CSotD: The Super Bowl, with extra glurge
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(Editor's note: An earlier version of this posting assumed a later kickoff. The wretched excess factor remains intact.)
Sometimes it takes a bit of soul-wrenching personal experience to make a cartoonist sensitive to the wrongs of this world.
Non Sequitur creator Wiley Miller moved from California to Maine a few years back and seems very happy with the change most of the time, but today he is surely missing life in the Pacific Time Zone. The hours of pre-game hype won't matter so much if the game actually kicks off at a decent hour, however, and at least the announced kickoff time for this year's Super Bowl is not as late as the usual Monday and Thursday night games during the regular season. Fair enough.
But Wiley is right on about the interminable interviews, analysis, product plugs, sentimental feature stories and shots of tailgating that precede the game itself.
Of all the Super Bowl Pre-Game features I've watched in the last four decades or so, I remember exactly two: One was about a player whose father, when he was a kid, brought him down to the steel mill where the father worked, in order to show him why he wanted his boy to do well in school and develop his talents. I don't remember who the player was, but it was a touching piece with two articulate, thoughtful men and well-executed.
In other words, it was nothing like the cloying glurge that makes up the usual pre-Super Bowl feature.
The other was before the Broncos/Packers game in 1998, and it was a funny piece that showed Brett Favre doing his imitation of John Elway. What was funny about it was that, once the game started, he didn't come across very much like Elway anymore and the Pack lost, 31-24. I had followed the Broncos for about 25 years by then, and I'd have laughed at anything that night.
(I respected Favre then, but I suspect that about 75 percent of the people rooting for Green Bay tonight would be doubly pleased if the network gave them the option of a pop-up window in the corner of the screen where they could watch Brett sitting in his recliner at home watching Aaron Rodgers play.)
And if all the pre-game padding weren't enough, we'll have the extra-long special-edition halftime show. You can't quite fly off to warmer climes and play golf during the halftime show, but it really is a triumph of wretched excess that helps push the end of the game a little closer towards dawn.
On one of the sports networks, I heard a former player talk about how the longer halftime frustrates the teams, because they have an internal sense of time and have built up an instinct for what halftime should feel like, so that they're ready to get back out on the field and start the third quarter at a point when the fireworks and concert are still happening and they have to cool their heels and wait it out.
Not that the teams actually figure into this extravaganza very much. A girlfriend of mine who was taking a course on propaganda in college wrote a fine paper during the first Gulf War, about how the Super Bowl Halftime Show helped promote the war to the American people. Had this been in the Age of Blogs, it might have gone viral. It was a brilliant piece, largely because she had no interest in sports and could view the thing cold.
For my part, depending on how close the game is, I may be driving home while the Black-eyed Peas are proving that all halftime shows are the same, no matter who you put up on the stage. And, given that it will be a 15 mile drive over snow-packed roads, I won't mind if they take their time and maybe play an encore.
No reason to rush things.
Mike Peterson has posted his "Comic Strip of the Day" column every day since 2010. His opinions are his own, but we welcome comments either agreeing or in opposition.
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