Version 7.0Sun 04 Feb
2007
Bowled Over by Cuteness
I don’t watch much football, and by “much,” I mean any. Come Super Bowl time, I look for alternative programming on the television set. This year, for the third year in a row, I find myself tuned into Animal Planet’s suffocatingly adorable “Puppy Bowl.”
Some programming genius got a big promotion for this brainstorm, I’m sure: Puppy Bowl is three hours of aimless and irresistible lingering over puppies wrestling, jumping over each other, chewing toys, and just being plain ol’ cute inside a miniature football stadium. It’s also disturbingly pornographic — not libido-wise, you sicko, but rather in its plotless, sensationalistic ability to titillate your innate powerlessness before pure, unadulterated adorability. “Puppy Bowl III” runs back-to-back, apparently, throughout the evening, so you can tune in at any point and discover for yourself just how much of a softie you are.
Remarks 11 total remarks were added before the post was closed.
Zack
It's become a Super Bowl Sunday tradition in our house. I'll take pups over giant men wrestling each other any day.
sean coon
heh. i'll restrain commenting on the "giant men wrestling" comment, but khoi, man, you missed an amazing halftime show by prince.
sean coon
i'm an idiot. i mentioned the puppy bowl to angela and now we're watching it instead of the post-game interviews.
Khoi Vinh
As a compromise, you can buy the DVD for shipping later and then get back to the post-game.
Naz
The game was the WORST. Oh, Chicago.
However, I am pleasantly sated by the Puppy Bowl III and I just watched the kitty half-time show. Go puppies and kittens!
sean coon
yeah, i saw that and almost laughed up a lung. thankfully angela got tired of puppies after 10 minutes. sorry about your home town boys, naz. they just weren't up to par.
Isaac
I just learned about PuppyBowl this morning. What a brilliant idea by the folks at Animal Planet. The best minds in TV today are clearly the ones creating the next spectacles that millions of regular people will watch.
Goodbye Superbowls and sitcoms. Hello American Idol, Dirty Jobs, and Puppy Bowl.
scott
Yep, made the mistake of tuning into Animal Planet tonight.
Now the girlfriend is hounding me to get a puppy (no pun intended).
My personal favorite was the little bulldog pup.
Naz
Sean -- no worries. One of the worst games ever. Rex Grossman, please. It started so well too.
I have to give credit where it's due and the Colts played well.
As for the Puppy Bowl, since we have a boxer, we were excited to see the boxer pup come out. Thought the malamute is cute as hell. We enjoyed the black lab that kept digging in the water bowl.
Emil Björklund
Haha, I think a distant relative of mine (though a close friend) who used to work for Discovery Channel as a creative producer, or something of that nature, actually was the one who came up with this show, or at least was one of the persons behind it.
I remember us talking about it on the phone, I think it was because I told him I actually watched Super bowl all the way over here in Sweden... Anyhow, I am sad to inform you he did not receive any promotion, and has since stopped working for Discovery Channel... //end of useless info
John
There was also a "halftime show" consisting of kittens on the same set. I was more interested in the game than the puppies, but more interested in the kittens than in Prince. Brilliant counterprogramming, terrible execution. If you waited until the actual halftime to switch to Animal Planet, you missed much of the kitten footage.