SUPER BOWL XXIX SPOTLIGHT : LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, OUR VERSION OF THE CLIOS

The annual gathering of the Times blue-ribbon panel of Super Bowl commercial judges has met once again. The panel, made up of people with little or no taste, does know commercials. The following is the consensus opinion, skewed to the opinion of the person who’s typing this.

And the winner is . . .

1) The Soft Drink Company (no free plugs from this group): The collection of spots ranged from the frustration of putting a dollar bill into a vending machine to the strained friendship of rival soft drink delivery drivers to a parody of “Field of Dreams” to sucking a kid in a bottle. Brilliant stuff.

2) The Beer Company: Again, it was a collection of spots that gained attention. The frogs croaking the name of the company was cute, but the dog show (“Prince, he’s handsome.”) that was won by Mort was terrific.

3) The Fast-Food Burger Joint: The season-long series of two guys going to the Super Bowl has been excellent. However, they carried the gag a little too far when the pair ended up in the middle of the game. Favorite line: “ . . . through the tunnel, off Lesley Visser’s head.” . . .

Special Honorable Mention: The jeans commercials that covered people bouncing while trying on jeans, mannequins and a meeting of Jeans Anonymous.

Honorable Mention: The corn-chip commercials featuring Mario Cuomo and Ann Richards (“The Cowboys always won when I was governor”).

Biggest bomb: Never has anything been so hyped and stunk so much as the shoe commercial featuring Dennis Hopper. The George C. Scott “Patton” take-off was not only a bigger disappointment than the Chargers, it was horrible. The only redeeming thing about it was that it preceded an ABC movie promo that started “Money, sex, murder . . . “