As many know, the Super Bowl is one of the best times for companies to sell their products and messages to consumers. For this weekend's Super Bowl XLVIII, companies paid around $4 million for even 30 seconds of airtime. Ads can be incredibly powerful: The presence of a catchy phrase like “Where’s the beef?” is able to find a place in the public’s consciousness, and maybe even become a trending topic on Twitter along the way. As the best ads of Super Bowls past show, the key often tends to be the right mix of humor and appeals to emotion.

Let’s take a look at some of the best commercials, from last year’s game all the way back to 1979:

Taco Bell (2013)

In this ad, a group of mischievous octogenarians escape from their nursing home and get rowdy for the night. They break into a stranger’s pool, go out to a club, and one of them even gets a massive back tattoo that says, “Goldblatt.” Of course, the last stop of their joyride is Taco Bell. The background music is a Spanish-language version of Fun’s “We are Young” and is perfect for the commercial.

Best Buy (2013)

Amy Poehler stars in this Best Buy commercial as a hilarious, curious, and incredibly perky customer with innumerable questions for a helpful employee. Her inquiries are a little ridiculous, but also touch upon concerns that some consumers have, such as, “What’s LTE, is it contagious?” and “Where is the cloud? Are we in the cloud now?” The SNL alumna seems perfect for this role, especially given her recent popularity.

Volkswagen (2011)

Funny and also heartwarming, this Volkswagen ad features Max Page, a boy with a congenital heart defect, dressed in a full Darth Vader costume. He puts his hands up to household objects to test the Force, marching around with his cape billowing behind him as he tries to command everything from the washing machine to the family dog. Of course, nothing happens until his dad gets home. As Page approaches his new 2012 Volkswagen Passat, his father presses a button on the car's keychain remote, making it seem as though the Force turned the car’s lights on.

Snickers (2010)

“You’re not you when you’re hungry,” was the beginning of a campaign featuring out-of-place actors in a number of situations, who turn out to actually be the "hungry" personality of a regular person. This original ad presents us with Betty White in the middle of a game of football with her friends. I turns out that she is actually Mike, who is so hungry that he isn't himself. One scene that was particularly memorable showed White tackled into a puddle of mud before saying, “Oh, come on, man. You’ve been riding me all day.”

E-Trade (2008)

E-Trade’s talking babies ad was so successful that many of its following commercials also featured the strangely business-savvy toddlers. The boy in the original spot tells viewers that he had so much “extra coin” from investing with E-Trade that he was able to rent a clown, who is making balloon animals in the background. Adding a bit of self-aware humor into the mix, the ad ends with him saying, “I really underestimated the creepiness” — which could also be said about having a baby speak in an adult male’s voice.

EDS (2000)

The “Cat Herders” ad is by far one of the funniest in recent memory. The concept of the ad is only tangentially related to the company that created it, but lines like, “Anybody can herd cattle. Holding together 10,000 half-wild shorthairs, now that’s another thing altogether,” made it a solid fan favorite. The ad has even outlived its company: Hewlett-Packard obtained EDS in 2008.

Budweiser (1995)

Here’s an incredibly effective use of 30 seconds. Computer-generated frogs repeat “Bud,” “Weis,” and “Er” to each other, getting it stuck in viewers' heads for the next few weeks. This is simple advertising in action. The situation is not very complicated, yet the presence of the animated frogs saying the brand name over and over again was enough to keep it in consumers’ heads and homes.

Wendy’s (1984)

Whoever thought of having 82-year-old Clara Peller yelling, “Where’s the beef?” in an ad campaign was brilliant. The ad starts with three elderly women at a fast food counter, poking a burger and saying, “It certainly is a big bun," and, "It’s a very big bun.” The commercial even calls out competitors Burger King and McDonalds, saying that they give too much bun. This phrase became so ubiquitous, it was even used as the basis for a 2011 ad campaign called “Here’s the beef.”

Apple (1984)

This dystopian commercial takes many cues from George Orwell’s “1984,” with Big Brother saying, “We shall prevail” as a runner flings a hammer through his giant screen. The ad concludes with the announcement that Apple will release its first Macintosh computer on January 24th. Though it promises Apple’s 1984 won’t be like “1984,” who could have expected the rapid expansion of Apple’s empire at that time? This ad was aired only during Super Bowl XVIII.

Coca-Cola (1979)

This often-imitated Coca-Cola classic features “Mean Joe” Greene from the Pittsburgh Steelers. He leaves the field, only to be greeted by a little boy who says that he is the best ever. Greene seems unwilling to talk — until the boy offers him a Coke. That's when he finally smiles. A song imploring viewers to “Have a Coke and a smile” plays as the camera zooms in on a tender moment where Greene throws the boy his towel after saying, “Hey, kid. Catch."