Super Bowl 2026 is just around the corner, and brands are already rolling out their big game day ad spots. Instacart went extremely meta in a darkly comedic new 2-and-a-half-minute spot directed by Spike Jonze called “For Papa!”
The new ad stars Ben Stiller and Benson Boone as singing brothers who have some deep, unresolved issues.
Things start out simply enough with the pair on a fancy disco-era studio set complete with a band and backup dancers. They sing a catchy tune about how “Instacart lets you choose your bananas.” Then things get…dark.
Stiller Goes Bananas
A few lines in Boone, who keeps one-upping Stiller’s singing, does a flip. This leads Stiller to try one, and he fails miserably in front of the crowd of (now concerned) onlookers. As Boone tries to help him to his feet he is pushed aside as his fictitious brother insists everyone keep doing the routine.
After scaling the platform that the band is on, he insists on trying to do another flip. His brother begs him to stop before he proclaims, “Papa always loved me more!” This…this isn’t about bananas or the miracle of ordering delivery online anymore. This is the kind of deeply held generational trauma being used for laughs that we’d expect from Jonze and Stiller.
Stiller tries doing another flip and fails, breaking an amp. He then decides the issue is that he needs to be up even higher for “more lift.” He scales the set again as everyone either begs him to stop or questions their own reality. Unsurprisingly, height doesn’t allow him to do a flip, and he ragdolls into the drum kit.
More than likely from a concussion, he begins to speak to their father, who apparently lives in the studio lights, given his eyeline, before he falls off the stage itself.
Filming is finally stopped, and we are shown the text “Bananas just how you like them,” just in case you forgot this was an ad for Instacart.
You can check out the full ad below:
