Monday, February 07, 2011

Super Bowl Half-time Shows

This question came up at Poltergeist manor and I thought that the answer was interesting enough to share. What did they used to do for Super Bowl half-time shows? Well, according to Wikipedia . . .
  • From the first Super Bowl in 1967 until 1975 the shows were mostly college marching bands. Ella Fitzgerald did perform with Carol Channing and USMC drill team in 1972 but that doesn't sound too different to me.
  • In 1976 the group 'Up With People' started appearing (sometimes with marching bands), with four shows in eleven years. The other years were again marching bands and their military brethren.
  • 1987 gave us the fresh stylings of George Burns, Mickey Rooney and . . . more marching bands. 1988 stayed current with Chubby Checker and the Rockettes. In 1989 they pulled out all of the stops and gave us Elvis Presto (man, myth, legend) and in 1990 we got the immortals Pete Fountain, Doug Kershaw and Irma Thomas.
  • 1991 really starts the big time star phase of the Super Bowl. Any guesses who kicked that off? New Kids On the Block (a big favorite of my sister).
  • After that was Gloria Estafan, Michael Jackson, Clint Black and so on and so on. All recognizable names. All something of an event all in themselves. (I'm rather generously including Tom Petty in the 'event' category.)
I thought last night was fine, if you ignore the sound problems. My personal favorites were easily U2 following the 2001 season and Prince in the rain for the 2007 Super Bowl.
The half-time stuff really isn't meant for me to enjoy and mostly I don't. I don't really have any good ideas on how to improve it or who else should be invited. Well, maybe the Mythbusters guys. I bet they could do a pretty bang up job . . .

1 comment:

DD4 said...

I thought Christina A murdered the National Anthem, and I used the half time to get a snack and call a friend.