Got three for you today, as we count it down:
First, from the excellent Prelinger archives, this (Quicktime) video from 30 years ago -- Super Bowl IX 1/2 -- features the very young, pre-SNL pair of Christopher Guest and "Bill (Billy) Murray" trying doughtily to coax some laughs out of NFL and CBS personalities of the day playing a touch football game in Miami just before X was played.
They don't really succeed, but there are some flashes, and not just in a time-capsule sorta way. Witness this exchange between the late Johnny Unitas and Paul Hornung, who was suspended for a season in the 1960s for betting on NFL games:
Hornung: Tell the guys no fair patting on the ass. No fair winking off ... John's betting on the other team again.
Unitas: Nine points! Ha-ha-ha! I took that!
(Snip)
Murray: (Hornung) hasn't changed a bit, though. He told me just before pregame he had $600 bet on his own blue team. As long as he's betting for his team, I think it's for a good cause.
The Supe sideshow has gone from such lo-fi charms to farting horses, Janet Jackson's boob -- and in the second link of the day, Lingerie Bowl III, which must be paying its bills. The near-naked models with the blacking under the eyes are back and the LB has apparently expanded, with Dennis Rodman as commissioner and the girls wearing the uniforms, such as they are, of the Dallas Desire, the Los Angeles Temptation. This is "every man's Super Bowl Sunday fantasy" according to the voiceover, evidently ignoring the presence of Rodman. Kind of makes Phyllis George's protestations of sexism to Billy Murray's sideline questions to be kinda quaint, eh?
But hold that fantasy and wait one bra-snappin' minute, announcer man. Today's final link comes from Outsports, the website that looks at sports including the NFL through a different coloured lens: It's the Gay Super Bowl Party, where patting on the ass, I'd guess, is fair game.
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