Did Super Bowl advertising peak at ‘Puppy Monkey Baby’?

The Super Bowl has given us some truly incredible moments over the years. From star-studded extravaganzas to beautifully crafted, emotionally powerful, tear-jerking movies, each one is selling us a dream.

It also gave us Mountain Dew’s ‘Puppy Monkey Baby,’ an ad that inexplicably sold us a nightmare instead. And honestly, I fear we really peaked there as an industry. It had everything: a memorable earworm, a great cast, cute stuff. But because it chose to smash those three cute things together in the most grotesque, disgusting way, an advertising legend was born. 

Who knew something created from the legs of a baby, the body of a monkey and the head of a pug would be something I would look back on so fondly 10 years later? 

In 2026, PuppyMonkeyBaby ranked second in CBS’s 25th Annual Super Bowl Greatest Commercials: Hall of Fame special.

I don’t know if it just reminds me of a simpler time, when silly won and no amount of data, confused looks in the boardroom or verbatims from focus groups expressing sheer horror could derail genius.

It stands up as well today as it did 10 years ago. Probably better, in fact. Much like many modern works of art, the spot divided opinion when it went live. But I strongly feel ‘Puppy Monkey Baby’ was misunderstood and before its time.

And in these dark times (how is it still January?), we are now waking up to the power of silliness. It’s memorable, engaging and it has cut through. As advertisers, we’re going to burst into our audience’s rooms uninvited every night, so the least we can do is entertain them.

So somehow, 10 years later, this little spot of utter nonsense finally makes perfect sense.

Source: The Drum
Contributor: Imogen Tazzyman