In which we harken back to those days of yesteryear, 2004 to be precise, when the most famous halftime nothingburger of all halftime nothingburgers either shocked America's sensibilities or ... you know, didn't.
I am speaking, of course, of the fabled halftime Wardrobe Malfunction that bared Janet Jackson's breast for a nanosecond the last time the Super Bowl was played in Houston.
And when I say "nanosecond," I mean that literally.
It was, in fact, such a nanosecond I didn't see it, my eyesight being notoriously bad anyway. All I saw was Jackson grab the right side of her chest as Justin Timberlake clawed at her, um, covering. If there was a bare breast in there, I didn't see it.
Neither did most of America, I'm willing to bet.
Nonetheless, there was outrage. And the NFL dialed back the halftime show accordingly. The next year, the halftime show featured Paul McCartney, a safely G-rated (for "geriatric") act.
At any rate, the best take I ever heard on the Wardrobe Malfunction came from comedian Lewis Black, who said people who said they saw Jackson's breast were all lying, because the only way anyone could have seen anything was if they had their noses pressed to the TV screen at the aforementioned nanosecond. Otherwise, because it happened so quickly, it's likely more people heard about it after the fact, saw the screen grab, and then imagined they saw it live.
The mind, after all, is a funny thing. And mightily susceptible to suggestion.
Or so goes the Blob's theory.
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