Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/637179
| SUPER BOWL SUNDAY | 41 SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2016 "This guy came out at halftime and lit himself on fire," wrote famed Sports Illustrated photographer Walter Iooss, who captured the moment on film. "He was completely engulfed in flames. This was supposed to be halftime entertainment." Iooss also recalls the 1975 show "when an ex- otic dancer came onto the field. … The crowd got so worked up into a frenzy that the cops had to come onto the field to escort her off." With the '80s came a number of theme-oriented halftime shows, saluting Motown in 1982, the stars of the silver screen in 1984 and Hollywood's 100th an- niversary, etc. The productions featured everything from more marching bands to Disney characters, ce- lebrities such as George Burns and Mickey Rooney, The Rockettes and even Elvis impersonators. It wasn't until the early '90s that the Super Bowl Halftime Show, as we now know it, took shape. "I think you had a point around in '93 with Mi- chael Jackson performing in Pasadena, where the NFL turned to bigger name performers and larger-scale shows," McCarthy says. By the early 2000s, the Halftime Show was featuring such heavyweights as U2, Britney Spears, Mary J. Blige, Aerosmith and Shania Twain. The performers, along with the state-of-the-art commercials, were sometimes generating more water-cooler talk than the game itself. Then came the "wardrobe malfunction" heard 'round the world, which caused the NFL to re-exam- ine what it was doing with the Super Bowl. "I think once we got to 2004 in Houston with the Janet Jackson incident, there was another culture change where we (the league) took over the production of the show," McCarthy says. "Previously, it had been outsourced to a third party and we did not have — as we found out — enough control over the production." The show has continued to prosper under the NFL's stewardship, peaking last year when Katy Perry's per- formance became the most watched Halftime Show in Super Bowl history. It was also, by far, the biggest televised music event of 2016, drawing some 118 mil- lion viewers — nearly five times the audience for the Grammy Awards. No wonder so many acts are falling over each other to play this event. "There's an unmatched opportunity to reach a mas- sive, diverse audience that only the Super Bowl can bring," McCarthy says. The NFL understands that viewers' expectations are sky-high, especially since it's the 50th Super Bowl. "Everyone asks, 'Which was the best Super Bowl Halftime Show?' " McCarthy says. "We at the NFL will always say, 'The next one.' " JARED LAZARUS — MIAMI HERALD Paul McCartney, who's been playing his Hofner bass since before the term "Super Bowl" had even been dreamed up, brought a touch of Beatlemania to Super Bowl XXXIX in Jacksonville, Fla. THE PRODUCTIONS FEATURED EVERYTHING FROM MARCHING BANDS TO DISNEY CHARACTERS AND EVEN ELVIS IMPERSONATORS.