No time for halftime
For this week’s column I decided to ignore the political circus in Washington, D.C., and focus instead on another three-ring show set to take place Feb. 7: Super Bowl LV. I’m not here to criticize football, but I’m not a diehard fan. I last watched the Super Bowl to gloat when Darth Brady of the New England Galactic Empire lost to the Rebel Scum Eagles in 2018. Yet, I have no quarrel with football. I do, however, hate Super Bowl halftime shows. You see, I was scarred psychically by being in a high school marching band.
Some high schools and colleges 50+ years ago were adventurous: their members might form a steamboat with a moving paddlewheel. But my band’s 150 members could form only pinwheels and diamonds – we were too uncoordinated even to high step and lean back in time to the “St. Louis Blues March.” If you’ve ever been clubbed by a fiberglass sousaphone, you’ll understand my angst.
Besides, what passes for entertainment at Super Bowl halftime shows has nearly always been forgettable. Can you name the acts at Super Bowl I in 1967? I couldn’t, so I’ll save you Googling. I was delighted to see that one of the acts listed by “Sports Illustrated” was the Three Stooges! But the story, taken from Stooge Larry Fine’s autobiography, proved to be apocryphal. Despite Larry’s recollection that he, Moe and Curly Joe had “wowed ’em” with their classic “Niagara Falls” routine, the slapstick trio did not appear.
Super Bowl I’s halftime actually featured three marching bands, including Grambling State University’s highly choreographed ensemble. Newspaper archives tell me that the ’67 Grambling band – then, as now, known for “speed marching” – had only one female member, a majorette. Why? Because, then-director Conrad Hutchinson Jr. told a California newspaper, “coeds can’t stand the strain of the band’s quick tempo.” And you wonder why the Women’s Liberation movement happened?
For 23 years marching bands, along with family friendly acts such as “Up with People,” were the mainstays of Super Bowl halftime shows. But in 1991, sponsors decided that superstar rock acts might attract younger viewers. New Kids on the Block was the first supernova act to appear, followed by a spinning galaxy of rising, blazing and dying stars that lasted till 2003.
But the following year Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake drove a stake through the heart of Middle America by “accidentally” revealing one of Janet’s breasts at the close of their final number. The FCC levied fines against CBS, and Jackson, who coined the phrase “wardrobe malfunction” as an excuse, was banned from further Super Bowl appearances. Timberlake, being a white man, has since appeared twice. And you wonder if the Women’s Liberation movement actually worked?
Cute Beatle Paul McCartney, being a safe bet not to reveal a breast, was the wholesome choice for Super Bowl XXXIX in 2005. Since then shows have resembled a short novel titled “Super Bowl’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Halftimes.”
I had hoped that this year, producers faced with a pandemic-thinned crowd in Joe Robbie Stadium would set right the wrong they created in 1967 by not having the Three Stooges perform. I thought maybe the now-coed Grambling Band could scramble around the field haphazardly, then form the bouncing heads of Moe, Larry and Curly, gouging out eyes and slapping cheeks to the tune of the Stooge’s signature “The Alphabet Song” (“B-A Bay, B-E Be …”).
No such luck. Super Bowl LV halftime show producer Pepsi has declared it will “double down” on the typical 12-minute time allotted time by producing a 24-minute epic featuring Canadian Pop star The Weeknd, whose music I can best describe as akin to the incessant sound of the rhythmically thrumming jet engines on the 13-hour flight from Detroit to Tokyo.
No Stooges? Those knuckleheads!