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One of my earliest memories is of the Redskins in the Super Bowl in 1991. I was in first grade and my mom allowed me to stay up and watch the first half. It seemed so late, but in retrospect I was probably still in bed by 8pm. Either way, that experience is now a distant memory, as it’s officially the 20th anniversary of the last Redskins Super Bowl win. The Washington Post provided a great chronicle of that event here.
For that matter, this is also the 20th anniversary of any Washington sports team playing reasonably well. It’s a well-known fact that Washington teams are all teases – first round playoff losses, second round losses, lack of playoff appearances – we have a plethora of failures.
But enough negativity for one day – I’m going to focus on an awesome article from Grantland – ‘The 10 Best Super Bowls in Trivia History’ – written by, wait for it, Ken Jennings(!) You remember him, right? He was on Jeopardy! for aggeeeeessss. Rather than reposting the entire article, I’m going to highlight a few of my favorite trivialities that he cites. The full list can be found here.
10. Super Bowl XIX – Dolphins v. 49ers – ‘…this game is mostly of note to fans of movie trivia, since a fictional San Francisco-Miami championship was a major plot point in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective and Any Given Sunday…and Teri Hatcher was a 49ers cheerleader in 1985…’
5. Super Bowl XXIII – Bengals v. 49ers – ‘…as the story goes, with the 49ers down three with three minutes to go, Montana calmed down a nervous huddle by pointing into the crowd and asking, “Isn’t that John Candy?” Then he proceeded to march the team 92 yards downfield for a game-winning touchdown to John Taylor. Cool customer…’
4. Super Bowl XLI – Colts v. Bears – ‘…first Super Bowl win by an African-American coach (the Colts’ Tony Dungy) or the only score ever to come one the game’s first play (the Bear’s Devin Hester returning the opening kickoff for a touchdown just 14 seconds in…’
3. Super Bowl XXI – Giants v. Broncos – ‘…It ended with Giants coach Bill Parcells getting a barrel of Gatorade dumped over him – a historic Super Bowl first! Then Phil Simms got a $75,000 check…for telling a camera that he was “going to Disney World”…and Bud Light’s controversial spokes-terrier Spuds MacKenzie made his TV debut…’
spuds mackenzie is ranked sixth on stan's top ten favorite dogs he counts down in 'the people vs. martin sugar'.
Those are the examples that I geeked particularly hard over, but there are so many more! I sincerely hope that if I ever end up on Jeopardy! a Super Bowl category comes up. I’d run the table (thanks Ken!) Here’s hoping this weekend’s game proves at least as entertaining as the last time the Giants and Pats met in the big game…
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