A pug named Oko No-No, a stripper pole and an awkward first date might be crashing the Super Bowl.
They are elements from commercials submitted by Southern California residents to the "Crash the Super Bowl" competition, in which people can submit an ad for Doritos or Pepsi Max. The three most popular ads for each product, as determined by votes on the website, will be aired during the big game.
USC alumni J.R. Burningham and Tess Ortbals made "Pug Attack," in which a dog knocks over a door, and the person standing behind it, to successfully take a bag of Doritos.
The couple, who met at film school in USC and shot the ad in Camarillo, decided to enter the contest only two weeks before the deadline and worked on a $500 budget, according the website they made for the commercial.
The ad has garnered more than 47,000 views on YouTube.
Their $500 investment has already turned a 5,000 percent return, since Pug Attack is one of 10 finalists whose makers received $25,000 and a trip to the Super Bowl on Feb. 6.
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"This thing has gotten so big, so fast," actress Julieanne O'Connor told the Ventura County Star.
O'Connor is a Camarillo resident who plays the woman in the ad, according to the Ventura County Star.
The winners also have a chance to collect $1,000,000, $600,000 and $400,000 if their ads earn first, second or third place respectively on the USA Today Ad Meter, which measures all Super Bowl ads. If the contestants sweep the top three, they will each receive an additional million dollars.
Another Southern California Dorito finalist is Heather Kasprzak, a Los Angeles native who produced the commercial "Birthday Wish." The ad, also written and directed by Los Angeles resident Kevin T. Wilson according to the Reporter-Herald, depicts a father at a birthday party who blows out the candles on his son's cake so his own wishes will come true -- they include, of course, Doritos.
Orange County-native Nick Simotas finally earned a finalist spot in his third year as a competitor, with a Pepsi Max ad depicting a first date. The ad, which he and his friend Kyle Stafford reportedly made for $30, takes the viewer through the mind of a man and a woman on a typical first date. The woman has all sorts of questions running through her head, while the man is only focused on taking her home --until the Pepsi Max arrives, when his attention switches.
"Everyone's been on a first date, and along those same lines there's that preconception that there's one thing going on in a guy's head on a first date, so we took that idea and made it the Pepsi Max situation," Simotas told the Orange County Register.
Simota was discouraged by his losses in past years and only decided to make this ad a week before the deadline, the Cal State University, Fullerton graduate told the OC Register.
The competition, now in its fifth year, received more than 5,000 submissions.
Submissions can be voted on through crashtheSuperBowl.com until Jan. 30.
