Pirates 2014 commercial #5:

Game clips on a CGI jumbotron, music like it was from "300" in the background.  Greg brown at the end to give the promo details.  Meh.  I may stop counting these as "reviewable" ads.

1 hat
2 bats
1 swords
--------
4 HBS

Pirates 2014 commercial #4: "I Remember"

3 seconds in, and I like this one already.

Oh yea, you can't not love this.  This is great.  Oh, the accents.  Yes yes yes.  More of this.

Aaaaaand there it is... the "ROOT SPORTS" tag.  Yup.  They make the good ones.  Every.  Damn.  Time.

DEAR PIRATES AD WIZARDS: Hire the ROOT SPORTS team to do YOUR commercials.  Please.

9 hats
8 bats
9 swords
--------
26 on the HBS meter.

Pirates 2014 commercial #3:

Pirates/Cards promo.  This is throwaway material.  Sounds like a Sandals commercial in the background and I think it's one of the PSN ladies on the voiceover.  Not even sure if these should count as ads.

1 hat
1 bat
2 swords
-------
4 on the HBS meter.

HOLY SHIT TWO NEW VOCAL PERFORMANCES FOR THE HEALTHPLAN.

Of course, I learned this on ONE COMMERCIAL BREAK because they PLAYED TWO HEALTHPLAN COMMERCIALS DURING ONE COMMERCIAL BREAK.

At least they're different.

UPDATE: I think there might be a key change in-between the 1st and 2nd Healthplan commercials.  I admit, it's kind of like the poor-man's version of the Stephen Colbert pistachio commercial, but it's still worth noting.

HEALTHPLAN RE-RECORDED THE VOCALS!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't know if I like the new version.  Sometimes you gotta stick with the classics, ya know???

Pirates 2014 commercial #2:

Looks like We're going with the same concept from last year for a lot of the promos -- a simple uncreative sequence of video clips and still shots with some music in the background -- only it seems like we'll be enduring a lot more dubstep this season.

Sigh.

ATTENTION YOUNG PEOPLE: GROW A PAIR OF EARS AND LEARN WHAT MUSIC IS.  YOU ARE A MAJOR DRIVING FORCE/TARGET IN ADVERTISING AND YOU ARE MAKING THE REST OF US LISTEN TO YOUR SHIT.

1 hat
1 bat
2 swords
-------
4 on the HBS meter.  I gave it an extra sword because I know this won't be the worst commercial of the year and I need to save that rating for something truly deserving.

OK so the first Pirates commercial of 2014 is pretty pitiful.  It's pedro interacting with some touch screen thing to display the free shirt details for an upcoming game.  Same clip of him pressing the screen used twice in 10 seconds.

Boring.

RATING:

2 hats

1 bat

1 sword

----------------

4 out of a possible 30 on the HBS-meter.  It only earned the 2nd hat because the graphics were decent and Tim Neverett did the voiceover.