{"id":338082,"date":"2026-02-12T06:20:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T11:20:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/ben-stiller-benson-boone-made-a-super-bowl-ad-about-bananas-and-it-might-be-the-funniest-spot-of-2026"},"modified":"2026-02-12T06:20:19","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T11:20:19","slug":"ben-stiller-benson-boone-made-a-super-bowl-ad-about-bananas-and-it-might-be-the-funniest-spot-of-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/ben-stiller-benson-boone-made-a-super-bowl-ad-about-bananas-and-it-might-be-the-funniest-spot-of-2026","title":{"rendered":"Ben Stiller &#038; Benson Boone Made a Tremendous Bowl Advert About Bananas \u2014 and It Would possibly Be the Funniest Spot of 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div itemprop=\"text\">\n<p>Super Bowl LX aired four days ago. Since then, the internet has been dominated by Bad Bunny\u2019s halftime show\u2014the political debate, the FCC complaints, the takes about the takes. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/name\/nm0001774\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Ben Stiller<\/strong> <\/a>himself jumped into the discourse, defending Bad Bunny against a congressman calling for an investigation. But now that the dust is starting to settle on all of that, it\u2019s worth circling back to something that got buried under the noise: Stiller\u2019s own 30 seconds of screen time.<\/p>\n<p>Instacart\u2019s \u201cBananas\u201d aired during the first quarter of the game and featured Stiller and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/name\/nm13184863\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Benson Boone<\/strong><\/a> in matching Lycra jumpsuits, performing a retro disco-pop number about\u2026 how you like your bananas. That\u2019s it. That\u2019s the ad. And somehow, it might be one of the funniest commercials to air during a Super Bowl in years.<\/p>\n<h2>What Actually Happens in 30 Seconds (and the 2 Minutes You Need to See)<\/h2>\n<p>Stiller and Boone play Gary and Johnny, a fictional European disco-pop duo\u2014think ABBA meets Daft Punk with a grocery budget\u2014belting out an earworm about choosing bananas through Instacart. Directed by Spike Jonze and shot on vintage tube cameras, the whole thing has a warm, grainy, intentionally dated look.<\/p>\n<p>Then comes the moment. Johnny (Boone) does his signature backflip mid-performance. Gary (Stiller), visibly jealous, decides he can do one too. He climbs the scaffolding. He launches himself. And he absolutely eats it\u2014crashing into the stairs and taking out the drummer on the way down.<\/p>\n<p><noscript><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"For Papa! | Instacart Big Game Commercial with Ben Stiller and Benson Boone directed by Spike Jonze\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/a1ysUdRLjaE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/noscript><\/p>\n<p>The Super Bowl cut ends there. But the extended version on YouTube is where the ad becomes something special. Gary doesn\u2019t give up. He gets back up, insists he needs \u201cmore lift,\u201d and despite Johnny begging him to stop\u2014\u201cGary, come down. It is okay. Nobody wants you to do the flip\u201d\u2014he tries again. His reasoning? \u201cWe do a flip and make Papa happy.\u201d Johnny\u2019s response: \u201cDon\u2019t bring him into this.\u201d It\u2019s Stiller at his absolute best: a man whose delusion is so total, so sincere, that you can\u2019t look away.<\/p>\n<h2>The Comedy Formula That Has No Business Working This Well<\/h2>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1360980\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1360980\" style=\"width: 1190px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Ben Stiller Benson Boone\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1360980\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns=\" http:=\"\" alt=\"Ben Stiller Benson Boone\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" data-lazy-srcset=\"https:\/\/wealthofgeeks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/chooseyourbanana.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/wealthofgeeks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/chooseyourbanana-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/wealthofgeeks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/chooseyourbanana-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/wealthofgeeks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/chooseyourbanana-768x512.jpg 768w\" data-lazy-sizes=\"(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/wealthofgeeks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/chooseyourbanana.jpg\"\/><img loading=\"lazy\" title=\"comedian\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1360980\" src=\"https:\/\/wealthofgeeks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/chooseyourbanana.jpg\" alt=\"comedian\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https:\/\/wealthofgeeks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/chooseyourbanana.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/wealthofgeeks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/chooseyourbanana-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/wealthofgeeks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/chooseyourbanana-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/wealthofgeeks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/chooseyourbanana-768x512.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\"\/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1360980\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Image credit: @instacart\/YouTube<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Most Super Bowl ads try <em>so hard <\/em>to be funny that they loop back around to painfully unfunny. The joke arrives pre-packaged, pre-tested, and dead on arrival.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBananas\u201d works because it\u2019s built on a real comic engine. Stiller\u2019s entire career is characters who take themselves way too seriously\u2014Zoolander, White Goodman in Dodgeball, the guy from Along Came Polly who cannot stop sweating. His superpower is playing men whose confidence wildly exceeds their ability. Gary is the purest distillation of that archetype: a man who watches a 22-year-old pop star do a backflip, thinks \u201cI can do that,\u201d and then nearly kills himself proving he can\u2019t. Twice.<\/p>\n<p>The casting is quietly genius. Boone is 22, athletic, one of the fastest-rising pop stars in the world\u2014everything Gary wants to be. The generational contrast is the joke, and they don\u2019t have to say a word about it. And Spike Jonze might be the only director alive who could make a grocery delivery commercial feel like a lost music video from 1979.<\/p>\n<h2>But Does Being Funny Actually Sell Bananas?<\/h2>\n<p>The ad industry is already split. Some creatives say viewers remember Stiller falling but forget what Instacart actually does. Others argue the earworm is so sticky that the product feature\u2014a \u201cPreference Picker\u201d for choosing banana ripeness\u2014sneaks into your consciousness the more it loops.<\/p>\n<p>History suggests the second camp is right. The Budweiser frogs. Terry Tate: Office Linebacker. Old Spice\u2019s \u201cThe Man Your Man Could Smell Like.\u201d All funny first, product second. All had critics saying the brand message was unclear. All became cultural moments. The funniest Super Bowl ads don\u2019t sell you in the moment. They make you <em>want to be part of the conversation<\/em>. And in 2026, the conversation is the product.<\/p>\n<h2>What Instacart Might Have Just Figured Out<\/h2>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">This Instacart commercial regarding keeping your bananas from bruising was by far the best ad during the SuperBowl game. Absolutely brilliant and add Benson Boone and Ben Stiller comedy spin was the cherry on top. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/hSKN75Q0uB\">pic.twitter.com\/hSKN75Q0uB<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 BaseballHistoryNut (@nut_history) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/nut_history\/status\/2020862427693261015?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">February 9, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Last year, Instacart\u2019s first Super Bowl ad was a safe nostalgia play with the Kool-Aid Man and the Pillsbury Doughboy. This year: absurd musical comedy directed by Spike Jonze, with a two-and-a-half-minute extended cut that builds out an entire world around two characters. That shift tells a story. Instacart isn\u2019t explaining what it does anymore\u2014they\u2019re trying to make people <em>feel something<\/em> about the brand. In a market where every competitor fights over convenience, speed, and price, an emotional edge might be the only differentiator left.<\/p>\n<h2>So, Is It the Funniest Super Bowl Ad Ever?<\/h2>\n<p>Is \u201cBananas\u201d the funniest Super Bowl ad ever made? Maybe not. But it\u2019s in the conversation, and in 2026, being in the conversation is the whole game. It\u2019s the kind of ad that doesn\u2019t just air and disappear\u2014it lives on timelines, in group chats, in the earworm nobody can shake. Instacart spent its 30 seconds making people laugh instead of making them think, and that might be the smartest thing any brand did on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>And if you haven\u2019t watched the extended cut yet: Gary needs more lift.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/> <br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/wealthofgeeks.com\/ben-stiller-benson-boone-made-a-super-bowl-ad-about-bananas-and-it-might-be-the-funniest-spot-of-2026\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Super Bowl LX aired four days ago. Since then, the internet has been dominated by Bad Bunny\u2019s halftime show\u2014the political debate, the FCC complaints, the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":338085,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4557],"tags":[16168,4595,1750,9171,16164,16169,16162,16166,16165,16163,16167],"class_list":["post-338082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-marketing","tag-ben-stiller-benson-boone","tag-comedian","tag-director","tag-federal-communications-commission","tag-gary-stiller","tag-instacart","tag-johnny-boone","tag-papa","tag-polly","tag-spike-jonze","tag-terry-tate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=338082"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338082\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":338084,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338082\/revisions\/338084"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/338085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=338082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=338082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=338082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}