Game was a break from the boring commercials

It seems like an urban legend, but back in the day, right around the last time the Chicago Bears made it to the big game, the Super Bowl was known as a competitive dud saved only by the commercials.

That was a long time ago, as Chicago fans watching Rex Grossman bear no resemblance to Jim McMahon can tell you.

In recent years, the action on the field has caught up and passed the promotional filler in between. Even Sunday’s sloppy, soggy turnover-fest was more interesting, more inventive and infinitely more memorable than any of the many opportunities fumbled away by a marketing industry whose creative imagination is running on fumes.

Most of the commercials that made the Super Bowl cut could have been summarized by the woman in the Chevrolet ad, cringing as her car is surrounded by crazed, half-naked men with the kind of torsos shirts were made for.

Covering her eyes, the woman pleads, “Tell me when it’s over.” This was the first Super Bowl to feature commercials made by amateurs. That Chevy spot was one. A Doritos ad that had a bag of chips serving as a crunchy air bag was another.

The best thing that could be said about the amateur ads was that you couldn’t tell them from the professional ones.

The best ad of the day was a CBS promo -- Colts-loving David Letterman and Bears-backing Oprah Winfrey on the same sofa, if not the same page.

When the official sponsors weighed in, the not-too-subliminal message was, “We really have no more new ideas.” Past contenders such as FedEx and Careerbuilder.com trotted out pale imitations of old successes. FedEx swapped its crushed caveman for a spaceman obliterated by a comet -- same end result, only this time no laughs. Careerbuilder.com broke the cardinal rule of commercial-making -- it got rid of the monkeys, replacing them with a training seminar set in a jungle.

Where’s a dart gun when you really need one?

Next, we can only presume, come the remakes of old favorites -- cover versions of the classics. How about Tank Johnson as Mean Joe Greene? Only in the new version, when the youngster hands the player his Coke, Tank pulls out a rifle.

Most of Sunday’s ads fell into one of two camps. There were those that were unspectacular but got the job done -- much like Manning in the Colts’ 29-17 triumph. And there were those that wobbled and misfired and, like too many Grossman passes, never should have been launched.

A few examples:

MANNING DIVISION

* Nationwide Mutual Insurance: This was the Kevin Federline ad, its punch line ruined by the controversy spawned by a few humorless National Restaurant Assn. executives who regard the drive-thru window at Jack In The Box one of life’s higher callings. Maybe the funniest of the bunch, and if protesters had their way, it never would have made it to the screen. This year’s Super Bowl commercials’ problem in a nutshell.

* Coca Cola: A quiet, dignified nod to the history surrounding the accomplishment of Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith becoming the first African American coaches to reach the Super Bowl. Lesson to you Super Bowl commercial crafters of the future: When in doubt, play-it-straight is not a bad strategy.

* Bud Light: Hitchhiker holding beer and an ax finds a ride, because the beer is either that good or, more likely, a decent substitute for anti-freeze. Ax man is horrified when his ride decides to stop for a beer man waving a chain saw. Certainly more inspired than the remake of “The Hitcher.”

* General Motors: A robot gets downsized at GM and embarks on a nightmarish future, completed by a haunting “All By Myself” soundtrack. This is how far we’ve fallen -- outsourcing passing as escapist entertainment.

* Budweiser: A hapless white pooch is having a dog day afternoon before rallying when he is splattered by mud, mistaken for a fire-house Dalmatian and allowed to join the parade. The pooch caught a lucky break. Unlike the rest of us. We still had dozens of additional ads on deck, just waiting to destroy more brain cells.

GROSSMAN DIVISION

* Sierra Mist: A guy with a bad beard comb-over is supposed to make me crave a sparkling lemon-lime beverage?

* Bud Light: Some highly paid advertising experts thought it would be amusing to film men slapping other men for no apparent reason. Those advertising experts need to be slapped.

* Snickers: Two guys. One candy bar. They get carried away in a way that calls into question their “manhood.” Their solution is to -- rip out their chest hair?

* Emerald Nuts: Emerald has made its advertising name with calculated weirdness, but Robert Goulet as an aging office gremlin wreaking havoc as blood-sugar supplies deplete from desk to desk is taking calculated weirdness to a level we’d rather not know about.

* T-Mobile: You put Dwyane Wade in a commercial with Charles Barkley and the best you can manage is a lame he-looks-old joke? Perhaps the sorriest case of wasted potential on a day devoted to it.

mike.penner@latimes.com