Monday, February 08, 2010

Paging Dr. Kevorkian

I'm not generally in favor of euthanasia, however, I think it is time the Super Bowl Halftime Spectacular be put out of its misery. Like most things surrounding the game, the halftime show has grown bloated and meaningless. Don't get me wrong, I like The Who, but last night's CSI theme song medley was boring and hardly surprising or spectacular. Maybe some Woodstock-era broads enjoyed getting a peek at Pete Townsend's old man paunch every time his shirt flipped up; I can assure you I did not. Like the last five or six performances, last night's was unnecessary, yet hardly the nadir of halftime spectaculars.

Though many would probably point to the Janet Jackson NipSlip as the low point, I think it was actually three years prior. The 2001 "Kings of Rock and Pop" disaster featuring Aerosmith, NSync, Britney Spears, Mary J Blige, Nelly and others was the blunt force trauma that rendered our patient a vegetable. Overdone, overstuffed and poorly lip-synched, this garbage made me want to pluck out my eyeballs and use them as earplugs. Since then there have been a few hand squeezes (U2 after 9/11, Paul McCartney) giving false hope that our halftime show might recover. Mostly, however, we've been subjected to great but safe (old) performers giving lackluster (tired) performances beefed up by too many fireworks and too little freshness. I say unless the Elvis, Michael Jackson, Tupac Reunion Tour is debuting next February at Cowboys Stadium, it is time to pull the plug and let the Super Bowl Halftime Spectacular exhale its last breath.

2 comments:

Rob said...

Excellent point, B.

Still, I question if this is even an improvement to those Tommy Tune/Broadway/Up with People snoozefests of years gone (thankfully) by.

Honestly, I fell asleep waiting for the half-Who to finish. They should have lip-synced, that would have been better, as it was, I noticed that Pete was play-syncing, albeit poorly, to a recorded track. I liked the light show for the first minute or so, then once B spotted the halftime clock, and asked what it was, I becamed fixated with 'at least there is only 12 more minutes..." Next thing I know I here the announcers gushing about the on-side kick. Nice nap all in all.

Oh, if they could add Jimi Hendrix and James Brown, not JB, but the hardest working corpse in the after-life, to the show next year, I'll watch.

Stick said...

It is a wonder that they can't get any modern performers to play in the Superbowl... I suppose Janet and Justin ruined that for us all. Seriously, since 2004 we've had McCartney, the Stones, Prince, Tom Petty, Springsteen, and the Who. Now, granted, Springsteen had a post-9/11 comeback, but really. Let's get someone from the last decade, at least?