11 Most Disastrous Super Bowl Halftime Shows Ever

The first Super Bowl halftime show in 1967 featured performances by two college marching bands. That set the tone for the mid-game showcase for decades to come, with similarly old-fashioned parade-style entertainments occupying the slot. As the NFL grew in popularity around the U.S. and the world, the big game became the centerpiece of an annual secular holiday. Hundreds of millions of viewers tuned in not just for a professional football championship, but to see some of the best Super Bowl commercials and the halftime show. The NFL and its broadcast partners had a massive audience already in place for the halftime show, and in the '80s and '90s, it started booking giant spectacles and major musical acts. 

But moving up a level brings with it more problems and potential for failure. With so much pressure and eyeballs on performers, they're expected to do their best work, or at least entertain as many people as possible for their specific brand of artistic expression. There are a lot of moving parts and choices to be made, and sometimes, it all fails spectacularly. Here are some of the most disastrous Super Bowl halftime shows of all time, beset by errors, controversy, bad choices, and awkward marketing.

At Super Bowl XLVI in February 2012, Madonna headlined the halftime show. She started off the show, which took on a theme of ancient Egypt meets American cheerleaders (lots of headdresses and pom poms), with portions of two of her biggest hits, "Vogue" and "Music," before launching into her brand new single "Give Me All Your Luvin,'" which just so happened to feature guest spots from the two rappers who joined Madonna on the stage: Nicki Minaj and M.I.A.

At one point during the performance, M.I.A. added a middle finger gesture into her dance moves, which was fully and clearly caught on camera. A mic also picked up the musician saying, "I don't give a s***." The Federal Communications Commission, which polices American broadcast television, received 222 complaints from viewers about the Super Bowl broadcast, with most of them being upset over M.I.A.'s actions and words. 

Broadcaster NBC, beholden to strict content standards, released an apology for allowing the material to go out over the airwaves. "It was a spontaneous gesture that our delay system caught late," the statement read (via ESPN). "The obscene gesture in the performance was completely inappropriate, very disappointing, and we apologize to our fans," the NFL's front office added. So much for the "world peace" message that flashed on a gigantic screen behind Madonna and M.I.A.

During the pre-game playing of the national anthem before a 2016 NFL game, San Francisco 49ers Colin Kaepernick protested against racially-based police brutality by taking a knee. That led to his systematic expulsion by the NFL and numerous subsequent lawsuits and complaints. Not wanting to appear that they were siding with the NFL (or against Kaepernick or his positions), a string of high-profile acts turned down the chance to play the 2019 Super Bowl halftime show. Rihanna, Cardi B, and Pink all said no, but eventually the soft-rock band Maroon 5, best known for lead singer Adam Levine's gig as a coach on the reality TV series "The Voice," said yes.

After Maroon 5 played its 15-year-old hits "Harder to Breathe" and "This Love," the feed briefly played a clip of "Sweet Victory," a mock sports anthem that originated on "SpongeBob SquarePants." Fans of that cartoon had passed around an online petition to urge Maroon 5 to cover the song as a tribute to the recently deceased "SpongeBob SquarePants" creator, Stephen Hillenburg. Instead, a recording played for just a moment while rapper Travis Scott arrived on stage. Maroon 5 ceded much of its allotted time to invited guests, like Scott, the Voice of Atlanta Choir, and Big Boi of the hip-hop duo Outkast.

The Super Bowl is generally so widely viewed that the networks not airing the game don't put up much of a fight, airing reruns, old movies, and cheaply made counter-programming. But in 1992, the Fox network attempted to draw viewers away from CBS's Super Bowl broadcast at halftime. Right when halftime started, so did an all-new live edition of the hip and popular satirical sketch comedy show "In Living Color" over on Fox. The outrageous comedy stylings of Damon Wayans, Jim Carrey, and the rest of the cast proved an effective lure, with 20 million people changing the channel away from the game.

It wouldn't have been so successful if CBS had offered something a bit more enticing. Instead, its halftime show, "Winter Magic," served as a lengthy advertisement for its upcoming coverage of the 1992 Winter Olympics. Then-current world-class figure skater Brian Boitano and veteran athlete Dorothy Hamill performed choreographed routines on top of platforms rolled out onto the field at Minneapolis's Metrodome, which had been coated with glycerin and plastic to make them shimmer under the stadium lights. Joining the skaters was Gloria Estefan, a singer best known for her Latin American pop with the Miami Sound Machine, striking a tonal difference between the propulsive dance music and gentle, bucolic visuals.

The 2004 Super Bowl aired on CBS, while the game's halftime show was produced by corporate sibling MTV. Producers booked superstar Janet Jackson, who performed "All for You" and "Rhythm Nation" and then brought out a special guest, Justin Timberlake, to sing his duet structured "Rock Your Body." And just after Timberlake sang the very last line of the hit — "gonna have you naked by the end of this song" — he made it partially come true. The singer yanked off a chest-covering panel from his co-star's black leather costume, uncovering Jackson's breast (of which the nipple remained somewhat covered in a thin, see-through sunburst-shaped piece of jewelry) to a packed stadium and more than 100 million Americans watching on television.

The "wardrobe malfunction" instantly became one of the most talked-about moments in TV history, and that phrase entered the lexicon along with the word used to describe the fallout of the incident: "Nipplegate." Details about the matter slowly emerged, like how Jackson had asked the costumer to install the breakaway panel, and that she and Timberlake had rehearsed but abandoned tearing off a skirt at the conclusion of "Rock Your Body." After a government investigation, the Federal Communications Commission fined CBS $550,000, but that was reversed when a court decided the indecency claim was hard to prove.

One of only a few musicians to play the Super Bowl halftime show more than twice, Justin Timberlake was invited to headline the segment in 2018, more than a decade after he exposed Janet Jackson's breast during the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show on CBS. Timberlake profusely apologized to then-CBS head Les Moonves, but Jackson didn't, and while he flourished professionally, she received much of the blame for the "wardrobe malfunction" and her career never really recovered.

Public sentiment turned away from Timberlake and back to Jackson over the years, and when he was announced as the Super Bowl Halftime headliner, critics and social media users called out the decision as unjust and distasteful. He also encountered trouble while planning his set list. In the lead-up to the game in Minneapolis, news broke that Timberlake wanted to honor the recently deceased local legend Prince in his show in some way, possibly with the inclusion of a hologram. Prince's relatives denied that such a thing would ever happen, but they ultimately granted permission for the use of a projection of Prince while Timberlake performed a portion of "I Would Die 4 U," buried late in an 11-song medley of hits performed in part with the University of Minnesota Marching Band.

Disney produced the 1995 Super Bowl halftime show in Miami, and it staged "Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Forbidden Eye," a narrative, multi-scene stunt show similar to one then running at Disney World. Singers Patti LaBelle and Tony Bennett were separately contracted to perform, so they were shoehorned into the historical adventure saga.

The show began with a tribal chieftain wearing a headdress made of snakes screaming, "Bring to me the trophy!" meaning of course the Vince Lombardi Trophy, awarded to the Super Bowl winning team. As the stage came alive with ancient artifacts and mystical things, LaBelle walked tentatively down a slick ramp while lip-syncing to her 1980 song "Release Yourself." Then Indiana and Marion parachuted in to fight off snake-wielding henchmen of the evil chieftain; cameras captured the highly theatrical stage combat, in which punches didn't come close to landing. After Marion sets a villain aflame, the heroes grab the trophy, run through a busy bazaar, and into a nightclub to dance to Bennett singing "Caravan," who needed a moment to find the correct key and rhythm. Bad guys show up, steal the trophy, and Indiana follows them to the obstacle-laden Temple of the Forbidden Eye, where he reclaims the hardware and promises to give it to that day's winner. LaBelle returned to round off the bizarre performance, singing "New Attitude" and "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" from Disney's "The Lion King."

The halftime spectacular that punctuated Super Bowl XXIV boldly attempted to praise and honor two American institutions all at once. But because those two entities don't really have anything to do with each other, the resulting show was confusing, messy, and disjointed. The year 1990 marked the 40th anniversary of the "Peanuts" comic strip, but as the culturally and historically rich New Orleans hosted the Super Bowl, the NFL paid homage to the city and Mardi Gras hotspot.

The music was provided by legends of New Orleans and Louisiana music, including clarinetist Pete Fountain, fiddler Doug Kershaw, singer Irma Thomas, and three large and local college marching bands. Meanwhile, women in elaborate, 19th-century style gowns waved to the crowd while costumed characters from "Peanuts," including Snoopy and Charlie Brown, did the same. The grand finale consisted of a re-creation of a classic riverboat while musicians played a medley of the New Orleans standard "When the Saints Go Marching In," and an original song created just for the event, "Happy Birthday, Charlie Brown."

Super Bowl XXV was staged in January 1991, just after the start of Operation Desert Storm. As American troops fought to liberate Kuwait from Iraqi forces, the football game went on as scheduled. Whitney Houston performed an extremely patriotic national anthem before the game, which fit the collective mood and overshadowed the halftime show act: New Kids on the Block.

It was the first time that a popular and contemporary musical act played the Super Bowl halftime show. After doing "Step by Step," the band performed "It's a Small World After All" with a huge crowd of children and costumed Disney characters. The latter were already on the field because they'd preceded the boy band with a long dance number that also strangely included Warren Moon, one of the greatest football players to never appear in a Super Bowl, finally getting his chance to show up for football's biggest day.

Broadcaster ABC helped arrange the performance, placing many children of deployed personnel into the show. The network also opted to not even air the New Kids on the Block performance live. It aired after the game on many affiliates, who chose to run a state of the war speech by President George Bush instead.

The 2000 Super Bowl halftime show collected a slew of popular singers from across multiple genres, including Phil Collins, Christina Aguilera, Enrique Iglesias, and Toni Braxton. Viewers might have expected all those stars to perform some of their many well-known hit songs, supported by an 80-person choir, a symphonic orchestra, and 125 percussionists, but that's not what this show was about. This was "The Millennium Celebration," a production by Disney that used the occasion in large part to mount a version of a then-new parade called "Tapestry of Nations" presented at EPCOT, its theme park in the Disney World resort in Florida.

The theme of the parade and the Super Bowl show that promoted that event — and EPCOT in general — was the idea that world peace would be nice. Amidst a sea of musicians and puppeteers, the singers delivered their renditions of schmaltzy purpose-built and producer-approved songs. Collins got to do "Two Worlds," a soundtrack cut from Disney's "Tarzan," Braxton took the lead on "We Go On," and Aguilera and Iglesias performed a duet of a ballad called "Celebrate the Future Hand in Hand." Keeping things moving along in the medley of artists was a live narration about togetherness and unity provided by actor Edward James Olmos.

In early 2001, when Super Bowl XXXV was played in Tampa, the pop musical zeitgeist was all about the mixing of rap and rock, an idea pioneered by Aerosmith's 1976 hit "Walk This Way." That band was just one of many acts that appeared at the overstuffed 2001 Super Bowl halftime show.

After a pre-taped comedy sketch in which Ben Stiller played a coach giving a pep talk in a locker room, NSYNC sprinted onto the field to immediately and breathlessly launch into their hit "Bye Bye Bye," before Aerosmith showed up to take things down a notch with its love ballad "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing." Taking up the song war concept further, NSYNC returned to the stage with "It's Gonna Be Me," and Aerosmith came back again with "Jaded." 

The fake fight ended in peace when the two acts joined up for "Walk This Way," along with special guests Britney Spears and Mary J. Blige, who were allowed to sing barely a line or two and participate in some simple side-stepping choreography. Then it was rapper Nelly's turn to scream some lyrics over a Joe Perry guitar solo. All of this, plus fireworks, and the least popular member of Aerosmith, Steven Tyler, wearing a custom football jersey, went down in under 10 minutes.

One extension of the complex story of Elvis Presley was the proliferation of impersonators after the musician's death in 1977, and one such performer headlined a Super Bowl halftime show. MagicCom, a small corporate consulting firm that showed companies how to incorporate magic into their business strategies, somehow won the rights to stage the 1989 halftime set, beating out more experienced producers. MagicCom founder Dan Witkowski's concept was truly eclectic: a card trick that would involve the entire Super Bowl stadium, threaded through a 1950s-themed medley of songs performed by a stage magician and Elvis Presley impersonator who went by the name "Elvis Presto."

Less than two weeks before the game, the actor hired to play Elvis quit the show, leaving choreographer Alex Cole to learn the show's complicated magic tricks, dance moves (around numerous plywood classic cars set up to resemble a drive-in), and lip sync movements. Meanwhile, sponsor Coca-Cola heavily promoted the show, titled "BeBop Bamboozled," promising it would be broadcast in 3-D and shipping out 26 million pairs of 3-D glasses.

The musical component, often interrupted for the complicated card trick steps — the crowd voted on which card to pick and instructions to follow, which took a while — included portions of only two Presley songs, "Blue Suede Shoes" and "Burning Love." The rest consisted of golden oldies — "Great Balls of Fire" and "Devil With a Blue Dress On" — by other acts and faux-'50s songs like highlights from the musical "Grease."