This column is composed of Super Bowl trivia but let’s start with a true-false question. T-or-F: The Three Stooges were halftime entertainers at the first Super Bowl in 1967?
Sunday, of course, was the Super Bowl and what a game it was. What a feast, too. Americans eat more food Super Bowl Sunday than any other day in the year except Thanksgiving.
Nine of the 10 highest rated television programs of all time are Super Bowls. The 10this actually No. 1 on list—was the final episode of M*A*S*H.
With a nod to our national party day, here’s some trivia you may or may not have known about the Super Bowl:
• Approximately 14,400 tons of chips are consumed during Super Bowl Sundays.
• The Super Bowl is tagged in Roman Numerals rather than a date because the pro football season is over two years. (The 2019 World Series ended the 2019 baseball season: the 2019 Super Bowl ended the 2018 football season).
• There are two Lombardi Trophies prepared for, and taken to, the Super Bowl in case the one presented at game’s end gets destroyed in the celebration.
• The Minnesota Vikings have played in four Super Bowls and have never led any of them even one second.
• The only Super Bowl telecaster ever to have covered the game while still an active NFL player and the only one to have ever appeared on a presidential ticket, are the same guy. Jack Kemp was still the Buffalo Bills quarterback when he covered Super Bowl II. Twenty-eight years later Congressman Kemp was Bob Dole’s vice-presidential running mate in 1996.
• Only four NFL teams have never played in a Super Bowl—Detroit Lions, Houston Texans, Jacksonville Jaguars and Cleveland Browns. Wait, you say, what about the Houston Oilers? The team moved to Tennessee, became the Titans and appeared in Super Bowl XXXIV.
• Dallas Cowboy Hall of Fame running back Emmitt Smith had his helmet stolen during Super Bowl XXVII. It was returned several weeks later after a “no questions asked” phone call.
• Speaking of Cowboys, Dallas’s Chuck Howley was the only Super Bowl MVP from a losing team, Super Bowl V which America’s Team dropped to the Baltimore Colts.
• Also speaking of Dallas, Cowboy speedster “Bullet” Bob Hayes is the only person on the planet to possess both a Super Bowl ring and an Olympic gold medal. Hayes won the 100-meter dash in the 1964 Olympics and was a member of the Cowboys’ 1972 Super Bowl team.
• The most expensive ticket to Super Bowl I was $12. The game still did not sell out.
IT’S TRUE—Halftime entertainment at the first Super Bowl—then called the NFLAFL Championship Game—included a pigeon release, two guys with jet packs strapped to their backs, the University of Arizona and Grambling State marching bands and, on a stage at midfield, Larry, Moe and Curly Joe.
At least this year, unlike 2019, we all didn’t sit through the halftime show, and the game, looking for a TV commercial filmed in Rock-dale that never aired.—M.B.
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