Latest / Ridiculous History / The History of the Super Bowl Halftime Show, Part One: From Marching Bands to Celebrities

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The History of the Super Bowl Halftime Show, Part One: From Marching Bands to Celebrities · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
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Speaker 1: the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
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Speaker 1: for tuning in. That's our super producer, mister Max Williams.
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Speaker 2: With arms wide open, Yeah, arms wide open under the sunlight,
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Speaker 2: sunshine and exposed nor right.
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Speaker 1: So, and I think we have all off air pledge
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Speaker 1: to stop lip syncing this podcast based on some of
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Speaker 1: the stuff we've learned in our special Thanksgiving series. Welcome
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Speaker 1: to our two part episode on the history of the
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Speaker 1: Halftime Show.
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Speaker 2: Indeed, and you know, it's funny this being a podcast,
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Speaker 2: y'all would never know sitting at home that we have
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Speaker 2: wardrobe malfunctions almost every single week.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, are they malfunctions or are they artistic expression?
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Speaker 2: Knows a lot about well that is, you know, Oh
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Speaker 2: my gosh, Ben, I'm glad you brought that out. Let's
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Speaker 2: save it from when we get into the particular event
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Speaker 2: in question. But I think that is a lingering conspiratorial
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Speaker 2: question about that whole debacle, right, Was it intentional or
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Speaker 2: was it a malfunction?
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Speaker 1: I've been bullying your nol brows. We've have been going
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Speaker 1: through a bit of a sports phase, often on this
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Speaker 1: episode about halftime shows is something that you don't have
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Speaker 1: to be a football head to enjoy. Oh football head,
1:48
Speaker 1: I forgot. That's an insult.
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Speaker 2: Okay, Oh yeah, that's what they called Arnold on Hey Arnold,
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Speaker 2: the Nickelodeon children's cartoon.
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Speaker 1: Well, ridiculous historians, fell boys if that's another reference Ronald
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Speaker 1: or girl ohs alike. Anyway, kiddos, we're talking about We
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Speaker 1: are talking about that sport called football. It's confusing to
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Speaker 1: the rest of the world because, as Nate Bargetzi said
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Speaker 1: on Saturday Night Live, it's the sport where you rarely
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Speaker 1: use your feet. There's sometimes there's a little kicking.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's in the name, which kind of makes
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Speaker 2: it extra confusing. Not to mention that I think the
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Speaker 2: more globally popular use of that name is in fact
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Speaker 2: a sport where you use your feet exclusively, maybe a
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Speaker 2: little knee, maybe a little head. But we do typically
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Speaker 2: refer to this as American football.
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Speaker 3: Yes, it's also the most popular sport in the world,
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Speaker 3: already being called football soccer. Yeah, nah, get out of
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Speaker 3: the way, Get out of the way. We're calling our sport football, right,
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Speaker 3: it's the Imperial system of sports.
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Speaker 1: Right, It's like if you were getting into acting today
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Speaker 1: and your name was Bill Murray, somebody would have to
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Speaker 1: change their name and it's not going to be Bill Prime.
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Speaker 2: It's true, that's true. I mean, it's one of those
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Speaker 2: things like that. We're all big fans of that show
3:04
Speaker 2: Slow Horses, which was created and often written by a
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Speaker 2: guy named Will Smith who just decided he was going
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Speaker 2: to rock with Will Smith. No man in black was
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Speaker 2: going to force him to change his name.
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Speaker 1: It's the wild wild West out there in Hollywood. Technically
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Speaker 1: it's in the western part of the country. Moving on,
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Speaker 1: whether you love or hate football in the United States,
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Speaker 1: especially when it comes to revenue, American football is keen.
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Speaker 1: Maybe we popped the top on this bad Boy with
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Speaker 1: a quote from our pal Kurt Baidenhausen over at Sportico.
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Speaker 2: I love the name of Sportico, and I also love
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Speaker 2: the name Kurt Baidenhausen. The NFL posted an annual revenue
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Speaker 2: of twenty point five billion dollars this year in this
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Speaker 2: twenty twenty three twenty twenty four season, and that is
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Speaker 2: not including college football. And you know, we talked a
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Speaker 2: little bit in recent episodes just about how football, American football,
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Speaker 2: we will just be calling it football in this episode
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Speaker 2: is uniquely designed to serve ads on the right now
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Speaker 2: because of the kind of herky jerky, stardy stopping nature
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Speaker 2: of the game.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, especially in its modern iteration. Arguably, the most American
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Speaker 1: part of American football is not the game itself. It's
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Speaker 1: something that occurs during the biggest stop and start period
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Speaker 1: of your typical game, which is halftime. During halftime in
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Speaker 1: any other less American sport, people would walk and get snacks.
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Speaker 1: There would be it would be an intermission, like in
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Speaker 1: your favorite play or in the film my Dad tricked
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Speaker 1: me into scene as a child Gettysburg, which is super
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Speaker 1: duper long for a child and has intermission. They don't
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Speaker 1: do any of that in football. In American football, they
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Speaker 1: have a big show, especially during the biggest game in
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Speaker 1: all of football, them the Super Bowl. There's a halftime show,
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Speaker 1: and a lot of people who don't even care about
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Speaker 1: football the sport still tune in just for this particular
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Speaker 1: moment to see their favorite celebrity and possibly the newest
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Speaker 1: pop culture scandal occur between the first and second part
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Speaker 1: of the game.
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Speaker 2: In real time. And that's not to say that you know,
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Speaker 2: you couldn't use this if you were more of the
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Speaker 2: sporto variety, use this as an opportunity to go grab
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Speaker 2: yourself a beer or snack, but your eyeballs would be
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Speaker 2: missing out on some serious displays of opulence.
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Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, again, thoroughly American and the most hyperbolic of ways.
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Speaker 1: You'll see some of the greatest musicians of all times
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Speaker 1: singing or pretending to sing. As we'll get to you'll
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Speaker 1: also see elaborate stagecraft and choreography, and of course, once
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Speaker 1: in a while, a boob.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, once in a while. Bet he'll have her neked
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Speaker 2: by the end of this song. And he did do
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Speaker 2: that thing. Our dog, you dog JT justin Timberley.
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Speaker 1: Oh, he's been going through and I hope things are
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Speaker 1: all right for him. But our question in this week series,
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Speaker 1: as you celebrate the holidays with your family, you may
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Speaker 1: be about to watch this massive celebration. Where did it
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Speaker 1: come from? Let's talk about the founding of the Super
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Speaker 1: Bowl or superb Owl. Let's talk about the very first
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Speaker 1: halftime show and how we got from there to the
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Speaker 1: mad cap insanity of Fiata that the halftime show has
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Speaker 1: become today. Maybe, you know, maybe before we to really
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Speaker 1: understand the Super Bowl. Maybe we talk a little bit
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Speaker 1: about what American football is because we've said it's different from,
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Speaker 1: you know, the more popular football.
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Speaker 2: I could sure use the refresher. It's one of the
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Speaker 2: ones that's still continue used to confound me, and it
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Speaker 2: confounds many others who are unfamiliar with the sport who
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Speaker 2: might be watching it for the first time. What is
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Speaker 2: the deal with this whole display of Napoleonic trench warfare
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Speaker 2: that Max very helpfully pointed out to me is a
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Speaker 2: very very good analog for the nature of the game
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Speaker 2: of American football. How come sometimes you kick the ball
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Speaker 2: but usually just throw it around or run with it.
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Speaker 1: It's a great series of questions, and the sport itself
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Speaker 1: has these what appeared to be eccentricities or irregularities because
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Speaker 1: of its blended family origins. It evolves from rugby, and
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Speaker 1: it evolves from actual soccer aka football prime. But it
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Speaker 1: differs from soccer chiefly in that, like rugby, it allows
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Speaker 1: the players to touch through carry the ball with their hands,
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Speaker 1: so it's different from soccer in that way. But it's
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Speaker 1: also different from rugby because it allows each side to
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Speaker 1: control the ball in alternating possessions. That's where you that's
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Speaker 1: where you try to get your points before you run
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Speaker 1: out of downs.
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Speaker 2: Yeah. I think of all the American kind of past times,
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Speaker 2: it is the most full on physical and you know,
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Speaker 2: full contact of the sports. You know, in baseball you
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Speaker 2: might get in some dust ups, you might bump into
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Speaker 2: somebody running, but you're not going to tackle them to
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Speaker 2: the ground, you know, and hold them there, dog pile
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Speaker 2: on them. It is a much kinder, gentler sport than
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Speaker 2: American football. Yeah.
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Speaker 1: Now, this dog pile tackling stuff that can happen in
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Speaker 1: other sports, but usually if it does, it's a fracas
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Speaker 1: on the field, something has gone wrong. Yes, the sport
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Speaker 1: of American football is played with two teams, eleven people
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Speaker 1: on each side. And this sport is thoroughly North American.
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Speaker 1: It's practiced primarily in the United States. It has become
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Speaker 1: the country's leading spectator sport as we record today. It also,
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Speaker 1: to be fair, gained a bit of a fun folloween
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Speaker 1: in Canada, and it evolved over time to a twelve
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Speaker 1: man game, but it never quite knocked the zeitgeist the
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Speaker 1: way that ice hockey does in Canada or the way
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Speaker 1: that American football does here in the States.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, even here in the States. I mean,
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Speaker 2: you know, soccer football prime is quite has gained popularity
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Speaker 2: in the last decade or so. But the opposite isn't
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Speaker 2: really true of American football. It doesn't really port particularly
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Speaker 2: well to other countries, though the culture of it does
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Speaker 2: seem to do so, like because the Super Bowl and
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Speaker 2: the Super Bowl halftime showing all of the ads are
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Speaker 2: a genuine pop cultural phenomenon that do make waves in
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Speaker 2: other parts of the world. Yeah, and even.
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Speaker 1: Before the rise of this advertising boom associated with football,
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Speaker 1: even before then, it kind of made sense that the
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Speaker 1: United States version of football may not catch on across
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Speaker 1: the world just because of some logistical stuff. You need
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Speaker 1: a lot of people to play it, you need a
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Speaker 1: lot of equipment to play it. It can be expensive.
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Speaker 1: As we mentioned in the past. If you look at soccer,
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Speaker 1: you just need a dream, a ball, and some kind
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Speaker 1: of piece of land that has two sides.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's right. And I mean football stadiums in and
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Speaker 2: of themselves are massive displays of opulence. Here in Atlanta,
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Speaker 2: we have the very brutal kind of looming structure that
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Speaker 2: is the Mercedes Benz Stadium.
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Speaker 1: I like it. It looks like a tied you that got
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Speaker 1: turned to stone by some kind of experimental When I
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Speaker 1: say it looms.
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Speaker 2: It does when you're driving around and you start to
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Speaker 2: see the edge of it creeping over the horizon. It's
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Speaker 2: a little bit sinister. I'm not gonna lie.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's gonna look really cool when they implode it
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Speaker 3: in a Marti buskets in the way.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, this is my first experience there was amazing and
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Speaker 1: perhaps not normal because it was one of the vaccination
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Speaker 1: centers during the pandemic, and so when I went in
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Speaker 1: there for the first time, it was empty except for
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Speaker 1: me and like twelve people who had to sit around
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Speaker 1: and make sure they didn't die after getting shot up.
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Speaker 1: It was the scale of it really hits when you
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Speaker 1: see it empty. It's like a cathedral.
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Speaker 2: I have only been in there once in my entire life,
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Speaker 2: and it was for a similarly kind of odd reason.
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Speaker 2: It was odd, but it was to vote. They had
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Speaker 2: voting set up in there for like a local election,
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Speaker 2: and I went when it was pretty dead, and it
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Speaker 2: was very, very weird to be in there with it
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Speaker 2: just a handful of your closest friends. You guys, remember
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Speaker 2: when Kanye kind of haunted the Mercedes Benz like the opera.
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Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, he had a military bunk. I did not.
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Speaker 1: I did not see mister West during the vaccination stuff
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Speaker 1: that maybe due to his stance on vaccines unclear. Maybe
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Speaker 1: he was making a track, but they have.
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Speaker 2: Been lurking just in the wings, you know, wearing some
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Speaker 2: sort of fantai.
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Speaker 1: Yes, luckily he wasn't making people participate in a listening party,
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Speaker 1: which is not to be confused with the concert.
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Speaker 2: Sorry, they did have one. They do it.
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Speaker 1: But I lucked out, is what I'm saying.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, well yeah, and then to be there. Typically people
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Speaker 2: that show up to those things are there of their
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Speaker 2: own free purpose. A huge though, where you have a
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Speaker 2: guy who's kind of hyping up their own tracks, it's
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Speaker 2: a little it's a little try hard.
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Speaker 1: I'm not going I mean, it's a whole stadium too.
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Speaker 1: You know, there might be a different venue you could
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Speaker 1: use for that. I'm just saying I lucked out again
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Speaker 1: because he didn't jump out in ambush has I haven't
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Speaker 1: read much news about Kanye recently. Loved his first albums.
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Speaker 1: I hope he's hope he's making it through as we
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Speaker 1: all are trying.
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Speaker 2: To do same and we know that.
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Speaker 1: Look, like we said at the top, you might not
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Speaker 1: be a fan of sports at all. You might not
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Speaker 1: be a fan of football in particular, but odds are
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Speaker 1: you are probably a fan of at least a handful
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Speaker 1: of celebrities and notable figures who have made an appearance
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Speaker 1: at the halftime shows. So you've at least it's crazy.
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Speaker 1: It doesn't happen with other sports. You've at least seen
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Speaker 1: the halftime show once or some clip of it if
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Speaker 1: you live in the States.
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Speaker 2: Sure, and all halftime shows are not created equally. Some
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Speaker 2: of them fizzle a bit and they're kind of like
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Speaker 2: womp womp, and some of them live on in either
13:20
Speaker 2: infamy or you know, like in the annals of pop
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Speaker 2: cultural fame, like Prince for example, in his two thousand
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Speaker 2: and seven halftime performance where it rained while he was
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Speaker 2: playing Purple Rain and the dude just ripped it, and
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Speaker 2: it really is looked at as one because they're you know,
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Speaker 2: you can find it on YouTube now. And as Prince
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Speaker 2: you know, has left this mortal coil rip to one
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Speaker 2: of the greats. It is a fantastic example of his
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Speaker 2: musicality and just performing genius.
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Speaker 1: Or the King of pop pause, which we'll get to,
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Speaker 1: or the there's also the lampooning of the pop in
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Speaker 1: circumstances like Red Hot Chili Peppers famously did when they
14:03
Speaker 1: refuse to plug in their guitars because they want to
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Speaker 1: participate in a farce. There's all this sort of stuff
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Speaker 1: that goes into the halftime show of what is sometimes
14:13
Speaker 1: called gridiron football. That's another differentiation because as the vertical
14:17
Speaker 1: lines on the rectangular field. So if we want to
14:20
Speaker 1: understand halftime celebration, we talk about the game itself. The
14:25
Speaker 1: super Bowl game. It is pretty much national holiday, especially
14:30
Speaker 1: when you get into states that have tons of football
14:35
Speaker 1: fans like Wisconsin. Super Bowl cheeseheads. Yet you're not going
14:40
Speaker 1: to get anything done that day, not really.
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Speaker 2: Especially if your city's team or a particularly viament football
14:47
Speaker 2: craze cities team is in the game and either wins
14:51
Speaker 2: or loses. Sometimes either of those results can lead to,
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Speaker 2: you know, people setting cars on fire and stuff.
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Speaker 1: And if the game is happening in your city, not
15:04
Speaker 1: only are you not getting anything done that day, you
15:06
Speaker 1: probably should stay home because you're definitely gonna have a
15:09
Speaker 1: tough time driving places.
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Speaker 2: It's true, So why don't we talk a little bit
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Speaker 2: about the evolution of the super Bowl, or as you
15:23
Speaker 2: put it, Ben, the superb Owl, which I can only
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Speaker 2: imagine is a reference to the giant owl structure in
15:29
Speaker 2: Bohemian Grove where all the weird rich cultists gather. Because
15:34
Speaker 2: you know, things like the super Bowl and like, you know,
15:37
Speaker 2: the displays of that level of wealth and commerce and
15:40
Speaker 2: all of the famous people that get to go and
15:43
Speaker 2: are sitting in those boxes. I mean, there gotta be
15:45
Speaker 2: some illuminatis hanging out or involved in the super Bowl.
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Speaker 1: And I just like superb Owl because it's a great
15:52
Speaker 1: TYPEO word joke. But I'm with you there. Even just
15:55
Speaker 1: the cost of super Bowl tickets are a pretty big
16:00
Speaker 1: differentiator between the casual fan, the diehard fan who saves
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Speaker 1: up for years, and of course members of the illuminati
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Speaker 1: who probably pay the blood price.
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Speaker 2: They probably pay the blood price in the and I
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Speaker 2: mean even you know, for us mere mortals to get
16:14
Speaker 2: just a basic super Bowl ticket can be incredibly.
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Speaker 1: Difficult, right, Oh yeah, yeah, it can get past money.
16:20
Speaker 1: We're talking lottery, We're talking hustling all kinds of stuff.
16:24
Speaker 1: And look, if you made it to the very first
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Speaker 1: super Bowl, it would have been way easier for you
16:32
Speaker 1: to get in. This is nineteen sixty seven, and it
16:35
Speaker 1: happens because previous to sixty seven there were two competing
16:39
Speaker 1: football leagues, the NFL which we know today and the
16:42
Speaker 1: AFL National Football League American Football League. They negotiated this
16:48
Speaker 1: team up and they said, look, we're going to join together.
16:51
Speaker 1: We're going to make our forces one and at the
16:53
Speaker 1: end of every season, we're going to play a championship
16:56
Speaker 1: game to see who is the best. And there were
16:59
Speaker 1: a lot of stakeholders in this. There were a lot
17:02
Speaker 1: of team owners who were part of the negotiation, and
17:05
Speaker 1: they all had the same two goals. Better competition, yes, sure,
17:12
Speaker 1: but also more money. Could do way more money, so
17:15
Speaker 1: much more money.
17:17
Speaker 2: Yeah. Lamar Hunt was the owner at the time of
17:20
Speaker 2: the AFL's Kansas City Chiefs. He may have heard of
17:23
Speaker 2: because of their proximity to Taylor Swift. He was a
17:26
Speaker 2: big part of these negotiations. He kind of as a gag,
17:30
Speaker 2: as a little silly goof suggested calling it the Super
17:33
Speaker 2: Bowl because his kids liked to play with a toy
17:37
Speaker 2: that was very popular at the time, at a time
17:39
Speaker 2: when maybe there wasn't quite as much saturation in the
17:41
Speaker 2: shoulder of the toy market. It has had a thing
17:43
Speaker 2: called a super Bowl. There's literally a bouncy ball that
17:47
Speaker 2: bounced quite quite efficiently.
17:49
Speaker 1: And there was super stick at the time, there was
17:52
Speaker 1: super handful of dirt. It was just a different super rock,
17:57
Speaker 1: just a different era of toys.
18:00
Speaker 2: Yeh, superspring. I'm sorry.
18:01
Speaker 1: That was the slinking that was advanced for the time. Okay,
18:04
Speaker 1: I think the slinking was out by the sixties. But
18:06
Speaker 1: the super Bowl, yes, as a throwaway, kitting not kidding phrase. Originally,
18:14
Speaker 1: it didn't catch on. We know that he was kidding
18:19
Speaker 1: around about this because Hunt wrote to the NFL commissioner
18:23
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty six and literally said, I have kiddingly
18:27
Speaker 1: called it the super Bowl, which obviously can be approved upon.
18:31
Speaker 1: He thought the name was too corny to ever be
18:35
Speaker 1: used in public, And then Rizzelle said, why don't we
18:40
Speaker 1: call it the Big One the Pro Bowl?
18:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, I sure, it's funny. It's one of those things though,
18:45
Speaker 2: where it's like sometimes the stand in name for a
18:49
Speaker 2: thing just sticks around for so long and nobody comes
18:52
Speaker 2: up with a better idea that just becomes the thing.
18:54
Speaker 2: But now this far removed from the original Super Bowl
18:57
Speaker 2: of nineteen sixty seven. Can you imagine it be called
19:00
Speaker 2: anything else? I mean, it's like, maybe the Mega Bowl
19:04
Speaker 2: would be kind of cool, but super Bowl it just
19:06
Speaker 2: kind of makes sense, you know, for what a massive
19:08
Speaker 2: thing it would become. Maybe it didn't earn the name
19:11
Speaker 2: right away, though, and that maybe is what led to
19:13
Speaker 2: the little bit of a tongue in cheek kind of
19:15
Speaker 2: feeling around that name.
19:17
Speaker 1: My spiritual friends would say it manifested itself. We know
19:22
Speaker 1: that the first matchups proceeded even as they were trying
19:25
Speaker 1: to figure out this name stuff. And originally they called
19:29
Speaker 1: it the very buttoned up AFLFL World Championship Game, which
19:34
Speaker 1: is just a mouthful.
19:36
Speaker 2: It's too much.
19:37
Speaker 1: So sports writers and fans, like already in the court
19:42
Speaker 1: of public opinion, started searching for something else to call it.
19:45
Speaker 1: Everybody just started calling it the Super Bowl. By sixty
19:48
Speaker 1: nine they said, look, we're going to make that the
19:51
Speaker 1: official title. And then the next year the two leagues merge. Boom,
19:56
Speaker 1: Now we have the Super Bowl as an official name.
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Speaker 1: The name isn't on the first big game again, but
20:04
Speaker 1: the halftime show, the actual halftime celebration is older than
20:09
Speaker 1: the name super Bowl.
20:10
Speaker 2: Well sure, I mean we you know, it's something that
20:13
Speaker 2: I think we've all experienced, even at high school football games,
20:18
Speaker 2: where you have like the part of the game where
20:20
Speaker 2: the marching band comes out and like the nerds get
20:23
Speaker 2: a chance to shine. This is very, very common. There's
20:26
Speaker 2: always like a need for some sort of in game
20:29
Speaker 2: entertainment while things were being shuffled around or the players
20:32
Speaker 2: were taking a break.
20:33
Speaker 1: And if you ever want a mainline that experience, and
20:36
Speaker 1: you happen to be in our lovely metropolis of Atlanta, Georgia,
20:40
Speaker 1: if you have not been yet, you've got to go
20:44
Speaker 1: to the all star Battle of the Bands where all
20:47
Speaker 1: the HBCU bands get together and they do like a
20:51
Speaker 1: compilation of their halftime show.
20:53
Speaker 2: I go almost every year. It's just a blast. I
20:56
Speaker 2: haven't been, ben, and you are giving me another thing
20:59
Speaker 2: to add to my Atlanta bucket list.
21:01
Speaker 1: Oh it's a it's a fun adventure, you know. I
21:05
Speaker 1: don't know about you guys. We had to the stage.
21:07
Speaker 1: Now where going, uh like happy hours? Fine or whatever.
21:12
Speaker 1: But if I have free time, I want to go
21:15
Speaker 1: have weird adventures. I don't want to go to you know,
21:17
Speaker 1: the usual places and far and around so so Battle
21:21
Speaker 1: of the band's great. Uh Knoxville, Tennessee got to me.
21:26
Speaker 1: They programmed me over the weekend. We get so many
21:28
Speaker 1: great day trip kind of things around here.
21:30
Speaker 2: No, oh for sure. Yeah. You mentioned also on a
21:32
Speaker 2: recent episode the uh there's like a a Tibetan temple
21:37
Speaker 2: or like a Buddhist temple, I believe.
21:39
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, there there are a couple. There's Baps,
21:43
Speaker 1: which is the Hindi temple or Hindu temple, our Lady
21:47
Speaker 1: of the Holy Spirit, which is the Catholic place. There
21:50
Speaker 1: is a there are a couple of Watts we could visit,
21:53
Speaker 1: which are you know, the Buddhist temples. Oh man, you
21:58
Speaker 1: know you find your own super Bowl halftimes.
22:01
Speaker 2: I guess it's what we say. It's true. And we're
22:04
Speaker 2: going to get into some ways that super Bowl halftime
22:07
Speaker 2: shows in and of themselves are and football honestly are
22:11
Speaker 2: a kind of religion. Are a kind of spiritual experience
22:14
Speaker 2: for a lot of people. Right, Oh, yeah, absolutely.
22:17
Speaker 1: And this may not have been apparent in the very
22:22
Speaker 1: first Super Bowl halftime show. It was, you know, to
22:26
Speaker 1: your point, it was by twenty twenty four standards, pretty modest.
22:31
Speaker 1: It's just a way to entertain folks. It is very
22:34
Speaker 1: much a live intermission. And I think the assumption was
22:37
Speaker 1: this is where people visit the restroom. This is where
22:41
Speaker 1: people go get snacks and you know, I guess re
22:44
Speaker 1: up on their sodas or whatever. So they had marching bands,
22:48
Speaker 1: but they said this is a big deal game. So
22:51
Speaker 1: they had two marching bands.
22:53
Speaker 2: That's right, the marching bands of the University of Arizona
22:56
Speaker 2: and Grambling State University. I don't know Gramble State, but
23:01
Speaker 2: I guess they were big at the time. And you know,
23:03
Speaker 2: the idea of combining these bands much like that Battle
23:07
Speaker 2: of the Band situation. Or maybe they weren't combined, but
23:09
Speaker 2: they were certainly playing in tandem and kind of switching off.
23:13
Speaker 2: And I also love this quote from the piece the
23:16
Speaker 2: evolution of the Super Bowl Halftime Show then versus now
23:20
Speaker 2: at andevent dot com. They intended this event to help
23:24
Speaker 2: celebrate collegiate spirit and musicality over commercial spectacle. Oh how
23:29
Speaker 2: far we have fallen since those simpler days.
23:32
Speaker 1: Well, the turns of tables four downs on that one
23:36
Speaker 1: we go to. Also Steven Wood, writing for History in
23:40
Speaker 1: Steven Woods points out a very human individual aspect to
23:45
Speaker 1: the story. He introduces us to a guy named Duke Fields.
23:49
Speaker 1: Duke Fields, domin of Determinism, perhaps is only nineteen years old.
23:53
Speaker 1: During the first halftime show and he plays at the
23:58
Speaker 1: Super Bowl. The super is occurring between the Kansas City
24:02
Speaker 1: Chiefs and the Green Bay Packers. He is a veteran
24:07
Speaker 1: at this point. He's played for Grambling State University for
24:11
Speaker 1: a while now. This is old beans to him. Grambling,
24:14
Speaker 1: by the way, is in Louisiana, and he looks into
24:18
Speaker 1: the stands at the LA Coliseum and he says, I
24:23
Speaker 1: wonder how this gig is going to compare to all
24:27
Speaker 1: the other all the other performances I've done during my
24:30
Speaker 1: time with this band. And he says this, we got
24:35
Speaker 1: to give the direct quote. Then I saw the rocket men.
24:39
Speaker 1: Two guys with jet packs. My god, those things were loud.
24:43
Speaker 1: I know they had jet packs back in ninety six.
24:45
Speaker 1: We were still working on that. We were working on
24:48
Speaker 1: good ones. These are not the good ones.
24:50
Speaker 2: Fair enough, Yeah, two guys with jet packs. He had
24:53
Speaker 2: no idea at the time that he was participating in
24:56
Speaker 2: history and that this meager event, though seemingly a little
25:00
Speaker 2: different with the jet pack men, was going to lay
25:03
Speaker 2: the groundwork for what would become one of the hugest,
25:06
Speaker 2: most ostentatious displays of wealth and pop culture and commerce
25:12
Speaker 2: and advertising in the history of the world. The world,
25:15
Speaker 2: the world.
25:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's go to Bonnie Berkowitz, whom we've mentioned in
25:20
Speaker 1: previous episodes, as well as lazarro Gamio writing for The
25:24
Speaker 1: Washington Post. They say this first show was indeed free
25:29
Speaker 1: of commercialization, what they call bloat. They said, quote two
25:32
Speaker 1: college bands formed shapes of classic Americana such as a
25:36
Speaker 1: paddle boat and the Liberty Belt.
25:38
Speaker 2: Charmy. Yes, but however, despite its wholesome beginnings, there were
25:45
Speaker 2: still some controversies. They go on. All this played out
25:49
Speaker 2: in Los Angeles, which was recovering from the nineteen sixty
25:52
Speaker 2: five Watts riots, which were horrific at the time. The
25:55
Speaker 2: band from Grambling was criticized by some in the African
25:58
Speaker 2: American community for playing amid the climate of racial tension.
26:02
Speaker 2: And this comes from Larry Pannell, who was at the
26:06
Speaker 2: time of this article the director of the band.
26:09
Speaker 1: And we know everything occurs within its own context, and
26:14
Speaker 1: people are pretty talented at figuring out when a show
26:18
Speaker 1: is going to be a hit. So other historically black
26:21
Speaker 1: schools look at the super Bowl look at Grambling State,
26:25
Speaker 1: and they say, this is a huge opportunity for us.
26:28
Speaker 1: This is a huge showcase. This really promotes the visibility
26:33
Speaker 1: of not just our band, but of our own school.
26:36
Speaker 1: So now Grambling is considered a huge trailblazer in this regard.
26:41
Speaker 1: You can actually find footage of the original Super Bowl
26:46
Speaker 1: halftime show on YouTube, but we want to warn you
26:50
Speaker 1: in advance, folks, it is not the best quality. It
26:53
Speaker 1: might as a matter of fact, the quality is so
26:55
Speaker 1: bad that it might be fun just to have a
26:57
Speaker 1: cinema of the mind, you know. I mean look at
26:59
Speaker 1: some still photos.
27:01
Speaker 2: One hundred, I gotta know that. I mean, like, were
27:04
Speaker 2: the jet packs like functional they were flying around, zooming around.
27:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, functional, I would say, functional, but not practical.
27:12
Speaker 2: Okay, it was just for the show.
27:14
Speaker 3: Like they kind of like went up and like they
27:17
Speaker 3: weren't flying into the stands and like a high five people.
27:19
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, they weren't doing you know, bluege these guys
27:22
Speaker 1: were not.
27:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, I understand. Funny thing too, is something as the
27:26
Speaker 2: looms as large as the super Bowl is going to
27:29
Speaker 2: end up having some kind of historical game of tele
27:33
Speaker 2: telephone kind of conspiracy theories surrounding it, or maybe even
27:37
Speaker 2: Mandela effect kind of stuff where it's like, oh, I
27:39
Speaker 2: remember this thing that definitely happened at the super Bowl,
27:42
Speaker 2: but in fact the record would show that it either
27:45
Speaker 2: did not happen or it did not happen the way
27:47
Speaker 2: one might think. Yes.
27:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, So the first halftime show, you've got what counts
27:54
Speaker 1: as a panopoly of variety acts. You got the two
27:57
Speaker 1: marching bands, you got the jet pack stunt, you got
28:00
Speaker 1: pigeons being released, and then for some reason there's a
28:03
Speaker 1: Civil War reenactment, because that goes over well. After that,
28:08
Speaker 1: after the Watts riots, that goes overwell. But one thing
28:11
Speaker 1: it did not have, to the point about myths, it
28:15
Speaker 1: did not have the Three Stooges. But it appears this
28:20
Speaker 1: is actually what we would call a factoid. A factoid
28:25
Speaker 1: is something that sounds true and it is the and
28:28
Speaker 1: is not true. So it is a factoid or a
28:32
Speaker 1: piece of mis info to say the Three Stooges performed
28:35
Speaker 1: at halftime. You can see people even authoritatively listing the
28:40
Speaker 1: bits that the Stooges did. But Snopes are good friends
28:44
Speaker 1: at Snopes, they have found this is in fact false,
28:48
Speaker 1: and it comes from one of the Three Stooges Larry Fine,
28:53
Speaker 1: you know Larry from the Three Stooges from earlier. He
28:57
Speaker 1: says that they performed at the halftime show. But the
29:00
Speaker 1: only record of that being the case comes from this
29:05
Speaker 1: one guy in his one book. We haven't heard from
29:07
Speaker 1: two thirds of the Stooges on this.
29:09
Speaker 2: And what about Shemp? I want to hear from Shemp? Yeah,
29:13
Speaker 2: I want to hear from Jaw Yeah. Wait, what does
29:16
Speaker 2: John say about it?
29:17
Speaker 1: No?
29:17
Speaker 2: That is interesting, how like one little thing like that said,
29:19
Speaker 2: with enough authority can convince enough people that they themselves
29:23
Speaker 2: believe that they saw this thing take place. But no,
29:26
Speaker 2: no proof, no video, evidence, audio, photographic, or otherwise evidence
29:31
Speaker 2: exists of this supposed incident taking place. It sounds to
29:35
Speaker 2: me like fine, maybe with trolling a little bit.
29:38
Speaker 1: Uh huh, I don't know, yeah, one hundred percent. Yeah.
29:41
Speaker 1: In fines defense, let's remember he's a legendary comedian. So
29:46
Speaker 1: when a legendary comedian is writing an autobiography, I think
29:52
Speaker 1: he's writing a humorous book. So I don't think he
29:55
Speaker 1: was intentionally trying to mislead people. This happens all the time.
29:58
Speaker 1: In the Great Game of Telephone, somebody says something as
30:01
Speaker 1: a joke, you fast forward long enough and people are
30:04
Speaker 1: quoting it chapter and verse as though it was the
30:07
Speaker 1: stone cold Steve Austin truth.
30:10
Speaker 2: Well nowadays nowadays too, with like TikTok videos and stuff
30:13
Speaker 2: where people will do things under the guist of satire,
30:15
Speaker 2: but they're really just kind of telling lies with a
30:18
Speaker 2: straight face. That is a really easy way for misinformation
30:22
Speaker 2: to spread if you're not kind of doing your own homework.
30:25
Speaker 2: So be careful out there, guys.
30:34
Speaker 1: Early on our nascent NFL, which hasn't yet formed, it's
30:37
Speaker 1: not quite nineteen seventy, they kept this halftime show idea interesting.
30:43
Speaker 1: The Marching band's a hit. People love the Marching band.
30:46
Speaker 2: You know, the Marching band. I love a parade, and.
30:49
Speaker 1: They also love the songs that are being played, you know,
30:52
Speaker 1: school fight songs, patriotic songs, all the hits, right, So
30:58
Speaker 1: that is a guaranteed winner on the ticket. And then
31:02
Speaker 1: they mainly kept it to for the first couple of years.
31:07
Speaker 1: They mainly kept it to area high school bands.
31:11
Speaker 2: If I'm not mistaken, our dear friend and colleague and
31:14
Speaker 2: stuff that I want you to know. Matt Frederick, Yeah,
31:17
Speaker 2: participated in a Super Bowl as a member of a
31:21
Speaker 2: marching band here in Atlanta.
31:23
Speaker 1: That's correct, and you can hear him tell stories about
31:25
Speaker 1: that on that show over the years.
31:29
Speaker 2: It's a great story.
31:30
Speaker 1: It's an awesome storyteller, and he's got an inside look
31:32
Speaker 1: that I think we all appreciate. You can hear, I
31:36
Speaker 1: believe it's on our episodes about whether or not all
31:39
Speaker 1: sports are rigged.
31:40
Speaker 2: That's right, and that's stuff they don't want you to
31:43
Speaker 2: know the podcast, But yeah, it's true. The NFL really
31:46
Speaker 2: did try to stick to this kind of tried and
31:47
Speaker 2: true formula. And it's kind of interesting too considering where
31:50
Speaker 2: they went in terms of like these bands and all
31:53
Speaker 2: of these medleys and stuff. It kind of started that way.
31:56
Speaker 2: You know. When I say bands, I mean like rock
31:58
Speaker 2: bands and like big pop artists. The initial days of
32:02
Speaker 2: the Super Bowl were still kind of this weird jukebox musical.
32:05
Speaker 2: They just weren't performed by the actual artists themselves.
32:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, and if we go to nineteen seventy, when the
32:13
Speaker 1: NFL officially reaches its final form, we see that the
32:19
Speaker 1: city of New Orleans tried to spice it up a little,
32:23
Speaker 1: you know, add their own jug to it. Is that
32:27
Speaker 1: what rights and it went terribly was it was an
32:34
Speaker 1: utter disaster. An hour before the fourth Super Bowl in
32:39
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy, it's Kansas City and Minnesota playing in New Orleans.
32:44
Speaker 1: The weather Bureau says, hey, there might be some tornadoes
32:48
Speaker 1: on the way, and they say, oh, that's a pickle
32:52
Speaker 1: because we were hoping to land the mascot of the
32:55
Speaker 1: Vikings in a hot air balloon. They did land, just
32:59
Speaker 1: not where they wanted and not how they wanted. The
33:02
Speaker 1: balloon crashes into the stands. No injuries.
33:05
Speaker 2: I was hoping it made it to the Land of Oz.
33:08
Speaker 1: Unfortunately.
33:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a twista. And then all of a sudden,
33:12
Speaker 2: the Wizard of Oz is now like a dude in
33:13
Speaker 2: like a Viking costume. That would be a fun alternate
33:17
Speaker 2: reality version of that story.
33:19
Speaker 1: You got to take the ruby jockstrap.
33:22
Speaker 2: There you go. Oh man, poor Mike Tyson. By the way,
33:26
Speaker 2: can we just talk really quickly? They're talking. Yes, they
33:28
Speaker 2: did him dirty man with that jockstrap interview with his
33:32
Speaker 2: butt hanging out.
33:33
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, where he told that kid everybody dies.
33:36
Speaker 2: Well, that's a different story. If he had been doing
33:39
Speaker 2: that one in a jockstrap, that would have been doubly weird.
33:41
Speaker 2: I call that one like a reverse Wonder Shows, and
33:43
Speaker 2: instead of the kids saying weird existential dread stuff to
33:46
Speaker 2: an adult, it's the other way around, y'all. If you
33:48
Speaker 2: haven't seen this, looking up, its Mike Tyson talking to
33:50
Speaker 2: a little kid who's just excited to be there and
33:53
Speaker 2: is like, what do you want to leave behind for
33:55
Speaker 2: your legacy? It's like we all are just dead. It's
33:57
Speaker 2: a big black nothing sounded like Tony Prano's mom to
34:01
Speaker 2: this little She's like, thank you so much for that perspective.
34:04
Speaker 2: He wasn't being rude to this. He was looking dead
34:08
Speaker 2: in her eyes though, I mean it was intense.
34:11
Speaker 1: He wasn't talking down to her. I think he was
34:13
Speaker 1: trying to give her some hard Tyson truth.
34:16
Speaker 2: I know, man, like, yeah, thanks for crushing my dreams,
34:19
Speaker 2: Mike Tyson.
34:20
Speaker 1: You could have gone different directions. But he got his check.
34:24
Speaker 1: They all got paid. He's fifty eight and will hopefully
34:29
Speaker 1: retire comfortably. But also Netflix fix your streaming. Yeah, point
34:36
Speaker 1: that out.
34:36
Speaker 2: Oh you know, I was. I was actually at a
34:38
Speaker 2: concert when it was happening. It was just kind of
34:40
Speaker 2: getting the live tweet updates or whatever. But it does
34:43
Speaker 2: seem if we're talking about conspiracies. A lot of people
34:46
Speaker 2: do feel like he went a little easy and took
34:49
Speaker 2: some punches, and there's some video of him kind of
34:53
Speaker 2: you know, popping around, popping around. Yeah, but again he
34:56
Speaker 2: also did seem to lack the mobility.
34:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, and having a career that's very punishing to your
35:01
Speaker 1: body for decades. Anyway, they don't We could do a
35:07
Speaker 1: history of boxing too, that'd be I'm starting out. I
35:10
Speaker 1: think I'm a sport too. Now, I think I'm a
35:11
Speaker 1: sport to now put on the list. All right, Yes,
35:15
Speaker 1: I'm glad. Well, I welcome you on your journey. I
35:17
Speaker 1: can't wait to learn about more obscure sports with you.
35:20
Speaker 1: I like the obscure ones. I kind of want to
35:22
Speaker 1: see a Buskashi game. I don't know, we'll see if
35:26
Speaker 1: they tour the US. Good luck getting in and getting out.
35:31
Speaker 1: So the halftime show, the halftime show where the Viking
35:37
Speaker 1: mascot invades the stands. No one's injured.
35:40
Speaker 2: Everybody panics O because he plops down in the stands
35:44
Speaker 2: in thet air balloon. Yes, yeah, the balloon is dangerous.
35:48
Speaker 2: Those things are big.
35:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, it doesn't land where're supposed to landd and even
35:52
Speaker 1: before then, we know from our pal Stephen would a history.
35:55
Speaker 1: Even before then, there was a bad vibe on the game.
35:59
Speaker 1: The national anthem that has performed during all of these
36:02
Speaker 1: games is a flop. They have like a spoken word
36:07
Speaker 1: kind of Shatner version of the national anthem.
36:11
Speaker 2: Oh say can you see yes by the dogs? Yes,
36:18
Speaker 2: Brian though he must have been big at the time.
36:21
Speaker 2: Let's see Pat O'Brien film actor, one hundred screen credits
36:25
Speaker 2: to his name, Irish American actors in though he was
36:29
Speaker 2: Angels with dirty face.
36:30
Speaker 1: Oh, some like a hot he was.
36:32
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, yeah, yah, some like it hot. He was
36:35
Speaker 2: paired with James Cagney a lot. It would seem so
36:37
Speaker 2: kind of a Golden era Hollywood actor past his prime.
36:41
Speaker 2: He would have been kind of trotted out as sort
36:43
Speaker 2: of like a legacy type, you know, piece of Americana. Yeah. Yeah.
36:48
Speaker 1: He was born in eighteen ninety nine, so he's a
36:51
Speaker 1: little up there in years by the time we get
36:53
Speaker 1: to nineteen seventy, which might explain why he was doing
36:56
Speaker 1: spoken word and not singing. He was also called Hollywood's
36:59
Speaker 1: Irishman in residence.
37:01
Speaker 2: Okay, can we also just say really quickly, since we
37:03
Speaker 2: were briefly talking about the Mandela effect, which is this
37:05
Speaker 2: idea that of people remember false memories of a thing
37:09
Speaker 2: that did not actually occur, like the three Stooges performing
37:12
Speaker 2: at the first Super Bowl halftime show. Kazam, Shazam and
37:16
Speaker 2: Kazam any number, of course, named after the famous activist
37:21
Speaker 2: politician freedom fighter Nelson Mandela, who many people believed had
37:25
Speaker 2: died in prison, which was not in fact the case.
37:28
Speaker 2: So that's where that comes from.
37:29
Speaker 1: Check out our episode on this I'll give you, We'll
37:31
Speaker 1: give you this spoiler. Some people also got confused to
37:34
Speaker 1: call it the Mandala effect. And the whole reason the
37:37
Speaker 1: Mandela effect got its name is because these people were
37:40
Speaker 1: arguing about what really happened to Nelson Mandela, and they
37:43
Speaker 1: were so set in their way about it that instead
37:45
Speaker 1: of saying, Oops, maybe we were incorrect, they said, oh,
37:49
Speaker 1: the past has changed and the multiverse is real, because
37:53
Speaker 1: otherwise that would mean we were mistaken.
37:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, that would be way too inconvenient. So for me,
37:59
Speaker 2: I think I don't know if anybody else's experienced this.
38:01
Speaker 2: Pat O'Brien was actually in a kind of noirresh gangster
38:05
Speaker 2: movie with Jimmy Cagney called Angels with Dirty Faces that
38:10
Speaker 2: I always got flipped with Angels with Filthy Souls, the
38:16
Speaker 2: fake gangster movie from the Home Alone movies I believed
38:21
Speaker 2: was real, and I was confirming that by the existence
38:25
Speaker 2: of Angels with Dirty Faces, because I looked it up
38:27
Speaker 2: and I thought that was the movie. But it was
38:29
Speaker 2: actually Angel with Filthy Souls, which they shoot to look
38:32
Speaker 2: very authentic, and the name is obviously a reference to this,
38:35
Speaker 2: but no, that movie, in fact was created for the films.
38:38
Speaker 1: And Angels with Dirty Faces starring Pad O'Brien, comes out
38:42
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty eight. He's probably more notable for some
38:44
Speaker 1: like a Hot in nineteen fifty nine, but in this,
38:49
Speaker 1: in this milieu, what we're telling you is there was
38:52
Speaker 1: a celebrity at the top of this super Bowl, the
38:55
Speaker 1: fourth Super Bowl, doing the spoken word, like a rendition
39:00
Speaker 1: of the national anthem, and there's a trumpet player and
39:03
Speaker 1: a marching band that are accompanying him. So he needs
39:06
Speaker 1: a mic to be heard because there's a big crowd
39:09
Speaker 1: as well, there are a lot of instruments around. His
39:12
Speaker 1: mic cuts off as he's reading the national anthem? What
39:17
Speaker 1: does the band do? It's just it's an awkward vibe,
39:20
Speaker 1: which sometimes is worse than a scary vibe. And then
39:24
Speaker 1: let's see we go through the game, first two quarters,
39:27
Speaker 1: Kansas City is just running it. And then came the
39:33
Speaker 1: halftime show, which one sports writer called a Roman circus.
39:38
Speaker 1: You know why because they did a battle reenactment.
39:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, but they kind of took some creative that's being
39:44
Speaker 2: generous liberties. Let's just call them liberties. The Battle of
39:48
Speaker 2: New Orleans history buffs may remember from history. This was
39:53
Speaker 2: a reenactment of this historic battle, involving hundreds of re tours,
40:01
Speaker 2: a recreation of the white stallion of Andrew Jackson. Not
40:06
Speaker 2: a good guy by the way, Andrew Jackson, very very racist,
40:10
Speaker 2: horrible figure, but at the time I think maybe he
40:13
Speaker 2: still had some sheen to him because this was kind
40:15
Speaker 2: of meant this is there was not really a partisan
40:17
Speaker 2: aspects to this game. I think they were doing this
40:20
Speaker 2: or intending this to appeal to everyone, which is interesting
40:23
Speaker 2: because nowadays it seems like it's to be way off base. Right.
40:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would agree that saying taking creative liberties is
40:31
Speaker 1: perhaps a bit too diplomatic. Their quote unquote reenactment that
40:37
Speaker 1: had hundreds and hundreds of participants, it was a lot
40:41
Speaker 1: more like someone with too much money had once had
40:44
Speaker 1: a conversation about the Battle of New Orleans and then said, okay, yeah,
40:49
Speaker 1: let's do So there were definitely cannons.
40:52
Speaker 2: I had to be it was making really loud. That'll
40:55
Speaker 2: be a nice spectacle. It's interesting though, too, because that
40:57
Speaker 2: Roman circus comment that you mentioned, you know, they would
41:01
Speaker 2: in Roman colisseums, they would flood them at times, and
41:04
Speaker 2: like reenact sea battles and things like that. And I've
41:07
Speaker 2: always I'm sure this isn't like a unique take, but
41:09
Speaker 2: kind of likened football and the spectacle of it all
41:14
Speaker 2: to like gladiator battles, and like, you know, you are
41:16
Speaker 2: literally doing it in a Roman style colosseum. So this
41:20
Speaker 2: I guess maybe there was somebody involved that thought this
41:23
Speaker 2: made sense, let's bring it back to our history but
41:26
Speaker 2: also nod to the history that kind of you know,
41:29
Speaker 2: led to this type of spectacle. But they did a
41:32
Speaker 2: pretty bad job.
41:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, because you know, whenever you're about to get high fallutin,
41:38
Speaker 1: you have to ask yourself, should I just stick with
41:40
Speaker 1: regular fllutin?
41:41
Speaker 2: I love getting high fallutin. It's this so we know.
41:44
Speaker 1: That the the reenactment was uh not really great because
41:51
Speaker 1: the Andrew Jackson, the horse that Andrew Jackson was riding,
41:57
Speaker 1: just bolted and freaked out when they exploded these cannons.
42:00
Speaker 1: Imagine that right, And there was a weird twist. I
42:07
Speaker 1: guess they're trying to invoke their own Mandela effect the
42:11
Speaker 1: Yanks and the Frenchmen in the Battle of New Orleans.
42:15
Speaker 1: The re enactors are sprawled on the ground, fake dead,
42:19
Speaker 1: but the red coated British are still just fire and
42:21
Speaker 1: away zippity doo dah falutin high and an opera singer
42:27
Speaker 1: is singing Basin Street blues during this halftime circus in
42:33
Speaker 1: the Sugar Bowl. But even though she's an opera singer,
42:36
Speaker 1: trumpets are loud and another trumpet player drowns her out.
42:41
Speaker 1: A newspaper column list and sports fans alike don't love this.
42:47
Speaker 1: It feels like the pendulum has swung too far in
42:50
Speaker 1: the direction of the halftime show instead of the actual show,
42:54
Speaker 1: the Super Bowl. One sports writer damned it with faint praise, saying,
42:59
Speaker 1: fortunately they sneaked a football game in between. Well that
43:03
Speaker 1: jazz they sneaked, wouldn't it be snuck? Well, yeah, maybe
43:09
Speaker 1: this is an old timy way of saying I get it. No,
43:11
Speaker 1: but that's funny though, because like it really that does
43:13
Speaker 1: kind of to some seem like what it's become, like
43:17
Speaker 1: the game is almost an afterthought compared to the advertisements
43:22
Speaker 1: and the halftime show. And we know the next series
43:26
Speaker 1: of Super Bowl performances tried to course correct, to swing
43:30
Speaker 1: the pendulum back to the stuff that you worked, local
43:34
Speaker 1: marching bands. There were exceptions where they had folks dance
43:39
Speaker 1: on a giant birthday cake, like the nineteen seventy six
43:43
Speaker 1: celebration of America's founding with.
43:46
Speaker 2: Like a showgirl popping out wearing feathers and diamonds. I
43:50
Speaker 2: think they were dancing on the cames on it, Okay,
43:52
Speaker 2: I just love I love someone emerging from a giant
43:54
Speaker 2: fake birthday cake. Oh yeah, we have an episode about
43:57
Speaker 2: how messed up that past is, don't Oh we do.
44:00
Speaker 2: There was an unfortunate event, I believe where a woman
44:04
Speaker 2: did not in fact make it out of the birthday cake.
44:08
Speaker 1: But when it works is normal. It's a fun time.
44:10
Speaker 2: It's a lot of fun, and you know, they've come
44:11
Speaker 2: a long way in birthday cake emerging safety those days.
44:16
Speaker 1: And there were other you know, funny one offs in
44:19
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy nine, they were trying to parade around a
44:25
Speaker 1: float called Salute to the Caribbean, but they snagged a
44:29
Speaker 1: goalpost and they couldn't get it off the field. That
44:32
Speaker 1: was more of a funny thing. And then of course
44:35
Speaker 1: fans storming the stage in nineteen eighty two, it looked
44:40
Speaker 1: like they were just invading. Looked like a riot was
44:43
Speaker 1: on the way. And then just like that improv Everywhere group,
44:46
Speaker 1: they broke out into a choreograph dance.
44:49
Speaker 2: It's just like the original flash Mob. Yeah, like flash Mob, Okay,
44:53
Speaker 2: And then you start getting a little bit more corporate
44:55
Speaker 2: where you start having some crossovers or let's call them
44:58
Speaker 2: collabse with other massive entertainment leviathans like the Walt Disney
45:04
Speaker 2: Company in nineteen eighty four participated in staging a massive
45:09
Speaker 2: performance that included Mickey Mouse himself. Than in nineteen eighty five,
45:15
Speaker 2: we saw a show that had just about everything. They
45:19
Speaker 2: really just threw everything at the wall and to see
45:22
Speaker 2: what's stuck.
45:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they learned that there is a law of
45:27
Speaker 1: diminishing returns for variety shows that kicks in, especially when
45:32
Speaker 1: you're a Matroshka dol format You're a show within a show,
45:36
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, And it's important for them
45:37
Speaker 1: to remember that. As the eighties wrap up and as
45:41
Speaker 1: the super Bowl is getting its stadium sea legs, it
45:45
Speaker 1: becomes more and more popular, and the traditional halftime show
45:49
Speaker 1: becomes less and less popular because it's the same old thing.
45:53
Speaker 2: Right.
45:54
Speaker 1: I've heard somebody play this song, I know that marching
45:58
Speaker 1: band this.
45:59
Speaker 2: I've seen people dressed up in furry type costumes, you know,
46:03
Speaker 2: prancing around the fields.
46:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, a hot air balloon hitting the stands whatever. We
46:08
Speaker 1: weirdly have that at home.
46:10
Speaker 2: Been there, done that? No, it's true. And at this
46:13
Speaker 2: point too, the game itself is really starting to hit
46:16
Speaker 2: it stride and becoming massively popular, starting to approach that
46:20
Speaker 2: level of sensation that we know it today. But the
46:24
Speaker 2: halftime show just wasn't keeping up with that. So we
46:26
Speaker 2: can probably pause right now, just before we get to
46:30
Speaker 2: the modern super Bowl halftime show.
46:33
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, and the madness that will ensue you. So
46:37
Speaker 1: join us later this week for part two of the
46:40
Speaker 1: history of the super Bowl halftime show. We want we
46:44
Speaker 1: can't wait for your explorer with us, folks, We've got
46:46
Speaker 1: you right to the right to the cusp as Nola's
46:48
Speaker 1: saying of the more modern celebrations, Big big thanks to
46:53
Speaker 1: Max Williams, our super producer, Big big thanks of course
46:57
Speaker 1: to aj Bahamas. Jacob's big thanks to who's the football
47:02
Speaker 1: team that needs the most like empathy? And you'll get
47:06
Speaker 1: them next time?
47:07
Speaker 2: Kind of the angel buffle built.
47:10
Speaker 3: They lost four Super Bowls in the eighties.
47:11
Speaker 2: All right, Well the Angels are a baseball seven and
47:14
Speaker 2: I was thinking of angels in the outfield. Surely there's
47:16
Speaker 2: a football equivalent.
47:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, yeah, Bud Golden receiver, and and thank you
47:23
Speaker 1: and good luck to the Buffalo Williams out there.
47:26
Speaker 2: Can you also give huge thanks to Jonathan Strickland, the quiztor,
47:29
Speaker 2: who quite often back in the day on his podcast
47:32
Speaker 2: Tex Stuff would would talk about the hyper Bowl meaning hyperbole,
47:37
Speaker 2: but as the hyper Bowl hyper Bowl would have been
47:40
Speaker 2: a pretty cool futuristic name for a game like this.
47:45
Speaker 2: Also stand by Mega Bowl.
47:47
Speaker 1: Yeah it's still gonna happen. He's a big, big taste
47:51
Speaker 1: to the quiztor, Big big taste to Alex Williams who
47:53
Speaker 1: composed this slap and Bob who else know who else?
47:56
Speaker 2: Christopher House you know us and he's Jeff Coats here
47:58
Speaker 2: in spirit. Ben, thank you, thank you for co authoring
48:04
Speaker 2: this amazing two part brief with our buddy and super
48:07
Speaker 2: producer Max Williams. This has been a romp and I
48:09
Speaker 2: look forward to getting into part two next.
48:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is the cool part, folks.
48:14
Speaker 2: So as we call it, as.
48:16
Speaker 1: We call it a day, we like to take a
48:18
Speaker 1: little break in between these What do you think our
48:21
Speaker 1: halftime show is just just for the three of us
48:25
Speaker 1: at our pets.
48:26
Speaker 2: Well, I'm gonna go have a nice coffee and I
48:29
Speaker 2: am going to do some strange statue reconstruction. Love that.
48:34
Speaker 2: We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
48:44
Speaker 2: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
48:47
Speaker 2: to your favorite shows.