The award for the most off-target (I fervently pray) Superbowl ad is in: Audi's "The Green Police," a fascist nightmare that inexplicably parallels the 1950's-era anti-Commie paranoia films-- in the Audi ad, presumably to sell eco-friendly vehicles. It's jaw-dropping in its appalling "vision" of a police-enforced "green" society, in which only the driver of a bio-diesel car escapes the horrific consequences of non-compliance. All that's missing are the scenes from the carbon-neutral concentration camps.

Unless this ad was a devious reverse-psychology experiment --did a cartel of petroleum companies and coal-mining interests secretly purchase Audi to sacrifice as a loss-leader?-- I cannot think of anything so off-message having reached the commercial airwaves... ever. 

The ad is online at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ml54UuAoLSo

The Audi ad uses a tagline: "Green Has Never Felt So Right." May I suggest a new tagline for the company? How 'bout: "Ve haf vays of making you buy und Audi..."

--Earl Merkel