SUPER BOWL–A MARX BROTHERS TAKE

Wouldn’t it be lovely if the Marx Brothers were next Sunday’s Super Bowl halftime entertainment instead of…whoever the hell it is? Well, the next best thing is watching them play a little old-school football and what better way to begin than with the climax of ‘Horsefeathers’ , which depicts a very period college football game. There are several interesting things to be learned from watching period football. For one thing, they don’t wear helmets. More importantly, they don’t line up the way they do in modern football. The lineup seen in this clip is called ‘T Formation Football’ in which three running backs line up in a row about five yards behind the quarterback forming the shape of a “T”. This is one of the game’s original formations and fell out of favor once the forward pass was legalized. Thus the emergence of the current ‘I-Formation’ which finds the half back and full back lined up to the side of the quarterback. Interestingly, the end-zone celebration seems not to have changed at all–witness, Harpo’s dance after making a touchdown. More period football to follow during the week…

MOVIES
'TIL
DAWN

Sign up for news & updates so you don't miss a thing!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

More
articles