{"id":1122336,"date":"2026-02-01T05:55:50","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T05:55:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.polygon.com\/?p=522767"},"modified":"2026-02-01T05:55:50","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T05:55:50","slug":"30-years-ago-the-super-bowl-halftime-show-was-indiana-jones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/30-years-ago-the-super-bowl-halftime-show-was-indiana-jones\/","title":{"rendered":"30 years ago, the Super Bowl halftime show was\u2026 Indiana Jones?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Kendrick Lamar\u2019s riveting, incisive Super Bowl performance<\/a> is likely to go down in history for many reasons, not the least of which is that it was the most watched halftime show of all time<\/a>. It was a sharp contrast against what the Super Bowl\u2019s entertainment interval used to look like \u2014 for instance, three decades ago, when it was devoted not to a blockbuster artist, or a tribute to the host city\u2019s music scene, but instead to\u2026 Indiana Jones.<\/p>\n

Let me give you some context: My friends and I recently tracked down decades\u2019 worth of previous Super Bowl halftime shows on YouTube in order to rate and rank them for fun. We had a blast rediscovering shows we\u2019d loved, and watching performances we\u2019d never seen before. I highly recommend getting a group of friends together to revisit them. Somehow 2004 was even worse<\/em> than we remembered! Diana Ross leaves her performance in a freakin\u2019 helicopter<\/a>!<\/p>\n

We also saw firsthand the way the halftime show evolved from the kind of marching-band performance you\u2019d see at a college game (albeit with a slightly bigger budget), into the mass entertainment extravaganza it is today. The crux of the issue was that broadcasters (and advertisers!) needed the halftime show to be enough of a draw that viewers wouldn\u2019t channel surf during the break and never return: Winter Magic<\/a> wasn\u2019t going to cut it anymore.<\/p>\n

Even with the need to pivot toward more popular entertainment, an Indiana Jones stunt show now seems like an odd choice for the 1995 Super Bowl, especially since the franchise\u2019s third (and at the time, final) movie had hit theaters in 1989. But Indiana Jones was a multimedia property in that era. Two seasons of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles<\/em> aired from 1992-93, sometimes in the time slot right before Monday Night Football. A series of four TV movies followed, with one a year coming out from 1994 to 1996. In 1995, Disney was also just a few months from opening a new Disneyland theme park ride: Indiana Jones Adventure: Temple of the Forbidden Eye. That made the Super Bowl a perfect chance for some corporate synergy.<\/p>\n

The 1995 show didn\u2019t completely leave musical acts behind: Between action set pieces with Indiana Jones and Marion Ravenwood fighting to recover the stolen Lombardi Trophy, Tony Bennett and Patti LaBelle serenaded the crowd. The show culminates with the entire cast singing \u201cCan You Feel the Love Tonight\u201d from Disney\u2019s The Lion King, <\/em>released a year earlier.<\/p>\n

Overall, the stunt choreography is a strangely good match for the spectacle of halftime, though the show is problematic in all the ways Indiana Jones always has been. If you\u2019d like to know more about how this Super Bowl halftime show happened (and about the tragedy at the 1996 halftime show, which makes it unlikely we\u2019ll ever see another halftime stunt spectacular), check out Bleacher Report\u2019s excellent deep dive on the show<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kendrick Lamar\u2019s riveting, incisive Super Bowl performance is likely to go down in history for many reasons, not the least of which is that it was the most watched halftime show of all time. It was a sharp contrast against what the Super Bowl\u2019s entertainment interval used to look like \u2014 for instance, three decades ago, when it was devoted not to a blockbuster artist, or a tribute to the host city\u2019s music scene, but instead to\u2026 Indiana Jones. Let me give you some context: My friends and I recently tracked down decades\u2019 worth of previous Super Bowl halftime shows on YouTube in order to rate and rank them for fun. We had a blast rediscovering shows we\u2019d loved, and watching performances we\u2019d never seen before.…<\/p>\n

Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1122337,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1122336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-polygon"],"yoast_head":"\n30 years ago, the Super Bowl halftime show was\u2026 Indiana Jones? | Arcader News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Kendrick Lamar\u2019s riveting, incisive Super Bowl performance is likely to go down in history for many reasons, not the least of which is that it was the\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/30-years-ago-the-super-bowl-halftime-show-was-indiana-jones\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"30 years ago, the Super Bowl halftime show was\u2026 Indiana Jones? 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