression. Wants to surprise people. So he asks us, ‘What’s the last thing you’d expect to see on a beer commercial?’ And that’s when it hits me!”
Kohall paused here, literally smacking himself in the head, falling to the ground, and staggering back up before continuing.
“BOOM. Babies. And he totally went for it. Even gave me a raise. Well, not so much a ‘raise’ as a couple cases of beer. But that’s still a win in my book.”
Unable to extract much more decipherable information from Kohall, we set out to find the alleged infant actor’s mother.
“Sparkle” (who chose to remain anonymous until the commercial goes live, but also insisted on choosing her own pseudonym), says her son has been acting since he was in the womb.
“Yup, I put a camera up there when I was four months along so we could get an early start on his video resume,” Sparkle told us. “Little bugger took right to it. Kicking, punching, somersaulting—clearly putting on a show. At one point, he even had the smarts to grab the camera and move it around, probably to get a better angle. Well, let me tell you, him shifting that camera around in there… he got a GOOD ANGLE, if you know what I mean. You know what I mean?”
We assured her that, yes, unfortunately, we did know what she meant.
Sparkle told us she took her son, “Sequin,” for an open audition after hearing about an underground casting call for the commercial. The advertisement—posted in her “Beer Lovers” Facebook group—stated that Budweiser was looking for actors under the age of six months who could chug a bottle of beer in less than 60 seconds.
“We began working as soon I saw the announcement,” Sparkle said. “We started with Tommee Tippees, but they were just too damn slow, even when we used the fast-flow nipples. Plus, we started running into gas issues. Probably all that carbonation. Sequin would stop to burp halfway through, and we just didn’t have time for that.
“So we switched over to Dr. Brown’s—the ones with those straw-looking vent thingies in them—and that cleared the problem right up. He went from taking nearly two minutes to chug an 8 oz. bottle to 42 seconds flat.”
“As it turns out, we probably didn’t need to cut his time down so much. When we got to the audition, there was only one other baby there. Can you believe that? Tiny little thing, sitting on her Mama’s lap, sucking on a BINKY for God’s sake. I knew there was no way she’d be able to hold her liquor. Sequin was barely halfway through his first bottle when the director yelled out, ‘HE’S PERFECT!’”
Sparkle couldn’t give us any details regarding the commercial’s plotline, since she was required to sign “some sort of fancy-looking paper to keep quiet,” but she did tell us that “after this year, no one will give a flying f**k about that pathetic little lost puppy” (a reference to Budweiser’s 2015 Super Bowl promo).
Sparkle attributes her son’s drinking abilities to her weekly Beer Pong nights, which she continued to partake in for the entire duration of her pregnancy.
“Staying active was a huge priority for me,” she said.
If you want to catch “The Budweiser Baby” in his big debut, tune in to Sunday evening’s game at 6:30 p.m. ET.
Or just YouTube it afterwards because, as Sparkle points out, “Who really gives a shit about football, anyway?”
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About the Author
Samantha Wassel is a Stay-At-Home Mama to the cutest twin toddlers in the history of all Toddlerdom. When she’s not running her borderline-offensive mouth, she’s running masochistically long distances, often with the aforementioned toddlers in tow. She enjoys reading, writing, baking, marathoning, complaining, photographing, playgrounding, and Ghirardelli Midnight Reverie chocolate bars. Her writing has been featured on Scary Mommy, Club Mid, In the Powder Room, Bluntmoms, and Mamalode. Follow her on Facebook and check out her personal blog, Between the Monkey Bars.