10 Times the Super Bowl Halftime Show Got Weird

College marching bands, not big-time musical acts, headlined the first Super Bowl halftime shows. At Super Bowl I in Los Angeles, the University of Arizona Symphonic Marching Band took the field with a show billed as “a musical visit to the four corners of the United States.” The performance, however, curiously kicked off with a tune evocative of the Alps: the title song from The Sound of Music.

The band also assembled into the shapes of familiar American icons, including a Liberty Bell complete with its signature crack. The Grambling State University Marching Band joined along to form an outline of the United States while members of the Anaheim High School Drill Team—dressed in colonial wigs, tricorn hats, frock coats and white boots—dotted the map with banners emblazoned with team names and logos.

Organizers of the first Super Bowl held in New Orleans brought local flavor to a halftime show that featured Southern belles promenading on a paddleboat, a Mardi Gras parade and a re-enactment of the biggest American victory over the British in the War of 1812.

The Redcoats exchanged musket fire with a motley collection of American troops and frontiersmen. "Fallen" soldiers were strewn across the gridiron as the Southern University Marching Band high-stepped over the wounded. Not all went as planned, however. The roaring cannons were so loud that it spooked General Andrew Jackson’s white stallion, which bolted toward the exits rather than at the enemy, and as the thick blanket of smoke dissipated, it appeared that the British had altered history by winning the battle.

It was an especially rough day for entertainers: During the pregame ceremonies, a hot-air balloon also crash-landed in the end zone.

When the National Football League (NFL) finally recruited star power for the Super Bowl halftime show, they decided on Anita Bryant, a former Miss Oklahoma with a handful of Top 40 hits in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Introduced as “the voice of America,” the Florida orange juice spokeswoman belted out “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” atop a towering stage that looked like a lime green Jell-O mold. The NFL didn’t totally kick the marching band habit, however, as the band from Southeast Missouri State performed alongside her.

At the time, Bryant was widely known as a wholesome entertainer—though her legacy would later be overshadowed by her outspoken opposition to gay rights.

Broadway and the NFL may seem like strange bedfellows, but the league turned to the Great White Way for one of the headliners of the Super Bowl VI halftime show, which saluted the late Louis Armstrong.

Dressed in a bright white coat that matched the color of her hair, Carol Channing rode onto the field on a float while belting out “Hello, Dolly!” in her distinctive throaty voice. Jazz legends Ella Fitzgerald and Al Hirt also joined the performance.

Along with the Pittsburgh Steelers and San Francisco 49ers, Up with People was a Super Bowl dynasty in the 1970s and 1980s. The group of clean-cut teens and 20-somethings headlined four halftime shows in an 11-year span, essentially becoming the Super Bowl’s house band. With hundreds of performers from dozens of countries, the aggressively happy group looked like a walking toothpaste ad with a slight cult-like whiff. They were often parodied, including on “The Simpsons.”

Up with People sang sanitized medleys honoring themes such as Motown, the big-band era and the American bicentennial. According to Bleacher Report, NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle, like most of America, had his fill of the group by 1986. After their Super Bowl XX performance he allegedly commented: “I never want to see Up with People again.”

The Super Bowl halftime show became a Mickey Mouse operation when the NFL turned to Walt Disney Productions—with a theme of “peace, joy and love,” the Super Bowl XI halftime show opened with the 250-piece Los Angeles All-City Marching Band striking up “It’s a Small World.”

Disney used the show to introduce the members of its newly revived Mickey Mouse Club. Wearing their mouse ears. The new cast waved to the crowd as Mickey Mouse-shaped balloons soared to the skies and vocalists wearing sweater vests emblazoned with images of the cartoon rodent sang the familiar “Mickey Mouse Club March.”

In search of some magic to revive the halftime show, the NFL turned in 1989 to an “elaborate music and magic spectacular” billed as the first 3-D network television broadcast. Millions of Americans donned special 3-D glasses that were included in Coca-Cola products to watch an Elvis Presley impersonator perform an audience-participation card trick while lip-syncing tunes from the 1950s.

Former “Solid Gold” dancer Alex Cole, who played the part of the heavily sequined Elvis Presto, got the starring role just three days before the big game. The original lead dropped out after being cast in a jeans commercial. It turned out, though, that the real magician of Super Bowl XXIII wasn’t Elvis Presto but 49ers quarterback Joe Montana, who led his team to a last-minute comeback victory.

When the Super Bowl came to Minneapolis for the first time, the NFL threw a “Winter Magic” festival at halftime. The crowd inside the climate-controlled Metrodome, comfortably protected from the weather they were celebrating, was serenaded by a medley of songs including “Winter Wonderland” and a rap number with kids in MC Hammer-inspired parachute pants busting rhymes in honor of Frosty the Snowman.

With the 1992 Winter Olympics only weeks away, the show featured the 1980 gold medal-winning U.S. hockey team holding pyrotechnic torches while Olympic figure skating champions Dorothy Hamill and Brian Boitano twirled and spun on faux snowflake-shaped rinks before riding away on snowmobiles. The show came to an incongruent climax with Gloria Estefan as a member of the Miami Sound Machine.

“I got a bad feeling about this,” muttered Indiana Jones at the start of Disney’s Super Bowl XXIX halftime show. Turns out Indy’s instincts were correct. Intended to promote the opening of a new Indiana Jones attraction at Disneyland, the elaborate stage show opened with stunt actors portraying the whip-wielding archaeologist and sidekick Marion Ravenwood, who parachuted into Miami’s Joe Robbie Stadium.

After an adventure to recover Vince Lombardi's trophy, the heroes find themselves—naturally—in a nightclub where Tony Bennett is performing. Patti LaBelle, dressed as a high priestess, also joins in and launches into her hit “New Attitude” and a duet of “Can You Feel the Love Tonight,” from the 1994 Disney animated film* The Lion King*, with Bennett.

Fifteen years after the death of John Belushi, the Blues Brothers headlined the Super Bowl with a show that began with a faux Fox News Channel special report announcing that Elwood Blues had escaped from prison to perform in New Orleans.

Belushi’s brother Jim handled the lead vocals alongside actors Dan Aykroyd and John Goodman in trademark black fedoras, suits and sunglasses.

Not even the appearance of James Brown, the “Godfather of Soul” himself, could save the widely panned performance.