Priceless

One of the greatest -- and most resilient -- characters in the history of Saturday Night Live is making a comeback. Or maybe he's just taking a paycheck. Mr. Bill is the star of a new MasterCard debit card "Priceless" commercial. He's going to depict how even someone like Mr. Bill is tough enough to survive the rough financial times in which we live, just by using his MasterCard debit card.

The new 30-second commercials will begin airing on June 9, showing Mr. Bill as a typical guy heading in to work at the office. Naturally, along the commute, he stops for coffee and Mr. Hand scolds him accidentally. At the gym, he's catapulted off the treadmill. Later, an briefcase opens and launches him out the window. Naturally, through it all, Mr. Bill endures. Being made of clay has its pluses.

I've never understood it. Every single year USA Today gets people to rank the Super Bowl ads, and every single year one (or more, usually) of the Budweiser beer commercials get the top spots. Now, if any company bought 4 or 6 or 8 spots during a game, they might inevitably win a top spot too, but the Bud ads themselves are rarely the best ones. That's not to say that they're the worst. They're usually sorta funny, not bad, hitting their demo just right, entertaining. But at the same time, they're kinda predictable and ho-hum.

My favorite ad this year? No contest: the MacGyver ad for Mastercard! I mean, come on, how could you not like that?