Foot baby foot

February 3, 2008 7:56 PM

Constitution, founding fathers, and the superbowl?

At the bar, they had the puppy bowl iv sound on instead of fox superbowl pregame. But, on one of the other tv's i saw some fox pregame segment which had images of the us constitution, declaration of independence, characterizations of the founding fathers, and "american football legends" like jim brown and roger staubach. As an early us republic nerd i need to know; what was happening in that segment?

posted by Dr. Lurker to grab bag (13 comments total)

They were reading the declaration from start to finish.
posted by mge at 8:02 PM on February 3

Well, not quite from start to finish. They left out most of the middle part, where the Declaration lists grievances. But, yes, otherwise they just read the Declaration of Indepence.
posted by Inkoate at 8:03 PM on February 3

I'm mildly impressed they managed to work in the old saw about John Hancock's giant signature, but the whole thing was hokey to say the least. Without the sound you missed perhaps the most cringe-worthy part of the segment: Hancock et al's group "Huzzah!" upon signing the declaration.
posted by celkins at 8:07 PM on February 3 [1 favorite]

At the very end, the had a title card dedicating it to our brave men overseas.
posted by smackfu at 8:11 PM on February 3

Yeah, NFL stars, past and present, recited the Declaration of Independence. There was special emphasis on the segments about "those who threaten our sovereignty." One of those snippets was read by the widow of NFL star Pat Tillman, who was killed in Iraq.

This was on the Fox Network, by the way. Their pre-game show had some overlap in personalities with Fox News.

It was really kind of seppuku-inducing for those of us who hate Fox News.
posted by mudpuppie at 8:11 PM on February 3

So, it was as bad as I thought. The myth of the group signing lives.
posted by Dr. Lurker at 8:20 PM on February 3 [2 favorites]

It also struck me as a complete misfire for what they were trying to represent. If they really wanted to represent what the country stands for in spirit, then they should have gone through the Bill of Rights. That's just me though, so the whole thing was hokey as all get out.
posted by CarlRossi at 8:25 PM on February 3

This is the same organization that frames its business news programming as "The Cost of Freedom".

You have to allow them these little weirdnesses.
posted by panamax at 9:17 PM on February 3

One of those snippets was read by the widow of NFL star Pat Tillman, who was killed in Iraq.

Afghanistan.
posted by delmoi at 10:05 PM on February 3

They didn't want to list those grievances because it would make our king george sound too much like Britain's King George, and fox loves our king george.
posted by caddis at 6:57 AM on February 4

At the beginning they announced that they'd done this before and this was to be a new "Superbowl tradition".
posted by JaredSeth at 7:24 AM on February 4

So, it was as bad as I thought. The myth of the group signing lives.

In fairness, they only depicted three other people there when Hancock signed it, not the entire fifty-eight or whatever it was.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 7:51 AM on February 4

What harm is there is the group signing myth?
posted by gjc at 10:52 AM on February 4