Walter White returns: Breaking Bad's Bryan Cranston stars in Super Bowl commercial

Character from Breaking Bad was among this year's surprises

Walter White, the fictional character from the TV series Breaking Bad, made his return on Sunday Night – starring in a Super Bowl advert for an insurance company.

The drug dealing character, played by actor Bryan Cranston, appeared in an advert for Esurance. In it he pretends to be a man named Greg who works in a pharmacy, when he really is just a man who sells drugs.

Cranston previously sort-of revisited Heisenberg in an Emmy Awards promo with Aaron Paul called Barely Legal Pawn.

“Would you pick up a prescription from sorta Greg? Uh, not recommended. What would you do if he handed over your drugs…sorry, pharmaceutical,” the caption read.

The adverts that accompany the Super Bowl generate almost as much interest and obsession as the game itself.

Reports in advance of the game said that this year NBC was charging advertisers $4.5m (£3m) for a 30-second spot. But with an expected US audience of 110 million, and more streaming the most popular ads online, companies were happy to pay it.

Among other adverts that caught the eye was one for Turbotax, the tax-preparation website and software.

It created a dramatic re-creation of the Boston Tea Party, then suggested that all it would have taken to end the American Revolution would have been for the nasty Redcoats to offer free tax filing.

It seems lot of people also enjoyed the advert for Snickers bars, which featured Danny Trejo waving an axe while pretending to be part of the cast of the 1970s sitcom The Brady Bunch.

There were lots of adverts for cars and beer and internet services. But a number of online commentators pointed out that the mood of many of the adverts was more serious than in previous years.

One advert that was certainly serious was one by the Nationwide insurance company that featured a child who has supposedly died. The advert was meant to stress the need to avoid household accidents that can lead to a child’s death, though many on Twitter thought it was in poor taste.