Ten Fun Super Bowl Facts

Puppy Bowl! Puppy Bowl! Puppy Bowl!

By JANIE CAMPBELL

Updated 11:00 AM EDT, Sun, Feb 7, 2010

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1. You'll watch it. America is a land of freedom and choice 364 days of the year -- but when a certain Sunday rolls around, our eyes glaze over and we turn, nachos in ham hands, toward a glowing box beaming commercials at us with a game appearing at intervals. Over 100 million in the United States alone are expected to watch the Colts play the Saints tonight, and that includes you.

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3. Colts owner Jim Irsay is footing the bill for 400 people -- Colts employees and their guests -- to attend the Super Bowl. "One of my greatest joys is to be able to share and uplift people," he said. Share people? Jim Irsay is a human trafficker, but also a really nice boss. You heard it here first.

4. The streets of Baltimore may run clear with the tears of its faithful this evening.

Super Bowl XLIV will be the 438th game (counting all regular season and postseason games) the Colts have played since moving to Indianapolis in 1984. Between 1953 and 1983, the Colts played exactly 438 games. As of now, the Baltimore Colts and Indianapolis Colts have each won 230 games. So if Indianapolis wins, they will surpass the storied Baltimore Colts in total victories and Super Bowl wins.

Or maybe they won't, because the tear ducts of people old enough to remember the Colts in Baltimore are probably all dried out, and everyone else is a Ravens fan.

5. That whole Janet Jackson thing is Carol Channing's fault. Celebrities weren't featured at halftime of the Super Bowl until 1970, when Carol Channing sang a tribute to New Orleans. That openend the floodgates, so don't just Hello, Dolly. Blame her. For Kim Kardashian, too.

6. The Times-Picayune doubts Miami's ability to provide Nawlinsian quantities of brew.

First things first: You need more beer. Yeah, we know. You ordered extra. You think you have more than any group of humans could possibly consume in one week. Trust us. You don't.

Well, Miami has hosted this shindig 10 times, you know. But they may have a point: Miami is a liquor town, and there's no accounting for Cajuns. (They also warn against taking offense to passing requests to "suck da head and pinch da tail." For once, cat-callers will be referring to crawfish!)

7. Speaking of Janet, Super Bowl halftimes since the infamous wardrobe malfunction have all featured middle-aged men. Prince was 49, Bruce Springsteen a year under 60, and Mick Jagger and Paul McCartney each above that. We ask only this: which would be more scarring, seeing Janet's nipple, or 65-year-old Roger Daltrey's?

We rest our case.

8. In yesterday's celebrity beach football game, it was discovered ESPN's Merril Hoge wears a thong.

9. Indianapolis' mayor is not here to enjoy Super Bowl parties on the taxpayers' dime, he's here to "research logistics." And those beers he'll drink are in the course of a public safety screening for liquid toxins. He does this for you, Indianapolis. And the children.

10. There's an actual game going on, at 6:25 p.m. on CBS. Peyton Manning will be a model of precision checking through his reads faster than the human eye is actually capable. At halftime they will seize his brain for science but find that it's nothing but Wheaties. The Saints, meanwhile, will be a jumble of ballsy blitz packages, emotion, and beautiful passing plays that delight children and make the world feel magical. Someone will win, eventually, and then we'll do it all again next year. Isn't it the best?