The Big Super Bowl Game

 

 "Football combines two of the worst things in American life.  It is violence punctuated by committee meetings"   -George Will

 

How old am I?  I am "I remember when people talked about The Super Bowl, they talked about the game and not the commercials or the Half Time Show" old.

Believe it or not, I remember the first Super Bowl, which saw The Kansas City Chiefs playing the Green Bay Packers.  The game was on two different networks, NBC (which only showed that Communist League, The AFL) and CBS (which broadcasted the only sanctified league, The NFL).

This is important.  The game was broadcasted "in color" because that was the latest in modern technology. It is important because we were one of the first homes in Beverly Hills (the subdivision in Marietta, Georgia-not the fancy city in California)to have a color TV set.   It was one of the few times (actually, it was the only time) when the Manis family was an early adopter of any new technology.

If memory serves me right, it was not called "The Super Bowl" back then.  It was called "Watch The Green Bay Packers Kick The Tail Ends Of The Other Stupid League" or something like that.  I was in the second grade, so give me a break. 

The first Super Bowl game was important because of this picture of Chief quarterback Len Dawson smoking a heater and drinking a Fresca at the end of the game.  Fresca was considered an energy drink in 1967.

Green Bay was in "The Big Game" again the following year, playing the Oakland Raiders. The Raiders were led by a guy named Darryl Harmonica or Lamonica or something.  The Packers were led by Bart Starr, who I saw one time at Town Center Mall. I kept saying, "BART STARR! BART STARR!" like Scooby-Doo said when he met Don Knotts. (Trust me, this was a hilarious episode.)  I was an adult by this time, and my wife kept hiding her face for some reason. But, Bart looked at me and that's all that matters. 

The following season was the pivotal Super Bowl. The New York Jets, whose quarterback was a known hippie named Joe Namath, beat the heavily favored Baltimore Colts. There was only one person in my fourth-grade class who thought the Jets would win, and it was a boy named Craig, who reminded everyone in East Cobb about this for the next fifty years. 

One fact about the Big Game that gets lost in the commotion is that it used to occur in mid-January. After it was over,  you would have to watch either pro basketball or college basketball or (take this cup from me, Lord) hockey for your sports entertainment. Since I'm from the South, I've never really understood hockey until they began to fight. I'm too short to understand basketball.

The Super Bowl began to grow into the most important date on the calendar, right after Christmas.  I've always considered it the actual New Year's Day. 

The date of The Super Bowl began to push forwards in January.  I thought it was terrible that it happened on the first Sunday in February.  Now it is the second Sunday in February. Mark my words, the Super Bowl will be soon held on the first Sunday of March.  

Way back in the early Super Bowl days, the Half-Time shows were really lame. High School Bands.  There were several years in which a group called "Up With People" sang at the Half-Time Show, which was called "Half-Time."

Now it is known as THE PEPSI SUPER BOWL LVI HALFTIME SHOW BECAUSE COCA-COLA SUCKS FEATURING FAMILY ENTERTAINMENT LIKE SNOOP DOG AND EMINEM.

For some reason, I don't think the Halftime show became a big deal until Michael Jackson did it.  Then each Super Bowl tried to outdo the last Super Bowl, culminating with a cameo appearance of Janet Jackson's right bosom due to a wardrobe malfunction.

After that, The Super Bowl had a series of Dad rockers like Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones, and Tom Petty. Their bosoms, thankfully, never made any appearances.

 When people forgot about the Janet incident, The Super Bowl began to update their half-time shows.  One year, they had the group Oasis because you think of Oasis when you think of football.

This year it is the first time it will be an all Rap artist half-time show.  I'm looking forward to it because I can review all of the commercials with my wife when it is going on.

I want to say it was 1984 when commercials became a big deal at The Super Bowl.  Now the ads are about as big as the game.     

Now get this:  some companies are running "trailers" (what we in the South call "previews" for their commercials to generate excitement over their Super Bowl commercials.  Pretty soon, they will run a trailers of the trailers, and the goobs on TV will talk about which company has the best trailer.

 I haven't read what the theme of the commercials will be this year.  I remember one year the theme was "men are bad," and another year it was "horses fart." 

I don't know if people are doing Super Bowl parties this year.  I heard Len Dawson is having one. He's serving Fresca.