Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers will be headlining the Super Bowl XLII halftime show this year, and it has indeed come a long way.
The first halftime show at Super Bowl I were the marching bands of the Universities of Arizona and Michigan. Back then, the big game took place in the daytime and the cost for ad time wasn't that much, though the latter would change after the Apple Macintosh commercial during Super Bowl XVIII.
Yes, Super Bowl halftime would be the one break to head to the kitchen and refill on some snacks for the second half while boring ourselves to meaningless musical numbers; some of them were by Up With People. But all that was about to change forever.
"Winter Magic" was Super Bowl XXVI's halftime spectacular in 1992 with Gloria Estefan and Olympic figure skaters Dorothy Hamill and Brian Boitano. It was more like a craptacular than a spectacular, and Fox -- who didn't have any sports at the time -- knew this would be their big chance to lure us away from that by running a live halftime episode of "In Living Color." The end result: 20 to 25 MILLION viewers tuned in to that, immediately waking up the NFL who decided to get big name acts for halftime, starting with Michael Jackson for SBXXVII.
And then of course came THE halftime show that changed the face of the entertainment world forever: Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson. You all know the rest of the story.
But what were your best and worst SB halftime shows? My best has to be U2 and Paul McCartney from XXXVI and XXXIX respectively. Worst would be XXIX (Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Forbidden Eye), XXV (Small World Salute to 25 Years of the Super Bowl; it wasn't aired live because ABC News had the "Peter Jennings Updates the Gulf War Situation" halftime show (according to one person on the newsgroups) and I had to wait till after "Davis Rules" following the game for that!), the aforementioned Winter Magic, and of course, Justin and Janet getting nasty.
Jonathan Allen
The first halftime show at Super Bowl I were the marching bands of the Universities of Arizona and Michigan. Back then, the big game took place in the daytime and the cost for ad time wasn't that much, though the latter would change after the Apple Macintosh commercial during Super Bowl XVIII.
Yes, Super Bowl halftime would be the one break to head to the kitchen and refill on some snacks for the second half while boring ourselves to meaningless musical numbers; some of them were by Up With People. But all that was about to change forever.
"Winter Magic" was Super Bowl XXVI's halftime spectacular in 1992 with Gloria Estefan and Olympic figure skaters Dorothy Hamill and Brian Boitano. It was more like a craptacular than a spectacular, and Fox -- who didn't have any sports at the time -- knew this would be their big chance to lure us away from that by running a live halftime episode of "In Living Color." The end result: 20 to 25 MILLION viewers tuned in to that, immediately waking up the NFL who decided to get big name acts for halftime, starting with Michael Jackson for SBXXVII.
And then of course came THE halftime show that changed the face of the entertainment world forever: Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson. You all know the rest of the story.
But what were your best and worst SB halftime shows? My best has to be U2 and Paul McCartney from XXXVI and XXXIX respectively. Worst would be XXIX (Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Forbidden Eye), XXV (Small World Salute to 25 Years of the Super Bowl; it wasn't aired live because ABC News had the "Peter Jennings Updates the Gulf War Situation" halftime show (according to one person on the newsgroups) and I had to wait till after "Davis Rules" following the game for that!), the aforementioned Winter Magic, and of course, Justin and Janet getting nasty.
Jonathan Allen
