Stay with me on this one
In the nearly 20 years since the Justin Timberlake/Janet Jackson incident took place during the Super Bowl halftime show. . .yes, that happened back in 2004, so it’s been almost two decades. . .a lot of the shows after that have been lacking a little something.
Yes, other than participation from the Minnesota Vikings that would cause me to, likely, ignore the show entirely.
The Super Bowl is the most-watched sporting event in the entire world, with billions tuning in every year to watch the festivities. Whether they’re watching for the game or the halftime show or the commercials, there are a lot of eyes on wherever the game is being played, and I would like to take a moment to make a case for a halftime show courtesy of the greatest singular musical talent of my or any other generation.
I speak, of course, of “Weird” Al Yankovic.
Anyone that’s read this site for any length of time knows of my fondness for Mr. Yankovic’s work going all the way back to my formative years. But, in all honesty, I think that a halftime show featuring him would be nothing short of spectacular and hold a lot of appeal for pretty much everyone.
So, if Roger Goodell or anyone else in charge at the league offices happens to be reading. . .or even if they’re not. . .I want to make the case for a “Weird” Al Yankovic Super Bowl halftime show right here. Here’s my reasoning.
“Weird” Al has pretty much universal appeal
With most of the acts that could be selected for the Super Bowl halftime show, a sizeable portion of your potential audience isn’t going to like them. Whether it leans more towards rap/hip hop music or pop music or whatever the case may be, you’re going to have plenty of people that aren’t into it.
Since “Weird” Al’s work spans genres and time frames, you don’t have to worry about that. There’s almost universal appeal in having someone with this sort of talent perform on the biggest possible stage, because you could have a show that hits pretty much all of the different types of music that would appeal to anyone else.
Also, to put it bluntly: Nobody hates “Weird” Al. They might not be the biggest fans of his style of music, necessarily, but there’s nobody that really has an outright hatred or even a dislike for the guy. He’s apparently one of the nicest people in the entire entertainment industry, so he’s got that going for him. . .which is nice.
Think of the cameo potential
One of the best possible cases that you could make for something like this is the case for cameo appearances, which have become a bit of a thing at Super Bowl halftime shows in recent years. After all, “Weird” Al has been at this for four decades. Literally anyone that he’s parodied over the years that’s still with us is fair game for a potential cameo appearance during something like this.
All those years ago, “Weird” Al started out doing parodies of acts like Madonna and Huey Lewis and the News, and on his last studio album did send-ups of Imagine Dragons, Lorde, and Iggy Azalea. You don’t think you could sell some of those folks on the idea of sharing the biggest possible stage in the world with him for one night? I certainly think that you could. There’s really a lot of potential there, to be honest.
There’s no controversy to be had here
This sort of goes back to the original point, but there really are no controversies in “Weird” Al’s history. You know the worst thing he’s ever done? It’s probably the misunderstanding he had with Coolio where he thought he had permission to parody Gangasta’s Paradise and it turned out that he didn’t and Coolio was mad about it for a bit before he realized that Amish Paradise was actually pretty awesome. Al and Coolio buried the hatchet on the entire thing long before Coolio’s passing last year.
Honestly, that’s it. There really aren’t any other controversies to worry about, despite anything that you might have seen in last year’s Weird: The Al Yankovic Story. (To be honest, I’m not sure if everything in that biopic actually happened.) So if you’re looking for good, solid, wholesome entertainment, this is your guy.
I understand that this probably isn’t going to go anywhere, as much as I wish that it would, but I figured that since we’re still working our way through the offseason and what not I’d give it a go anyway. I’ll lose my mind if this actually happens, and I think a lot of you probably would, too. So, here’s hoping against hope.