By Grub

(The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries of The Somerville News belong solely to the authors of those commentaries and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville News, its staff or publishers.)

Too bad, Bob Kraft won’t have to shell out for a new set of walnut sized Super Bowl rings. The way our boys played last Sunday, Kraft should order up a bunch of big plastic Cracker Jack knock offs. Anyway, now that the Super Bowl doesn’t matter this year we can focus on something really important: The Super Bowl half time show.

The halftime show is getting way too smooth and inoffensive. It used to be the one annual national event that celebrated everything gaudy, overblown and steroidal in our American way of life. Real football fans aren’t supposed to pay much attention to the half time show but that’s where in years past the zeitgeist was most glaringly on display.

Even though I know I watched it, I can’t even remember last year’s halftime show it was so bland. I vaguely remember a big flashy flash in the pan.

In 2009, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street band cut off a few slices of their heart healthy loaf of rock-n-roll. The Boss is a national treasure. He connects the whole cultural gamut like no one else: from down and out America, through the blue-collar heartland, through the Obamoderate middle and the NPR crowd with their lefty fringe dangly bits hanging off the end.

Bruce is a wholesome cohesive influence with a sense of humor about himself. On that Super Bowl Sunday 2009, he trotted out the raucous party Boss.  His energy was a little forced and self-consciously youthful, like a wacky old man dancing at his daughter’s wedding. The way he threw himself around one hoped he had a chiropractor and a tag team of efficient masseuses waiting in the wings.  The performance was uniformly great and there where even a few moments of transcendent goofiness, like when the Boss belly flopped on one of the cameras and America got a quick close up of his big hairy belly roll. Springsteen was great but who really wants a piece of high quality authentic American pop culture, just when you’re hankering for a big slab of bogus American kitsch?

A few other recent halftime shows have flirted with the right recipe. That freakishly talented Newtman, formerly known (and now known again) as Prince, added an almost shockingly lubricious influence to Super Bowl XLI.

Super Bowl XXXVIII gave us the mildly hilarious Nipplegate. Justin Timberlake pretended to assault Janet Jackson, igniting a harmless and completely predictable faux scandal.

Generally, the halftime shows have been getting better and slicker in a professional Las Vegas sort of way, leaving us nostalgic for the truly great dumb spectacles of the past. Back in the day, the best halftime shows always had wonderfully earnest theme – like Racial Harmony.

Does anyone remember halftime 1988? That was the year some genius realized that there were 88 keys on the piano keyboard and by an amazing coincidence the year was 1988. The show included 88 fake grand pianos, rolled out on to the field. Forty-four of them were white and 44 of them were black.  Dancers in white tuxedos pretended to play the white ones. Dancers in black tuxedos pretended to play the black ones. There was a thrilling moment when the dancers in white pretended to play the black pianos and the dancers in black went at the white pianos. Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney performed “Ebony and Ivory” without any irony.  (Did that really happen or am I dreaming in reverse?)

At the climax of the extravaganza, 44 Rockettes high kicked out on to the field with their 88 legs colored black and white to represent a piano keyboard.  In case anyone missed it, the announcer announced that the 44 Rockettes and their 88 legs were impersonating a piano keyboard.

1988 was absolutely the best Super Bowl half time show ever. It was so fantastic that in 1989 many suggested that they should customize 89 grand pianos with an additional key, and then recruit a Rockette with only one leg.

Sadly, American bad taste has become an endangered species. It used to be as common as the housefly and now you have to hunt for it like a very rare bird.  Soon they will have to subsidize great schlock the way they used to support the ballet and public radio.

I always thought a huge free market cultural opportunity was lost the year Levitra hit the market to compete with Viagra. There were Levitra ads all over the stadium, and Levitra and Viagra spots dominated the commercial breaks. But what the occasion called for was a Levitra vs. Viagra halftime smack-down, with pole-vaulting, drag racing, gladiators parachuting into the stadium and fighting with exploding swords, all accompanied by ZZ Top surrounded by hundreds of lithe dancing girls in bikinis: everything orchestrated to sustain The American Dream that really ancient guys can still make it with really hot chicks if they can just score the right pills.

Alas there are so many wonderful halftime shows we will never see.

After all the talk on the subject, I mourn the loss of this year’s (should have happened) “Head Injury Halftime Show!” when they brought back all those gridiron greats from the past to compete in challenging athletic contests like: “Buttoning His Own Shirt”, “Feeding Himself” and the always entertaining “Finding His Way to the Men’s Room.”

Of course, there is no reason a successful halftime show cannot address a serious subject of national importance. How about education? There’s a theme.  Some people want to see teacher pay tied to student performance. Other people want to pay for a performance and see students tied to teachers. They could call it: “Waiting for Super Bowl Man”.