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A hundred yards telling a hundred stories!
Its funny because its such a mismatch of subject and sensibility.
Heres this flamboyant little lad, trying to apply dramaturge to the big game!
One chuckles at the thought!
It didnt used to be this way.
.1967: Super Sights and Sounds
.
Also: more pigeons.
Theparody version of theminThe Simpsonsis called Hooray for Everything!
and they perform a halftime show called A Salute to the Western Hemisphere: The Dancin-est Hemisphere of All!
.1980: A Salute to the Big-Band Era
Oh no.
Oh no no no no no.
Someone let Up With People onto the field again, and this time theyre in primary colors.
If you thought their clean-cut take on grooviness was bad, this time theyre channeling the 1940s.
Theres also a conga line.
Its so bad its mesmerizing.
.1983: KaleidoSUPERscope
This one rules.
The transitions are these cutaway interstitials of trippy kaleidoscopic effects.
Who is Robert Jani?
The first line of his Wikipedia entry calls him an American event producer who specialized in spectaculars.
This clears up nothing at all, but this halftime show soothes my soul.
This is another Disney production, so its Busby Berkeley by way of Magic Kingdom.
This is one for the Disney gays.
Glad to see they were putting that budget toward another jetpack routine!
.1986: Beat of the Future
UP WITH PEOPLE IS BACK AND THEYVE MULTIPLIED.
The aerial shots make them look like an ant colony.
Were they a cult?
There are some wild costumes here; Chip and Dale wear assless chaps.
It was the first-ever connection broadcast in 3-D, and its as absolutely fucking bananas as its name suggests.
And whats the content of the show itself?
Did they get a celebrity?
They got an Elvis impersonator-slash-magician named Elvis Presto.
The effect is a sort of Che Diaz uncanniness.
And thats watching it in just two dimensions.
Charlie Brown should not be six feet tall and holding a jazz- processional umbrella.
That is except for the Disney costume characters (Roger Rabbit!)
and New Kids on the Block.
The kids all wave American flags while George H.W.
Bush gives a video address.
You cant unsee this.
.1992: Winter Magic, a Salute to the 1992 Winter Olympics
Snowflakes on parade!
Dorothy Hamill and Brian Boitano doing simultaneous but separate lyrical figure-skating routines!
CHILDREN IN HAMMER PANTS DOING A RAP!
Minnesota put its whole Superbussy into this one.
.1995: Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Forbidden Eye
Must be seen to be believed.
Extremely offensive on a million levels.
And yet completely goes off in a way no other halftime show has ever done before or since.
Could this be the only halftime show that has a plot?
Shirtless men fan her while she moves about the stage, pyrotechnics shooting off to match her riffs.
This wasnt a Super Bowl halftime performance.
It was a defining moment in culture.
Then the puppets come in.
The puppets are huge and faceless, featureless.
Christina Aguilera and Enrique Iglesias sing a duet about putting your hand on the future.
He keeps talking in zen spoken-word paeans like this while more interpretive dancers flood the stage.
Behold the great millennium walk, says Olmos, and the giant puppets do a dance.
Children circle around her, waving dove hand puppets.
The show closes out with fireworks.
In this ten-minute display of pre-9/11 optimism, I think Disney may have … invented a new religion?
How bittersweet, that this bonkers salute to the future was the end of an era.
