We love witty and on-the-nose ads, don’t we? There is a collection of commercials that stick with us, surviving the years and deluge of media fighting for our attention. The mosquito that exploded after biting the guy who put Tabasco on his pizza, the “feliz navidad” Corona Christmas lights on a singular palm tree, the Dumb Ways to Die PSA for Australian train safety: They all have a permanent residence in our brain.
The International House of Pancakes (IHOP, as Americans know it) has entered the chat. Debuting a brand new commercial, the national breakfast chain has struck gold.
Never thought fantasy punishments would make a national commercial & a 1st rd pic that is responsible for a lot of last places (due to an early season injury) would participate. Amazing. Props to Malik Nabers & @IHOP #fantasylife indeed pic.twitter.com/GFG7G7lMSA
— Matthew Berry (@MatthewBerryTMR) December 26, 2025
Here are five reasons reasons this commercial deserves a spot in your cerebral cortex (the part of your brain responsible for long-term memories):
1. Ultimate American Pop Culture
There are few things more American than fantasy football. For those unfamiliar with the tradition, friends, colleagues, families, and even strangers make a league and each person drafts a football roster of selected individuals. A quarterback might be chosen from the Kansas City Chiefs and receivers from the Dallas Cowboys, Miami Dolphins, and Las Vegas Raiders. The point is, you are the team, not the franchise.
Players are selected based on individual talent. Every week, fantasy football team rosters go head-to-head with points awarded for individual player accomplishments. One fantasy team wins and another loses. The goal is to work your roster with enough success to make the league playoffs and then the championship.
Fantasy football is amazing because those who partake have incentives to watch every game, regardless of NFL affiliation. For example, I’m a lifelong Dallas Cowboys fan but, if I have New York Giants’ Malik Nabars as a receiver, I have a vested interest in watching a Giant’s game when I otherwise would have flipped to another channel.
Maybe next year PJ Media can have a fantasy football league and y’all can get a front row seat to the action. l won’t run the affair, but I will report on it faithfully every Tuesday. If that’s content you want, say so in the comments.
IHOP has built an entire ad around fantasy football proving they are, indeed, in touch with everyday Americans.
2. Recognition of Schadenfreude
Here we shift from something as purely American as football to the very German schadenfreude. If you ask me it’s pronouced SHAD-en-froy-d, but I’m a Texan and we are pretty famous for saying things in our own dialect. This fancy German word descibes the feelings of joy and satisfaction we feel at another’s failures.
I will let you pretend such a sensation is beneath you but you and I both know in our heart of hearts that this is real. When you are cheering for San Francisco 49ers’ Bryce Huff to sack your opponent’s quarterback and it happens, you cannot wait to rub your colleague’s nose in it the next day at the break room coffee pot.
A pancake company capitalizing on fleeting feelings of superiority? Amazing. Brilliant. Correct. Definitely Effective. Without trying, this restaurant struck a cord with a significant swath of the population.
3. Finding Humor in Emotional Turmoil
Like the NFL, fantasy leagues have a draft and each team has a first, second, third, fourth round pick. Depending on the leagues, trades are permitted at or up until certain times. Serious fantasy players scout collegiate players bound for the pros, stalk off-season moves and pre-season activities; they come to the table knowing who they want, who they will accept, and what they are willing to do to avoid the bottom of the barrel.
When that first round pick that has been studied at such lengths as to know the man’s favorite gas station snack and preferred childhood theme park, gets injured, well, it’s enough to send a red-blooded American into emotional turmoil. What do I do with the rest of my roster? Can I trade? Should I make a sacrifice of pork rinds and PBR?
The star of the IHOP commercial is New York Giant’s Malik Nabers. This wide receiver suffered a right knee injury so severe that he could not play the remaining 2025-26 NFL season — on week four. There are 18 weeks in the NFL season. Nabers was selected 6th overall in the 2024 NFL draft. He was a dominant first, possibly second, round pick in fantasy leagues. For him to go out almost a quarter of the way through the season with a torn ACL and torn meniscus is not ideal for him or for anyone who drafted him to their fantasy team.
This genius commercial features Nabers on crutches, obviously playing to his injury, to make light of everyone doomed to take last place in their fantasy league because they picked him. Oh, you got Nabers? HaHaHaHaHaHaHa! Sucker! Enjoy last place!
4. Capitalizing on Losers
While many fantasy football leagues focus on awarding winners (I have won a Chipotle gift card, but that was many moons ago), there are some leagues who punish the losers. A favorite last place prize is sitting at IHOP for 24 hours and eating pancakes at a rate of frequency sufficient to not be kicked out.
Anyone who has eaten at IHOP knows one serving of the hubcap-sized pancakes are enough to keep anyone full for a solid eight hours. Anyone who has ordered a short stack understands it’ll set you back $10-15, depending on beverage and tip. If you figure a stack every two hours, that’s 12 orders; multiply it by $15 and you’ve got a $180 bill.
In total knowledge of this plight, IHOP has extended a life preserver to those sentenced to an avalanche of pancakes: bottomless pancakes, with the purchase of a full-priced breakfast combo.
Oh, yes, there is a catch, but are we surprised? Not even a little. Naturally a customer would need to buy a combo that includes eggs, meat, and potatoes. But what are you going to do, fork over $200 or fork some scrambled eggs into your face hole? That’s what I thought, but don’t feel bad because someone had to lose.
5. The Normalization of Celebrity
The IHOP ad wraps with a child approaching the football player with starry eyes before said adolescent slams the professional for ruining his (the kid’s) fantasy season. Can you imagine if Kim Kardashian was recognized on the street for being the “toilet brush” poodle from Paw Patrol? She would probably keel over and require smelling salts, a new contract, and a custom Gucci bodysuit before reviving.
Here we see a man who is paid millions of dollars to play football wearing a ridiculous terrycloth polo in pancake house stripes, embracing his failing fans and football enthusiasts. As if that were not enough, actress Natalie Pheffer portrays the most realistic IHOP waitress in the history of ever. Her sarcasm and appearance are so on-brand for IHOP that I am whisked back to my college days, before Waco’s IHOP banned students from camping out after midnight.
Fantasy football brings elite athleticism to the masses, and IHOP brings the masses up to an elite level with this new ad. It’s the great equalizer. While we may not remember Malik Nabers two years from now, it is my hope that we all remember the advertising executives brilliant enough to make IHOP as a punishment go viral.
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