No, Ferris Bueller isn’t coming back

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Updated: March 1, 2012 8:44AM

All of 10 seconds in length, it was the perfect teaser.

Seemingly in character as Ferris Bueller, the now middle-aged Matthew Broderick is wearing a robe as he shuffles through what appears to be his living room, parts the curtains and says, “How can I handle work on a day like today?”

Wow. Twenty-six years later, the return of Bueller?

The spot then cuts to a sting from Yello’s “Oh Yeah,” the ubiquitous novelty tune that was featured in movies such as “The Secret of My Success” and “K-9,” TV series such as “The Simpsons” and “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” commercials for Twix — but was best known as the song that played while Mr. Rooney boarded the bus during the closing credits for “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” back in 1986.

In the teaser spot, we hear the nonsensical lyric — “Bow Bow, Chick-chicka-chickaaaah” — as the screen goes black and the graphic says simply, “2-5-2012.”

As in Super Bowl Sunday. As in Super Bowl commercial.

Life moves pretty fast

My first reaction on Twitter: “And when Ferris opened the curtains, he saw his neighbors: the Griswolds, Del Griffith and Samantha Baker.”

I was referring to characters from “National Lampoon’s Vacation,” “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” and “16 Candles.” As John Hughes once explained, he envisioned all his characters living in the same town: the Northbrook-inspired suburban town of Shermer, Ill.

“When I first started doing movies, I thought I would just invent a town where everything happened,” said Hughes.

“Everybody, in all my movies, is from Shermer, Illinois. Del Griffith . . . lives two doors down from Samantha Baker. Ferris Bueller knew Samantha . . . ”

The 10-second tease became an instant viral hit, as Bueller-ologists dissected the meaning of it all. Could it really be a teaser for a commercial for an actual sequel, 26 years after the release of the original?

But that notion was quickly dismissed. If Matthew Broderick, Mia Sara, Jennifer Grey and Alan Ruck (and maybe even Charlie Sheen) were teaming to do a sequel to the late John Hughes’ pop culture classic, we would have heard about that. (Plus it would have been a really bad idea. What, we’re going to see Ferris and Sloan as parents of a couple of high schoolers?)

It was the auto blog site Jalopnik that first reported the teaser was for a Honda commercial — and on Monday the automaker decided to release the full, extended version of the ad for the CR-V.

In other words, it was another ad for a car featuring an actor who might well have that particular automobile but could afford multiple 250 GT Californias. (Hello, J. Lo.)

Broderick isn’t playing Ferris — he’s playing the actor Matthew Broderick, who calls in sick to his agent, then turns to the camera and tells us, “He bought it.”

Matthew then takes his Honda on a Bueller-esque adventure through Los Angeles, with stops at a museum, an amusement park, even a parade. (Honda says there are more than two dozen references to the original film.) It’s a mildly amusing piece, even though there’s kind of a strange subtext, as in Matthew Broderick’s real life. Isn’t he married to Sarah Jessica Parker, and don’t they have kids? Why would his big Day Off consist of him wheeling around in a Honda with the family nowhere in sight? (Also, it would have been a lot more fun if Ruck or Sara or Grey had made a cameo. They could have cut to the three of them on the sofa, watching the ad and muttering, “He never calls . . . ”)

But you have to give kudos to Honda for making such a big splash before Super Bowl Sunday, when we’ll no doubt again see a bunch of ads featuring talking or comic animals, men suffering blows to the crotch, people you wouldn’t expect to listen to hip-hop listening to hip-hop and women getting wet and/or doing something in slow motion.

And, oh, yeah. Patriots 34, Giants 20.