The Stupor Bowl

Last night there was a promo for something Super Bowl related (we'll say that it was for The Voice just so I can plug the show because my friend's daughter auditioned and made it onto the show so please watch) and my husband said, "is the Super Bowl this Sunday?!". It's probably obvious to you that we're not exactly sports fans; we barely have a passing interest to be honest. There's no sport that we watch with any kind of conviction, at best we'll tune in for a playoff or two and maybe "the big game".

I informed my sports-oblivious husband that the Super Bowl was the first weekend in February as it's been for some time now to which he replied, "it keeps getting later and later, didn't it used to be on New Year's Day?" Now I'm pretty sure he was partially joking about the New Year's Day thing but I know that he meant the part about it getting later and later.

I decided to look it up, I mean I was probably wrong about it being YEARS for that first Sunday in February date and I didn't mind being proven wrong and I was just sitting there with my laptop in front of me anyway.

I searched for "Super Bowl History" and chose the Wikipedia option (I know, I know it isn't a "real" source but it can be a pretty damn good jumping off point if you're not looking for hard, cold facts). WHAT FUN!

There was a whole long explanation about how it ended up being the first Sunday in February; something about the season going from 14 to 17 games and a "bye" game, none of which really mattered to me but there it was. Hubby wasn't completely right but he also wasn't completely wrong. He was right that it kept moving further back (from mid-January to where it is now) but not the New Year's Day part.

I couldn't stop with the date change phenom though. I had to pursue the history of the half-time shows and that's where I found my bliss.

OMG! What a ridiculous bunch of extreme consumers of hype we are. Really people tone it down a bit in general.

Back in the dark ages of the late 1960s when the Super Bowl had its first kick-off the halftime show was some college marching band. Things did progress a bit to include "stars" of the day like Carol Channing and Andy Williams and interesting some jazz guys which wouldn't really fly these days. There was the incredibly corny 1976 halftime show with "Up with People" (anyone remember those guys, wow).

I vaguely remember that '76 halftime show because the cheesy factor was WAY HIGH. What were we thinking back then? Did anyone actually see "Up with People" as entertainment?

"Up with People" went on to do a few more halftime shows after their big debut with the '76 show celebrating America's bicentennial (the halftime show was actually called, "200 years and just a baby, A Tribute to America").

There were at least two times when the halftime show included some kind of audience participation card trick. Really?

It seemed that the changes came about gradually with it slowly veering away from marching bands to pop stars.

Now? Now it seems to be the venue for classic rock acts to strut their stuff in 15 minutes or less and some kind of personal challenge for the tech and production crew to see just how quickly they can mount and strike an entire stage set in the middle of a packed stadium.

The demographic for these classic rock acts is pretty clearly the middle-aged, American male category. It's funny to see so many non-US acts in the past several years, The Who, The Stones, Sting, etc. These people come from a country that doesn't even consider American football to be a sport but there they are chicken struttin' their aging asses down the 50 yard line.

This year it's Madonna (is she still American, who the hell knows) with Cirque d'Soleil which seems like the ultimate tech/production challenge more than anything else. Clearly Madonna needs to remind us she's still a viable act now that she's been effectively unseated by Gaga but will The Material Girl even be relevant to a bunch of middle-aged American guys? I doubt, I couldn't care less and I'm a middle-aged American woman.

With "talent" like that it's all the more reason to switch over and enjoy The Puppy Bowl on Animal Planet! Who doesn't want to watch adorable puppies (that are up for adoption) roll around on some AstroTurf? Thank you Animal Planet for offering a fun alternative to the self-absorbed, narcisstic stylings of a has-been '80s icon.