Patrick Schaefer thought his chance had come and gone.
Then, during the Super Bowl, the Fargo North alum watched the TV ad he helped create.
The Doritos spot on which he worked was a surprise, late addition to the big game's commercial lineup.
The ad was one of six finalists for three commercial spots for Doritos "Crash the Super Bowl" commercial contest.
The three winners were selected by online voting, and Schaefer's 20-person team didn't know until the game whether their 30-second ad "Snack Attack Samurai" would air.
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The samurai ad wasn't among the three ads aired.
Given that, Schaefer and his team thought they'd come up empty.
But the samurai ad for Doritos ended up running anyway, after the other three ads already had run.
"It was pretty exciting to find out we were on after all," he said.
Schaefer, a freelancer who lives in St. Paul, said he was uncertain why the fourth ad ran.
The ad took place in a gym and featured a chip thief shrieking in fear as a Doritos-loving samurai charges at him.
Schaefer mixed the scream, dialogue and other sounds, and did the audio post-production.
He had worked with the ad's creators on other projects, and they asked him to help with the commercial.
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The ad's other North Dakota connection was Minot native Mike Rylander, who played a character hit in the neck with the samurai's "throwing star" - a Doritos corn chip.
