TAMPA - The advertisements at this year's Super Bowl, which took place on Sunday (Feb 7), went down memory lane, avoiding the thorny issues of today in favour of movies, songs and characters from decades ago.

Shaggy's 20-year-old reggae hit It Wasn't Me was used to hawk Cheetos snacks. Comedians Mike Myers and Dana Carvey resurrected their 1990s Wayne's World roles to promote Uber Eats.

Country star Dolly Parton reworked her 1980 hit 9 To 5 for website builder Squarespace, while a song from the soundtrack of The Karate Kid (1984) was used to promote E-Trade, an electronic trading platform.

One of the most watched ads, according to YouTube, was car maker Cadillac's spot which referenced 1990 movie Edward Scissorhands. It featured original actress Winona Ryder and actor Timothee Chalamet as the son of the title character.

Companies spent an average of US$5.5 million (S$7.3 million) for each 30-second slot, which can reach more than 100 million viewers in the United States, making it the highest-profile advertising space in the world.

Other notable celebrities who lent their names to brands included American rock icon Bruce Springsteen, who appeared in the first commercial of his career.

The two-minute spot for car manufacturer Jeep was a call for unity and the mending of rifts which had appeared in the United States in recent years, with the Born In The USA singer promising that "there's hope on the road up ahead".

Some stars appeared in altered forms, such as a two-dimensional Matthew McConaughey for Doritos 3D snacks.

A computer-animated Samuel L. Jackson was in the ad for Verizon 5G Ultra Wideband, in which he was gobbled up by a shark.

This, too, was a nostalgic nod to the 1990s and his role in Deep Blue Sea.

Meanwhile, actor Michael B. Jordan became the hunky fantasy body of Amazon's voice assistant Alexa, catapulting the ad to the top spot as YouTube's most-watched Super Bowl of the year with 77.5 million views.