I Watched (Nearly) Every Post Super Bowl Show Part III: The 1990’s!
Hello! This is Part 3 of my series on the chronological history of the Super Bowl lead-out program. If you missed Part 1, covering the 60’s and 70’s, or Part 2, working through the 80’s, well, check those out first! Or don’t! Who am I to tell you how to spend your time?
The 1990’s were a time of change for ancillary aspects of the Super Bowl broadcast.
Take the halftime show. The final ten years of the 20th century began with the mid-game programming still stuck in the 70’s and 80’s, content with doing Disney-related tributes and showcasing Dorothy Hammill and Brian Boitano. By 193, the NFL finally had enough and brought out the big guns with Michael Jackson. It took a couple of years for the new paradigm of “take the biggest music star in the world and let them do a 15-minute concert” to hold, but once it did, the halftime show never looked back, and doesn’t look likely that it ever will.
So it went with the post-Super Bowl programming. The 90’s began with the same bevy of pilots or early episodes of fledgling sitcoms, with the hopes that something will catch the long-term attention of a massive audience. By 1996, one network (NBC) said “fuck it” and just aired a star-studded episode of its biggest show (“Friends”). The game changed for a long time, although it should be noted that, unlike the halftime show, it didn’t change forever!
But that’s a different article. For now, let’s close out the millennium with a look back at the 13 shows that closed out the Super Bowl in the 1990’s.
SUPER BOWL XXIV
Show: “Grand Slam”
Episode: “Pilot” (Season 1, Episode 1)
Network: CBS
Aired: January 28, 1990
We kick off the 90’s with yet another feature length pilot to a show that never even made it to a double-digit episode count! This time, John Schneider and Paul Rodriguez star as a pair of bounty hunters who must work together to bring home a million-dollar bond. Dennis Bakelenoff (Schneider) has a gimmick of sorts; he’s an ex-ball player who hasn’t lost his arm, hence his nickname “Hardball”. Pedro Gomez (Rodriguez) also has a gimmick of sorts; he is Mexican, hence the constant needle drops of “Low Rider”.
(Speaking of the nickname “Hardball”...you’d think his nickname would be “Grand Slam” in order to justify the title, which otherwise only gets stated in passing at the beginning and end of the pilot. Then again, I’m not paid to make these kinds of decisions.)
Gotta admit, I kinda had fun with this. It’s entertaining in a boneheaded kind of way. All the kind of “culture clash” stuff you’d imagine is here: a big centerpiece scene involves both Schenider and Rodriguez pounding on hot peppers as a way to metaphorically measure their dicks. I also feel like the main villain is really obnoxious, and I think he at one point threatens a woman by saying “I will kill you in your body? But I feel like “Grand Slam” would make for an okay “bad movie” night watch, maybe as a way to kick off the evening. America didn’t appear to agree; the last episode aired on March 14, 1990, and that was that. Uh, this grand slam turned out to be….(googles “baseball terms”...no I didn’t mean to write “baseball teams”....scrolling, scrolling)...this grand slam turned out to be a foul ball!
SUPER BOWL XXV
Show: “Davis Rules”
Episode: “A Man For All Reasons” (Season 1, Episode 1)
Network: ABC
Aired: January 27, 1991
On the surface, there’s nothing really objectionable about this early-90’s sitcom about a well-meaning science teacher who ends up as the principal of the school his kids attend (oh, the embarrassment!). Yeah, the thing that sticks out the most about it is the fact that it’s anchored by Randy Quaid, but you have to remember we didn’t know he was insane in the 80’s and 90’s. “Davis Rules” lands right in between his surprisingly successful one-year run on “Saturday Night Live” in 1986 and his extremely well-known role in 1996’s INDEPENDENCE DAY; he was pretty well regarded! Pair him with Johnathan Winters as his nutty dad, Debra Jo Rupp as a fellow teacher and a bunch of kid actors, and this seems like a fairly representative, easy breezy sitcom for its time.
And it may be. But…I dunno, the whole episode has some sort of weird, possibly evil, energy to it. Audience reactions come just a beat or two later than you may be expecting (there’s a delayed “awww” sound within the first minute or so). Winters’ comedic rants have a stroke victim-esque “stream of consciousness” feel. There’s a very strange moment where Quaid starts walking around the school, talking to himself about how alone he is. It has the same aesthetic and timing as one of those Kyle Mooney sitcom parody pretapes he and Beck Bennett used to do on SNL, only with the supposed punchlines or comedic turns snipped out.
Oh, yeah, I guess that’s the bigger issue. The pilot of “Davis Rules” isn’t all that funny. Clearly, there must have been something to it to somebody, because this astoundingly lasted for two seasons, for a total of 29 episodes, making this one of the more successful post-Super Bowl pilots up to this point (clearing the combined episode counts for “The Last Precinct”, “Hard Copy” and “Grand Slam” combined). Maybe people just really liked the jaunty Mark Mothersbaugh-penned theme. I know I did.
SUPER BOWL XXVI
Show: “60 Minutes”
Network: CBS
Aired: January 26, 1992
Oh, goody, we get to talk about the Clintons! Maybe later on, we can discuss a topic slightly less divisive and incendiary, like abortion.
This brief, relatively last minute, segment of “60 Minutes” is probably one of the more famous post-Super Bowl episodes of all time. As a reminder, let’s rewind back to the original Bill Clinton sex scandal, the Gennifer Flowers affair. See, back in the day, credible accusations of an extra-marital affair used to be enough to seriously jeopardize a presidential campaign*. It’s difficult to remember now, but the only reason Bill and Hillary were even doing a “60 Minutes” interview is because they were fighting for their lives.
*Obviously, I’m taking a shot at current times here, although, in 1992, the president campaigning in question still won two terms, during which he extra-maritally affaired again, so my snarky little comparison doesn’t really work. Yeah, but still.
I’ll just be straight-up; this is a fascinating fifteen minutes of television. It serves as a microcosm of everything there is to both love and hate about Bill Clinton. Let the historical record show that he is phenomenally full of shit here, maybe the most full of shit anybody has ever been; six years later, Clinton would admit under oath that he had a sexual affair with Flowers. There’s an almost sociopathic ability on display during the “60 Minutes” interview, to blatantly be spinning out every single one of Steve Kroft’s fairly valid questions, every word so obviously calculated to deflect.
And yet. The thing about Bill is that he’s really fucking good at this sort of thing. If you’re able to go limp a little bit and put yourself in “1992-mode” (aka ignoring the next thirty years to come), you can’t help but walk away from the segment agreeing with the Clinton camp’s seeming philosophy of “why are you bothering us with this? Nobody cares about this.” By the time Kroft quotes a CBS News poll stating 14% of potential voters would not support a candidate who has had an affair, and Clinton responds by stating, in essence, that meant 86% didn’t care, you can feel a star being born. You genuinely feel like Clinton has been on the level with you, even though when you look back at the transcript, he hasn’t actually fucking said anything at all.
Oh, and then there’s Hillary, the breakout star of this whole thing. I won’t go on too much about her, since I don’t want anybody trying to slit my throat, but it’s undeniable that the line of the night was, and remains, “I’m not sitting here [as] some little woman standing by my man like Tammy Wynette”. It was an instant classic even before “American Crime Story: Impeachment” put the moment briefly back in the mainstream a couple of years ago. I think it’s because Hillary says it with a Southern accent that she had never had before or since. It’s a moment many in their circle have regretted since; Hillary was never really able to redefine herself again. The reason as to why coming off slightly contradictory and phony lifted Bill but sunk Hillary, I’ll leave you to decide.
The good news is, we don’t have to discuss politics in this space ever again, unless Donald Trump was on an episode of “Survivor” that I’m not remembering.
Show: “48 Hours”
Network: CBS
Aired: January 26, 1992
Oh, yeah, technically, newsmagazine “48 Hours” was the real lead-out program for Super Bowl XXVI. But, like, nobody cares, you know? It’s not a particularly well-documented episode; I wasn’t expecting to find a copy of it online or anything, but I couldn’t even really find a reliable synopsis as to what was covered that night. In order to provide you something here, I’ll leave you with this: the inspiration for “48 Hours” was a 1986 CBS News documentary named “48 Hours on Crack Street”, which is the most hilariously “80’s News” title I’ve ever heard.
Moving on!
SUPER BOWL XXVII
Show: “Homicide: Life on the Street”
Episode: “Gone for Goode” (Season 1, Episode 1)
Network: NBC
Aired: January 31, 1993
After watching a lot of pilots that were mostly shitty the past couple of weeks, downing the initial “Homicide: Life on the Street” hour was an indescribable feeling. It was like having a perfect piece of medium-rare steak after gargling only razor blades for the past five years.
First of all, I could just list the cast and my job would be done here. Melissa Leo. Jon Polito. Richard Belzer. Yaphet Kotto. Ned Beatty. The late Andre fucking Braugher. Everyone here is an inherently interesting presence, with a lifetime of acting experience between them. It’s a murderer’s row of talent, one that I don’t believe is rivaled before or since by any post-Super Bowl show I’ve gotten to dip into during this project.
Marry that with one of the more propulsive and engaging scripts we’ve had after the Super Bowl up to this point, and you have a really exciting hour of television. The actual nuts and bolts of it are things you’ve seen before in countless cop shows: a tense interrogation, fights amongst personnel, and a rookie being shown the ropes. But it’s the dialogue, the way everybody seems to talk, that’s so compelling. Crosetti’s low-level conspiracy thinking that leads to discussions about how much trust to put into institutions. Pembleton’s amazing ability to speak in prose, even when he’s screaming at someone to get off his back. Felton’s gravelly, disbelieving, ground level grumbling.
Oh, and then there’s John Munch, maybe the most significant television characters of all time if you’re a psycho like me (he famously would go on to become the only fictional character to appear in ten different series, a lot of that facilitated by “Homicide” would go on to get folded into the gigantic “Law & Order” universe/continuity). Belzer passed away in 2023, but Munch will live on forever. This all served as a good reminder for me to finally go through this show, one of the most critically acclaimed shows of the past thirty years that has only recently been put on streaming after years of music rights making that look unlikely. There are good things in this life!
SUPER BOWL XXVIII
Show: “The John Larroquette Show”
Episode: “Eggs” (Season 1, Episode 17)
Network: NBC
Aired: January 30, 1994
This was a rare back-to-back for NBC, having broadcast the Super Bowl in 1993 as well. Thanks to some broadcasting rights wonkiness, they would eventually broadcast the Super Bowl twice more before the decade was done. Perhaps feeling like they were playing with house money, NBC decided this time around to eschew airing yet another pilot after the game and instead programmed a double-billing of two sitcoms that were already on the air.
First up, “The John Larroquette Show!”
John Larroquette is one of those guys who I’ve always liked as just a comedic personality who hangs around, as opposed to a specific show or role (I was too young to catch “Night Court”!) I hadn’t ever seen an episode of his self-titled sitcom, although I was eager to get to this episode in order to get an idea of it.
It’s not bad! It has more of an edge to it than I would have expected from a 90’s NBC comedy. First of all, it takes place in a seedy bus terminal in St. Louis. Second of all, John Hemingway (Larroquette) is an actively recovering alcoholic; the opening theme makes that part perfectly clear. Third, there’s quite a bit of racial comedy inherent to its nature, with John and Dexter (Daryl “Chill” Mitchell) constantly throwing around barbs about each other’s worldviews and perspectives. It makes a lot out of John presuming things about what Dexter likes just because he’s black. The show manages to make all of this sound like guys just talking (or at least, the sitcom version of “guys just talking”), instead of a program Trying To Have A Comedic Discussion.
Like the episode of “Davis Rules” we just reviewed, “Eggs” can be strange. There’s a long stretch devoted to Chi McBride singing a lullaby to an abandoned baby, with no real attempt to play it for laughs. They do revise Chi singing during the credits and that is suddenly played for laughs, as he seems to throw the baby across the room, so deep in the throes of the melody is he. Thank god, though, the baby is thrown back to him in a flourish. Oh yeah, and before that, a skittish and anxious cop tries to kidnap the baby. So, I would say there’s a lot going on in this twenty or so minutes.
Show: “The Good Life”
Episode: “The Statue”
Network: NBC
Aired: January 30, 1994
First of all, the Wikipedia is once again wrong on what episode aired here. It claims the pilot was broadcast after Super Bowl XXXII, but TV Guide listings at the time confirm it was actually the fifth episode, “The Statue”. In your face, Wikipedia!
“The Good Life” is a fairly difficult show to Google; there’s a much more famous UK show with the same title that seemingly has the SEO on lock. It’s also not a well-documented program in any way, possibly because it also lasted thirteen episodes. Luckily, the star of this sitcom, John Caponera, has uploaded a pair of “Good Life” episodes onto his YouTube channel, one of which was “The Statue”. Thank you, John!
I actually thought this was pretty solid. Based on just this episode, “The Good Life” doesn’t appear to be a genre-shifting masterpiece or anything; it lives off of all the familiar tropes we’ve come to know. John works at a factory with his best friend (Drew Carey) and gets into all kinds of wacky, misunderstanding-laden, situations. This episode revolves around the done-to-death “having dinner at the boss’ house” plotline. The central conflict surrounding a broken-off penis of the titular statue adds some shocking ribaldry, but to describe it, it’s nothing you’ve never seen before.
But…I dunno, it’s funny and well-constructed! The conflicts escalate and intersect at the perfect times, the jokes land, the performances are all comfortable, the characters are perfectly defined. I don’t have a lot of negative feedback to provide here. Carey especially seemed to have found himself in a great spot. He nails the aloof, sarcastic sidekick role, and is able to imbue Drew (love a show where everyone’s characters is just their first name) with that signature Drew voice and style. It’s not surprising that he was able to leverage “The Good Life” into his own titular sitcom the next calendar year.
“The Good Life” was the first one of these “a few episodes, then tossed in the garbage disposal” shows I’ve come across during this project where I was genuinely surprised it didn’t last longer. Camponera has stated an imposed hiatus to make room for Winter Olympics coverage crippled any momentum the show might have enjoyed after this week, and that sounds as good a reason as any to me. NBC wouldn’t go on to sweat it too much; their breakout season was just around the corner.
SUPER BOWL XXIX
Show: “Extreme”
Episode: “Pilot” (Season 1, Episode 1)
Aired: January 29, 1995
Network: ABC
For the longest time, this entry represented my biggest heartbreak. This show, called “Extreme” was about a Rocky Mountain search-and-rescue team, starred James Brolin, got cancelled after seven episodes, and was called “Extreme”. It was also monumental in the history of the post-Super bowl show, as it sucked so bad that it forced everyone to stop using the slot for doomed pilots*. Oh, and it was called “Extreme”. How could I not get my hands on this? But it was available essentially nowhere, and I was forced to have to lick my wound and wonder what could have been.
*At least, allegedly. This part of the Wikipedia entry got slapped with the dreaded “[citation needed]”.
Then, out of nowhere, someone uploaded the entire series onto YouTube as one long five-hour video. Stuff like this is why I haven’t quite ruled out the existence of a higher power.
After watching the “Extreme” pilot, I haven’t ruled out the non-existence of a higher power, either. I found it to be a pretty brutal watch, and I don’t think I’m bringing in any outside biases on this. I genuinely wanted to…not like it, per se, but I came prepared to let the stupidity promised by its premise wash over me. Frankly, my one note for the “Extreme” pilot is that it could have been stupider. You get some gnar-rushing absurdity here and there; there’s a great moment about halfway through where two skiiers are racing each other down the slope, some mid-90’s alt-song you almost recognize scoring the entire thing, only for the song to cut out when disaster strikes. The disaster? One of the guys falls. And falls. And falls. Cut to reaction shot from his friend. Cut to more falling. Extreme!
Unfortunately, I get the sense “Extreme” wants to be a real show. The production values were higher than I could have expected; admittedly, many of the mountain rescue scenes look pretty stunning for a 1995 ABC show. I’m guessing this meant the show was expensive, so I’m further guessing there was a desire for some prestige to this. It’s bogged down, then, by a lot of attempts at character moments. This is not in and of itself a bad thing; no show can survive on spectacle for very long. But, instead of being quick and zippy, the character dynamics are leaden and dull. Brolin doesn’t serve as good of a ringer as I had thought; he’s not in it much and he seems a little checked out. I wanted simultaneously more and less from this show.
Alas, it didn’t matter for long; “Extreme” aired its final episode on April 6th, 1995, and into the memory hole it went, at least until “snowymatrix thru-walker” uploaded it to YouTube. Thanks, again!
SUPER BOWL XXX
Show: “Friends”
Episode: “The One After the Super Bowl” (Season 2, Episodes 12 & 13)
Aired: January 28, 1996
Network: NBC
Special Guest Stars: Brooke Shields, Chris Isaak, Julia Roberts, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Fred Willard, Dan Castellaneta
The one that instantly changed what could be done with the post-Super Bowl real estate. Unlike the halftime show, the lessons here were also learned immediately; from here, we enter a very long period where networks leveraged this spot to raise the profile of shows that were already quite hot, stuffing as many guest stars into the proceedings as they possibly could.
“The One After the Super Bowl” is an hour-long episode that is effectively two half-hours stitched together. The first half centers around a Joey Tribbiani stalker (played by Brooke Shields, who gets a palpable audience pop during her entrance that almost none of the other guest stars do) who doesn’t understand that he’s not actually a doctor in real life. This is the kind of rock-stupid character gag that should be frustrating; if she thinks soap operas are real, one wonders how she’s able to turn the TV on in the first place. But for some reason, “Friends” is just barely able to make this work, perhaps because this version of New York is so comically heightened already. Shields’ commitment to the bit helps, too; this apparently was enough to convince NBC to scoop her up to launch “Suddenly Susan” later that year.
The second half finds our Friends crew on a Jean-Claude Van Damme film set, where Joey tries to suck up to the PA in order to land a role. On this set, Chandler runs into an old friend (Julia Roberts), who he hadn’t seen since he embarrassed her in front of the entire assembly in elementary school. It’s obvious from the jump why she’s suddenly so interested in reconnecting with him, so the punchline isn’t all that funny but, frankly, the sheer novelty of seeing prime Julia Roberts on a fucking network sitcom forgives a lot.
The whole episode is kind of like this. We see Phoebe date a schoolteacher, who’s played by Chris Isaak. I didn’t think he was that good, but…it’s fucking Chris Isaak, you know? The storyline that connects the episode’s two halves concerns Ross’ pursuit to reconnect with his monkey Marcel*; this leads him to the San Diego Zoo, where he runs into a zookeeper and a groundskeeper. They’re played by Fred Willard and Dan Castellaneta, respectively. Just two stone cold comedy legends coming in to do maybe five lines each.
*If you haven’t picked up on it yet, I’m somewhat of a Friends skeptic. I’ve watched a good handful of episodes, and there are probably four or five lines that roll around in my brain and make me giggle, but I’ve never fully warmed up to it. However, shit like Marcel the monkey sort of gets to the heart of what I think can be lovingly goofy about the show. Why does Ross have a pet monkey? Fuck you, that’s why.
“The One After the Super Bowl” isn’t the best episode I’ve watched in this project. It’s not even the best episode of “Friends” I’ve ever seen. But, it doesn’t need to be. What it’s trying to be is a flex, a warning to the rest of the television landscape. The central message is “We can pull prime broadcast slots and innumerous guest stars like it’s fucking nothing. Good luck.” And in that sense, the numbers don’t lie. Nearly 53 million viewers (about half of the Super Bowl audience) stuck around to watch this episode; no other lead-out program has ever really come close. “Friends” wasn’t even done with its second season yet and it was already unstoppable.
SUPER BOWL XXXI
Show: “The X-Files”
Episode: “Leonard Betts” (Season 4, Episode 12)
Aired: January 26, 1997
Network: FOX
FOX has entered the chat, ladies and gentlemen! It turns out that the former fledgling network had managed to wrap up their inaugural Super Bowl broadcast with a banger, for my money a Mount Rushmore post-Super Bowl episode.
To some degree, selecting “The X-Files” was FOX taking the gauntlet thrown down by NBC the year before and running with it. Where “The X-Files”’ peak was during its near-decade long initial run is somewhat debatable, but mid-Season Four was as good a choice as any. The show was regularly clearing 20 million viewers a week, huge for the new-ish FOX network. Its cultural cache was likely even higher than that, with its fandom beginning to popularize this thing called “Internet message boards”. A feature film was already in the works. They even cameo’ed on “The Simpsons” two weeks prior. Relative to its genre nature, “The X-Files” was humongous.
To another degree, though, “Leonard Betts” eschews the glitz and glamour that the post-Super Bowl spot could now afford a television show, sticking to the basics. They wisely stick to its famous “Monster of the Week episode” format (as opposed to its infamous “Mythology episode” format), giving us one of the stickier, memorably gooier villains the show had ever had. Yet, Betts remains wildly sympathetic, a feat largely built off the back of its main guest star, Paul McCrane. You watch him murder people who have been nothing but friendly to him, yet you can’t help but feel for him as he undergoes his many painful, brutal transformations.
The move to keeping the episode to the basics allows potential new viewers to get oriented to the crucial dynamic between Mulder and Scully, and if ever there were a good example of the magic between David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson, it’d be “Leonard Betts”. Mulder is in prime “what if this brutal crime was being committed by this made-up creature in this totally insane way” mode, matched only by Scully’s peak exasperation. And, hey, you would be, too. Imagine if you trained rigorously and studiosly, only to be paired with a coworker who was constantly like “hey what if this mugging was done by the Chupacabra” and he was right 80% of the time?
The brilliance of “Leonard Betts”, though, comes in a small moment right at the end. It’s established that Leonard stays alive by eating the cancer out of his victims. So, when his interests suddenly turn on Scully, meekly telling her, “you have something I need”? We have perhaps the most perfectly crafted hook in this entire project. As a theoretical new viewer, seeing what the show is typically like before being hit with the potential of what it could become…you bet I’d be watching the next week.
(The punchline, of course, is that the next episode, “Never Again”, was an infamous stinker. Alas!)
SUPER BOWL XXXII
Show: “3rd Rock From the Sun”
Episode: “36! 24! 36! Dick!” (Season 3, Episodes 14 & 15)
Aired: January 25, 1998
Network: NBC
Special Guest Stars: Cindy Crawford, Angie Everhart, Greg Gumbel
“3rd Rock From the Sun” is not a show I dabbled in much, either as a kid or now. It just wasn’t on my radar, and the rare glimpses I did get made me slightly uncomfortable. This “Coneheads”-esque sitcom about aliens trying to integrate into human society just had an undefinable strange energy that I just didn’t vibe with.
This episode, though, does hold a place in my heart, at least sort of. Super Bowl XXXII (Denver vs. Green Bay) was the first Super Bowl I ever watched, and it was an uncommon family gathering to boot (we would never do it again). I remember the ads for this episode running constantly throughout the afternoon and, again, the strange energy was not something I wanted to fuck with. So, actually seeing the episode felt like taking on an old enemy of sorts.
Look, I don’t have a ton to say about it! I still think “3rd Rock” is weird! I’m not quite in love with John Lithgow the way everyone else seems to be; I don’t despise him or anything, but he’s always seemed like the bagged cereal version of a “faux British aesthetic” guy. The episode’s plotline is almost childishly simple (girls have come into town and everyone is horny), yet maddeningly over-complicated (the girls turn out to be from Venus and are here to broadcast a beer commercial during the Super Bowl that will make everyone weak and compliant, allowing Venus to take all of the stuff from Earth). I also think I experience cognitive dissonance from seeing Wayne Knight play such a huge role in a different NBC sitcom from the 90’s.
There are positives: I was stunned at how much I liked Kirsten Johnson, someone I hadn’t really been exposed to all that much. I thought French Stewart does a pretty good job with the “confident dumb guy” act. It’s always nice to see Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Jane Curtin. Finally, I give points for utilizing the Super Bowl itself as part of the action. Still, I have to wonder if this is another example of the “event mega-episode stuffed with celebrity guests” being a poor fit for what is, at its core, a show that is happy to just be light and silly. “36! 24! 36! Dick!” then may not be the most representative episode for “3rd Rock”.
I’ll close with this. What’s up with NBC and “3” shows? “3rd Rock From the Sun”! “30 Rock!” “Third Watch!” As a famous network sitcom star was fond of saying, “what’s the deal?”
SUPER BOWL XXXIII
Show: “Family Guy”
Episode: “Death Has a Shadow” (Season 1, Episode 1)
Aired: January 31, 1999
Network: FOX
We end the 90’s with an animation two-hander from FOX. First up, the series premiere of “Family Guy”.
Although I had a long period in my mid-twenties or so where I found “Family Guy” a tired and creaky vehicle for shock humor, I initially got in with Seth MacFarlane’s magnum opus on the ground floor. Let it be known I was one of the twelve people watching it in the early 00’s as it was caught in the patented FOX death spiral of being aired seemingly at random throughout the year. I was there way before everyone else found it either on DVD or on Adult Swim, and it is genuinely flabbergasting to me that it’s still cranking out new episodes to this day. “Family Guy” has survived a lot of opposition to weirdly become this comedy institution, even as it’s essentially refused to adapt or evolve with changing audience tastes.
It’s a trip, then, to return to its very first episode, which has the energy of a writer’s room that’s suddenly been empowered to just put every funny thought they’ve ever had onto the page. There are a nearly infinite amount of punchlines constantly coming at you throughout its brief twenty-two minutes, almost as if they sensed the network wasn’t going to support them for very long. The pilot episode is borderline exhausting, although I should mention it’s frequently very funny. Jerry Seinfeld as a court jester! The Kool-Aid Man busting through the walls! “Just one gun”! I laughed quite a bit! I guess I’ve come back around to “Family Guy”.
The only thing kind of odd about “Death Has a Shadow” is that they clearly hadn’t hammered out Peter’s friend group yet, nor the full character dynamics. We briefly see Quagmire, and we see in the background a black guy who is clearly going to become Cleveland. But there’s no Joe Swanson, at least not yet. Seth Green’s voice for Chris isn’t quite right, either, still too much like its Buffalo Bill inspiration. And Lacey Chabert is voicing Meg, who the family isn’t horrifically rude to yet. But the commitment to non-sequitur absurdism was there from the jump. This was fun!
(As before, points to the episode for directly involving the Super Bowl, as well as caricatures of John Madden and Pat Summerall.)
Show: “The Simpsons”
Episode: “Sunday, Cruddy Sunday”
Aired: January 31, 1999
Network: FOX
Whereas “Family Guy” was still being birthed, here we catch “The Simpsons” in its slow exit from its prime. “Sunday, Cruddy Sunday” is located right in the middle of its tenth season, maybe a year or two removed from what is generally considered the show’s golden years. You can feel that slight loss of fastball in this episode; the punchlines aren’t as constant, and the ones that are there are maybe 5% less sharp as you typically associate with The Simpsons. It also suffers from my least favorite trope: guest stars either getting announced, or announcing themselves (“I’m Dolly Parton!” or “Wow, it’s Dan Marino!”, that sort of thing, you know, the way people talk).
But! It’s still a successful and funny outing, with a great sad-sack guest appearance by the late Fred Willard. I also have to give the same points I gave “Family Guy” for also directly involving the Big Game itself, with significant extra credit for actually landing Madden and Summerall to play themselves. That nicely offsets the glowing cameo they provide to the head of the network himself, Rupert Murdoch (also voiced by himself). Of the two “Simpsons” Super Bowl episodes, this is clearly the superior.