Some giant winners and lame losers.

If the creativity of ads during a Super Bowl is any indication of the economy, then we are surely in a recession. Most of the ads for Super Bowl XLII were safe, dull or just plain uninspired. Here are some of the highs, followed by the mediums and prevalent lows of Super Bowl ads 2008.

Carlos Mencia reprises his role from last year teaching a classroom how to order a Bud Light. In The Language of Love, the immigrants are back, with Professor Mencia telling them how foreign accents attract women. They don't quite get it, so he steps in: "Let me show you how the master does it." He approaches a hot blonde, and she says, "Sorry, I'm with someone" and the camera pulls back to reveal a dopey-looking student who raises his beer with a totally straight face, and says to Mencia, "Boood light." Great spot and lots of mileage from last year's winner.

Procter and Gamble's Tide brand made its first-ever Super Bowl appearance and scored a big winner with the Talking Stain spot. Yes, those stains on your shirt will make you crater your interview. Listen to your mother and wash them out. The stain's voice is hilarious, especially at the end. A brilliant creative decision to have it yelling gibberish, too. Great spot, although the web site name they chose isn't: "mytalkingstain.com"

At FedEx, an employee walking through the company mailroom is showing his boss how he solved all the shipping problems with carrier pigeons. "What about for the big packages?" We see giant carrier pigeons gone awry dropping huge boxes on a city, and retrieving wrecked cars that are "delivered" through the window, which elicits the boss' calm response "Let's try FedEx." Nice. And the humor actually illustrates that "great idea gone wrong" feeling we've all known at least once.

At last, here's the solution to keep motorists from turning screaming squirrels into road kill: Bridgestone Tires. Supposedly, all the woodland creatures are safe now. Bridgestone actually made the campaign work harder by taking us back to the woods for a second spot in which the driver narrowly misses Alice Cooper and Richard Simmons, thanks to the tires, of course. You just know he really wanted to hit them both.

The Bud Light winning streak continues with Will Ferrell in out-takes as his character from Semi Pro, Jackie Moon, tosses off lines that inspire an increasingly-irritated director to yell "CUT!" ...such as "Lots of barely, malts and delicious alcohol ... a lot of sweat goes into every bottle." He finally ends the editing with a smarmy grin and call to action of, "Suck one!" Okay, so maybe it's a little bit of high school humor, but Will Ferrell sure knows how to deliver it.

Moving from the high school to the kitchen, men try to smuggle Bud Light into a high-estrogen wine and cheese party put on by their wives. This year's line most likely to enter mainstream vernacular: "Dude, serious cheese." Guys in the kitchen gather and reveal how they got their Bud Light in: hiding their beer in a giant cheese, a French bread baguette, and even a box of Chablis. Those boys will do anything for their beer.

Six of the seven Anheuser-Busch spots were Bud Light, but one 60-second spot featuring "Hank" the Clydesdale horse being coached by a Dalmatian in a "Rocky" training montage, deserves a very honorable mention. The fakey hoof-paw high five at the end, however, was a little much.

Finally, we get the beleaguered Dwayne Wade in a T-Mobile spot. A bored Barkley yaks it up with his Fave 5 friend, who said "Call me anytime" but regrets it almost immediately. "I think I know how to shoot a dunk shot." This one is worth watching a few times.

The injured List: Who the hell approved that?

Shaquille O'Neal as a Jockey for Vitamin Water. Ugh. Too involved, too loud, too busy, and too long. This one tries hard to entertain, but gives us only pain. The only laugh comes at the last second when a giant horse hoof stomps in by the logo, with TRY IT! Apparently, Shaq was pretty confident that this ad would be a hit: "I put my house on the line that people are going to remember a 321-pound basketball player riding a horse." Rohan Oza, Glaceau's senior vice president of marketing agrees: "It's the right thing to do...it's what people are drinking today." Not right enough, Rohan.

And the WTF? category for those ads you watched and wondered, "What's the point again? And HOW much did they spend on this?"

Okay, it looks like the Under Armour director had a good time, but this huge overproduction is full of "look how good I am" shots of buildings and chains. This spot seems to be trying to imitate Apple's 1984 and the Matrix and fails on both counts. This ad is for shoes, but did anyone mention that to the director?

It seems GMC thinks of themselves as Sisyphus without the downhill set-backs. I still don't get the connection. Why push, indeed. Nice graphics here that might play well during some CNBC financial show, but at one minute long, they only inspire yawns during a football game. Sure, good for them for making a hybrid, but come on, is it that hard? And do they really warrant equating themselves to a Greek mythology?

Career Builder ran two spots: A slimy heart jumping onto the boss' desk, and an evil spider eating a singing Jiminy Cricket-like character, dashing any dreams of a new job. Totally creepy. What was a great agency like Wiedan + Kennedy thinking here? And Who the Hell approved that? Bring back the monkeys in business attire.

Last and definitely least, Audi delivers the automotive equivalent of the horse head ala the Godfather. Is the target audience old enough to even remember this movie, or do they hope to sell the R8 to old timers? "Old luxury just got put on notice." Okay, but what is that red thing in the bed? A really big old radio? A giant bumper car?

It seems nostalgia was the trend for most advertising agencies handling the multimillion-dollar accounts for Super Bowl advertising regulars like Anheuser-Busch, Coke and Pepsi. But the general theme was playing it safe. As Publicis US advertising executive Bob Moore said (blogging on SuperAdFreak.com) "Less brave. No risk." it seems everyone wants to avoid possible penalties, and very few of the players have the guts to push for a touchdown.