Over the course of a single year, many pop culture moments come and go. Some are thrilling moments that you’re talking about years later, and others are disappointing ones that you wish you could forget. In any case, the Super Bowl halftime show usually tends to lean pretty heavily in one category or the other. As one of the most watched television programs every year, the scope and sheer star power of the Super Bowl performances can either be a cornucopia of exciting appearances and high production values, or a hollow, shoddy mess. Sadly, on many occasions, the latter has been the case.
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Today we’re taking a closer look at some of the most disappointing Super Bowl halftime shows in the event’s history. For the record, we’re only really considering those star-studded performances that occurred mostly after the halftime show became a showcase of major musical talent. Moreover, we’re listing the Super Bowl halftime shows in the order that they took place, starting with the oldest. Without further delay, let’s examine some of the worst halftime shows in NFL history.
1. New Kids on the Block, 1991
At the height of their popularity, New Kids on the Block headlined this halftime show. But just because they were well-known doesn’t mean that their musical style and core audience was a good fit for the Super Bowl. This awkward, uber-cheesy performance — heavy on the Disney — doesn’t really feel like the big game. In fact, most everyone looks pretty uncomfortable the whole time.
2. Wynonna Judd, 1994
This Super Bowl performance leaned heavily on the country music scene, with Wynonna Judd, Clint Back, Travis Tritt, Tanya Tucker, and others taking the stage. The performance certainly has the scope of a Super Bowl halftime show, with tons of dancers involved. However, it is far from the most memorable or satisfying one, even with all the stars that appear.
3. Tony Bennett, 1995
In many halftime shows, the sponsor gets at least a hefty shout-out, but this one is basically an excuse for Disney to promote its theme parks. The entire premise is that the Vince Lombardi trophy has been stolen, Indiana Jones style. It falls to Tony Bennett and Patti LaBelle to awkwardly provide the music as Indy tries to steal it back. Ugh, really?
4. The Blues Brothers, 1997
Despite the fact that John Belushi had passed away many years prior, Dan Aykroyd got the band back together for the disappointing film, Blues Brothers 2000. However, before that film, Aykroyd, John Goodman, and Jim Belushi, John’s brother, played the Super Bowl. Jim simply doesn’t have the stage presence of his late brother, and the entire production feels self-indulgent on so many levels.
5. Gloria Estefan, 1999
Gloria Estefan, Stevie Wonder, and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy all take part in this Super Bowl halftime show, but the star power cannot save this poorly conceived “celebration of soul, salsa, and swing.” These artists all deserve far better.
6. Phil Collins, 2000
Christina Aguilera and Enrique Iglesias duet in this forgettable halftime show, but Phil Collins — fresh from providing the music to Disney’s Tarzan — leads the performance. Perhaps the fact that the songs performed are more obscure than most years hurts how well the show has aged. In any case, not the best halftime show by a long shot.
7. Tom Petty, 2008
The game itself was a standout at Super Bowl XLII, but Tom Petty’s performance did little to distinguish itself from the many halftime shows that have come before and since. Without much production value to speak of, Petty’s time onstage is fun enough but lacks the impact such a major event deserves.
8. The Who, 2010
Whenever an aging musical act takes the stage for a halftime show, there’s always the chance the resulting performance might be subpar. Such is the case here, as The Who belts out their decades-old hits for modern audiences, but we can’t help but think that this choice of performer alienated younger fans.
9. Black Eyed Peas, 2011
The Black Eyed Peas are already a pretty divisive group since their music is virtually absent in any substance. This painful halftime show proves that their dance-heavy tunes don’t stand up well to live performances. All four members seem terribly in over their heads here.
10. Madonna, 2012
Madonna is an icon the likes of which has rarely existed in music, but this particular performance did little to showcase that. There’s simply too much going on, with too many guest stars. Why the hell is LMFAO on here anyway? They’re just stealing screen time from the Queen of Pop.
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The Super Bowl is historically America's most-watched yearly television broadcast, but not every viewer tunes in for the same purposes – some start watching at kickoff for the sports action, at the first commercial break for the star-studded advertising spots or at halftime for whatever musical spectacular is unfolding that year.
This year, Maroon 5, Travis Scott and Big Boi are the artists tasked with entertaining a nation at the Super Bowl halftime show Sunday night on CBS – a performance that follows months of controversy around the artists' appearances, setting up a high-stakes show that has the potential for disaster. And for a certain kind of Super Bowl viewer, a disastrous halftime show is even more entertaining than a perfectly executed one, and there have been quite a few busts over the years.
The modern Super Bowl halftime show as it exists now, featuring one or more major stars performing their music in a live-concert setting, began in 1993 with Michael Jackson’s performance. In the decades before, the halftime show was a less prestigious musical event, featuring university marching bands and, in later years, musical “salutes” to themes as varied as grand pianos (1988), Paris (1978), Louis Armstrong (1972) and, perhaps strangest of all, the Peanuts characters (1990).
Yet, a wacky halftime show isn’t the same as a disastrous one. The disastrous shows are the ones that are difficult to get through without flipping the channel – when the live vocals go terribly wrong, when technical difficulties and strange staging decisions and just plain bad selections of artists sink the whole endeavor. Read on for the five most tragic Super Bowl halftime shows of the modern era, ranked from bad to worst.
More: RIP to the Super Bowl halftime show, no longer a cultural institution
5. The Black Eyed Peas, Usher, Slash (2011)
Booking the Black Eyed Peas for the Super Bowl XLV halftime show might’ve seemed like a great idea in theory, considering their reputation as a high-energy pop act with nationwide mainstream popularity and a boatload of hits. Unfortunately, several fundamental issues became immediately clear when Fergie, will.i.am, Taboo and Apl.de.Ap began performing – that the group barely sings and doesn’t dance, that their barked-out lyrics don’t really constitute rapping and that their verses were apparently full of expletives listeners never really noticed until the group had to awkwardly live-edit themselves on stage.
Surrounded by flailing figures in light-up morph suits, the Black Eyed Peas revealed themselves to be a woefully inadequate live act for the halftime show, particularly considering that most of the singing was handled by Fergie, who certainly isn’t known to be the strongest live vocalist as sports fans were recently reminded by her misguided performance of the National Anthem at the NBA’s 2018 all-star game.
4: 'Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Forbidden Eye' featuring Tony Bennett, Patti LaBelle, Arturo Sandoval, Miami Sound Machine (1995)
Black Eyed Peas Autotune Super Bowl Game
Harrison Ford was smart to stay far away from this “Indiana Jones”-themed oddity for the Super Bowl XXIX halftime show, promoting Disneyland's then-new 'Temple of the Forbidden Eye' attraction. The show featured hundreds of dancers in feet-high feathered hats, LaBelle barely pretending to lip sync and stuntmen in flaming parachutes dropping onto the field – in its first three minutes alone.
What followed was a trainwreck of a show featuring laugh-out-loud campy Indiana Jones sketches and Bennett looking utterly lost as he gamely sang his jazzy standards, before joining LaBelle to sing “Can You Feel The Love Tonight?” amid a wild fracas of costumed extras.
Black Eyed Peas Autotune Super Bowl Commercial
3. 'A Tapestry of Nations' featuring Phil Collins, Christina Aguilera, Enrique Iglesias, Toni Braxton (2000)
The “We Are the World” of halftime shows, 2000’s wild spectacle of a performance at Super Bowl XXXIV is an example of everything that was wrong with the way the Super Bowl used to do its mid-game performances.
Another Disney production, what was intended to be a dazzling spectacular of global unity was really an incomprehensible mess featuring stories-high, fabulously ugly set pieces; dancers in vaguely ethnic garb presumably meant to represent different countries around the globe; singers Aguilera and Collins singing original songs specially written for the show, which robbed the performance of sing-along power; and most inexplicable of all, actor Edward James Olmos delivering deadly serious narration to the camera, saying things like, “Go now and celebrate your dreams as the magic of the millennium continues to bring us together.”
2. 'Blues Brothers Bash' featuring The Blues Brothers, ZZ Top, James Brown (1997)
If the 1997 Super Bowl XXXI halftime show didn’t teach the NFL not to book people who can’t sing for the halftime show, than apparently nothing will. With the game unfolding in New Orleans, instead of booking actual soul legends who hailed from the city, The Blues Brothers appeared onstage instead – despite the death of original star John Belushi – with Dan Aykroyd and stand-ins Jim Belushi and John Goodman singing soul hits including “Gimme Some Lovin’” as a marketing play for the upcoming “Blues Brothers 2000” sequel.
James Brown and ZZ Top appeared at the halftime show, but that didn’t change how ill-equipped the Hollywood guys were for such a large stage.
1.Janet Jackson, Nelly, Kid Rock, P. Diddy, Justin Timberlake (2004)
You’d be forgiven if you forgot that Nelly, P. Diddy and Kid Rock were even part of the Super Bowl XXXVIII act. That’s how monumentally disastrous this debacle of a live performance was – one of the only halftime shows that managed to effectively halt the forward momentum of one of its performers’ careers. You would also be forgiven if you couldn’t remember a single song that was performed during the show that wasn’t “Rock Your Body,” which Jackson and Timberlake were performing when the infamous “Nipplegate” incident happened with Timberlake accidentally exposing Jackson’s breast during some choreography gone wrong.
The seconds-long incident would define Jackson’s career for years to come, as radio stations and MTV blackballed her new music, and she was turned into a national punchline. Transcending the actual performance, the public shaming of Jackson will persist as one of the most shameful moments in the halftime show’s legacy.
Justin Timberlake: I made peace with Janet Jackson after Super Bowl incident