Is Bud Light's Human Pac-Man Commercial Real?

When it comes to the Super Bowl, there are three types of viewers: Those who watch the Super Bowl for the whole football thing, those who watch the Puppy Bowl, and those who watch it for the commercials and a chance to inhale buffalo chicken dip without any fear of judgement. (I tend to fall somewhere between the last two categories.) More often than not, though, the Super Bowl commercials are more talked-about than the game itself: For instance, who won last year? I couldn't tell you, personally, but I could tell you that Bud Light debuted that ad with Don Cheadle, a llama, and Arnold Schwarzenegger playing ping pong with an unsuspecting dude! Now, it seems that Bud Light is at it again, and this time they've gone old school by subjecting another average Joe to a Bud Light Up for Whatever Challenge...in a game of — get ready for it — HUMAN PAC-MAN.

In case you haven't checked out the ad yet: It starts out like any other, with an unsuspecting man heading to a bar to ask for a Bud Light. Then, the lady bartender asks if he's up for whatever happens next , and he accepts... before being whisked away to an outdoor neon club house with dubstep-style DJs, then pushed into a human-sized Pac-Man maze. You know, just like a standard Saturday night!

The best part, though, is this: Bud Light actually frameed the ad so the player appeared to be plucked right out of the street and thrown into this once-in-a-lifetime experience. But, I have to wonder: is that really how it happened?

Sort of. I mean, there's a lot about the commercial that feels staged, like when the star shouts into his Bud Light upon completion of the maze, "This is all I've wanted all day!" BUT, my friends, that doesn't mean it's not real: In fact, the part about a random guy being plucked from the street to play human Pac-Man is probably mostly true. Indication of this comes from an interview that last year Bud Light commercial's star, Ian Rappaport, gave to The Hollywood Reporter after the ad went viral. Turns out, he signed up for a focus group prior to being involved in the ad, and it just so happened that the research was to find out who would be the best candidate for a major Super Bowl ad. The initial scenes of the filming, were, according to Rappaport, totally real.

So, does the giant Pac Man game exist? Probably. Do I want to go to there? You bet I do! BUT...is it a huge production for one of the biggest companies on the biggest night in television so there's a lot of bells and whistles going on here? Indeed — but that doesn't mean we can't love it all the same.

Check out the ad here: