The original post: /r/television by /u/geoffrbennett on 2026-02-08 18:44:14+00:00.
When you watch the Super Bowl halftime show tonight, know that In Living Color helped make it what it is today.
In 1992, the Fox sketch show aired a live special timed precisely to coincide with Super Bowl halftime. At the time, halftime shows were fairly modest – marching bands, theme productions, novelty acts – not the superstar spectacles we now take for granted.
The gamble worked. An estimated 20 million viewers flipped to Fox during halftime, exposing a vulnerability the NFL could no longer ignore.
The following year, the league responded by booking Michael Jackson, permanently redefining the halftime show as a global pop-culture event.
I dig into this moment, and many others like it, in my upcoming book on Black comedy and the golden age of 1990s sitcoms, Black Out Loud, which looks at how shows like In Living Color quietly reshaped American culture.