Ben Affleck Brings Major Dad Joke Energy To A New “Sad Affleck” Dunkin’ Super Bowl Ad

Ben Affleck sees your “Sad Affleck” memes. You know the ones. Photos of the dad of three looking exhausted and over it as he walks around with an iced coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts. He knows about the jokes, and he’s decided it’s time to cash in on them, courtesy of a new Super Bowl commercial for his beloved coffee chain. Because he is laidback enough to lean into a good joke, especially if that joke drifts into dad joke territory.

We all know where those Sad Affleck memes come from, presumably. All of these casual shots of him walking around with a coffee, of course, but also that viral photo of him from the Grammys in 2023 with his wife Jennifer Lopez when he looked seriously uninterested in the glamorous night out. A moment he is seen watching on television in his 2024 Super Bowl commercial for Dunkin’ Donuts, where the headline “Boredest man in the world” flashes across a photo of him with Lopez. “Keep laughing,” Affleck says in the ad while sipping on an iced Dunkin’ coffee. “He’s bored. No. Steady. Always watching. I can do that. How hard can it be?”

Affleck, who is dad to 18-year-old Violet, 15-year-old Seraphina, and 11-year-old Samuel with ex-wife Jennifer Garner, goes on to heavily lean into the dad joke of it all by deciding he’s going to become a recording artist. And appears to call wife Jennifer Lopez to see if she might be willing to get on board with his idea.

“What’s going on baby? I had this crazy dream, you’re going to laugh,” he explains in a phone call to someone who is presumably meant to be Lopez. “I had come up with like some beats. And then you were like, ‘Maybe you should put that on the record.’ I even had a persona like J-Lo or like B-Lo. That’s the bad version obviously.” She appears to reject him, so he moves on to trying to sell his beats via a CD, which feels perfectly Gen X of him. He reaches out to TikTok star Charli D’Amelio, asking her to show him some dance moves before asking, “Who is TikTok?” which come on B-Lo, get with the times.

After getting nowhere with his dreams of becoming a pop star, Affleck gives himself a pep talk. “They tell you you’re no good. You’re a goofy, middle-aged, clumsy white guy with no rhythm and you can’t sing on key. You’re not coordinated. That means I can’t be a pop star?” he goes on to caution people, “Underestimate Boston? At your peril.”

The commercial ends with him wearing a rainbow sprinkled donut on a chain around his neck with a Dunkin’ Donuts sweatshirt and says, “This is me now,” in a cute nod to wife Lopez’s song “This Is Me... Now.”

This is Affleck’s second Super Bowl commercial for Dunkin’ Donuts. Last year, he and Lopez starred together in a commercial where he was working at the donut chain’s drive-thru until Lopez pulled up to ask him what he was doing. Sufficiently chastened, he goes to leave before she calls out “Grab me a glazed.”

If you only love Ben Affleck for his Dunkin’ Donuts loyalty and dad joke energy, that’s truly reason enough.