This Sunday is Super Bowl Sunday, which means something to most Americans. But not to all of us! In fact, some of us give absolutely no shits about the Super Bowl and find the spectacle of men inflicting life-altering traumatic brain injuries on one another to be boring and distasteful at best. For us, there is Animal Planet’s Puppy Bowl, in which puppies frolic in a puppy-scale stadium. And this year, Hallmark Channel is adding a Kitten Bowl, which will be more of the same. But why is it stopping there? Plenty of other places should be getting in on this action. A few suggestions:
Sloth Bowl
Any channel could have this. I’ll grant that the sloth cam is actually very boring, and most of the time sloths do nothing. But … it would still be great just to have two hours of sloth footage, even if it took days of filming just to get two action-filled hours.
Bowling Bowl
Duh. It is already in the name.
Goldfish Bowl
They already live in a bowl! And surely there’s a subculture of people who trick out their goldfish bowls. (For example, Gail the goldfish on West Wing? Her bowl was different in every single episode! True story.) Maybe Spike could have a contest for who has the most elaborate, interesting goldfish bowl. That’s at least as exciting as sports.
ABBA Tribute Super Trouper Bowl
VH1 Classic, asleep at the wheel! This could be a straight-forward tribute show, or it could be an ABBA-off of sorts, with different performers competing in a head-to-head battle and culminating in one winner being crowned the Dancing Queen. It would be even better if the cover were done in different styles, so it wasn’t an ABBA impression contest — more an ABBA interpretation contest. SOS.
Superb Owl
Stephen Colbert has already been making jokes about this, but why isn’t there owl-oriented counter-programming? National Geographic Channel, get yourself some owl B-roll and just add narration about the badass majesty of these wondrous creatures.
Bowl Bowl
When I was a 6 or 7, I went with my mom to a ceramics store to buy a big serving bowl. I was allowed to weigh in on the purchase, and I remember taking the responsibility extremely seriously. Like, Indiana Jones picking a chalice in Last Crusade seriously. We settled on a giant, heavy white bowl with a dainty yellow lip and a perky parrot painted on the bottom, and I remember thinking when I picked it up, barely able to wrap my arms around it, This is the greatest bowl in the world. I am proud to say that “the parrot bowl” remains a staple of family meals at my parents’ home. But are there other amazing bowls out there? There must be, right? (Or maybe not. Parrot bowl is a freaking masterpiece, if I do say so myself.) HGTV should find 32 of the best bowls in the world — fancy glass bowls, funky earthy wooden bowls that hold fruit in rich people’s kitchens, stark Marc Newsom bowls and cheeky Jonathan Adler ones, historic bowls and futuristic ones. Time for a best bowl contest.
Super Goal
ESPN is obviously going to dedicate most of its resources to Super Bowl reporting. But the Worldwide Leader doesn’t actually broadcast the Super Bowl. Surely there’s room on, oh, ESPN 3 to air a special called “Super Goals,” marking the other football’s greatest scoring moments.
Super Hole
Science Channel show about black holes! Alternately, something pornographic.
Penguin Bowl
For a while there, it seemed like penguins were the animal people found adorable. Then mini-pigs kind of took over, and once we hit slow lorises, no one cared about penguins anymore. It’s time to bring back the love! Travel Channel should film some Antarctic penguins in their natural habitat and Dark Side of the Moon–style sync it to commentary from a football game. Any football game.
