Super Bowl legends put to the test
The Web site snopes.com, which takes a look at urban legends, proving many of them to be false, has turned its skeptical eye toward a myriad of Super Bowl legends.
Can you guess which of the following are true and which are false?
1. Sewage systems have broken due to the tremendous number of toilets being flushed simultaneously at halftime.
2. More women are the victims of domestic violence on Super Bowl Sunday than on any other day of the year.
3. Two-thirds of all avocados sold in the U.S. are bought within three weeks of Super Bowl Sunday.
4. Before Super Bowl XXII, a reporter asked Washington Redskins quarterback Doug Williams, "How long have you been a black quarterback?"
5. Super Bowl Sunday is a good time to visit Disneyland, because the park is virtually deserted.
Did you guess which ones were true? None of them are. They all are false.
• BUT HOW MANY DOGS ARE NAMED T.O.? — The news release from VPI Pet Insurance began, "True Dedication is not measured in ticket sales or Terrible Towels. True dedication is the fan with a cat named Roethlisberger or a poodle named Polamalu."
Hard to argue with that.
For fun, VPI used its database of more than 467,000 insured pets to find which of the Super Bowl participants had inspired the most fans to name pets after its team or players.
The Steelers won, 159-76 — not even counting the pets obviously named after left tackle Max Starks, who surely inspired the nation’s most popular name for dogs and cats.
• LOAD UP, BOYS — Still speaking, sort of, about animals and football, the National Chicken Council wants to make sure you know chicken wings will be available today for scarfing — about 38.3 million pounds of them — despite reports of a potential shortage spanning from their hometown in Buffalo all the way to Seattle.
While it’s true that production is down and prices are up, "there’s plenty of wings," said Richard Lobb, spokesman for the National Chicken Council in Washington.
Buffalo never could win a Super Bowl, but what would a game be without a few Buffalo wings?
• PARTY-POOPERS — Something called the Center for Consumer Freedom is barking about what it claims is an "irresponsible" list of supposedly unhealthy Super Bowl party foods compiled by another group.
The list was compiled by an animal-rights spinoff, the Center reported, and was designed "to demonize the consumption of beef, pork, poultry and fish."
"Super Bowl Sunday is about watching football and eating food, not hugging cows and saving chickens," said David Martosko, the Center’s director of research. "I’m throwing a flag: personal foul for unnecessary buzz kill."
• SECOND THOUGHTS — Brad Dickson in the Omaha (Neb.) World-Herald, on NBC airing a one-second Super Bowl beer commercial: "It was either this or show a clip of the Dallas Cowboys’ playoff highlights during the past decade."
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