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Come Fan with UsFriday, June 19, 2026

The spectacle that was the first Super Bowl halftime show

Jet packs! Marching bands! Pigeons!

Super Bowl I — or the AFL-NFL World Championship as it was called at the time — pitted the NFL’s Green Bay Packers against the AFL’s Kansas City Chiefs. And, well, they don’t call it the Lombardi Trophy for no reason. The Packers steamrolled the Chiefs 35-10, and three years later the NFL absorbed the AFL.

But Super Bowl I did more than assert the NFL’s dominance over the AFL — it was also home to the very first halftime show. There was no Michael or Whitney, but there was a Bill, and he strapped a jet pack to his back and flew among a flock of pigeons. Where did he get this jet pack? The Army paid him and his colleagues to build it, and they went ahead and used it to set the bar for halftime shows. Really, really high, like, 60 feet high. Bill went on to dedicate his life to jet-pack flying; I’m still waiting for mine to come in the mail.

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