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Ferris Bueller Honda Commercial

The new Ferris Bueller themed Honda commercial is sure to upset some but is actually well executed.

The new Ferris Bueller themed Honda commercial is sure to upset some but is actually well executed.

After a short teaser that surfaced online last week (cleverly building anticipation) Honda has now released its full Ferris Bueller Super Bowl commercial.

An interesting aspect is that these days Superbowl commercials are screened before the actual game, which tells you quite a lot about how advertising has changed over the years.

It has already prompted cries of sell out (just check out some ofย the YouTube comments) but at least the agency responsible crafted something for genuine fans of the film.

See if you can spot all the references to the original John Hughes movie, which was the 10th highest grossing film of 1986 (US gross was $70m on just a $5m production budget) and went on to become a huge audience favourite in the VHS era.

The most eerie aspect is how little Matthew Broderick seems to have aged since the original release.

Interestingly, the 25th anniversary release last June prompted The Atlantic to write an article which essentially argued that fans of the film need to ‘get over’ their love for a story about an entitled brat from the North Shore of Chicago.

If you scroll down to the first reader comment by a user named Spadaque, there is this astute reply which hints at the film’s enduring appeal to all audiences:

I’m a 28 year old Haitian immigrant in New York. I came to America when I was about 4 or 5 years old. ย “Ferris Buellers Day Of”‘ came out when I was 3, my first time seeing it was many years later as part of a Saturday movie matinee that played on a local channel in Queens. We didn’t have cable and we didn’t go to the movies (It was really the only way my brothers and I got to see any movies) and we certainly didn’t own any Ferrari’s, unless my stepfathers taxi qualifies?. To say we weren’t privileged would be an understatement akin to saying BP had a “little” leak in the gulf. But watching “FBDO” for the first time as a 12 year old boy I instantly fell in love with it. To me, the movie was a fantasy. Ferris was well liked, cunning, mischievous, popular, and smart; all the things an often bullied immigrant kid with a super strict mother wanted to be. I even adored the awkward musical number in the middle; it made me happy. Yet, even back then I knew there was no way I could ever be Ferris or do the things Ferris did. I wouldn’t have a dummy fool my parents into thinking I was sick and in bed, I wouldn’t ride on a float in Chicago singing “Shake it up baby”, and I wouldn’t crash my best friends parents Ferrari. ย Ferris is a character that could never exist in real life and in hindsight there should have been more, ahem, color in the movie. But that was 25 years ago. Seeing black and Hispanic people portrayed as thieves or poor gangsters is not a crime exclusive to that movie. To this little black, poor Haitian boy “Ferris Buellers Day Off” wasn’t about all that, it was about being a teenager from the land of fantasy and having the most fantastically perfect day of your life. That is why I’ll never get over it.

> Find out more about Ferris Bueller’s Day Off at Wikipedia
> Washington Post article about the cultural influence of Ferris Bueller