Enforced Secret Joy # 27 – The Puppy Bowl!

I’m not into pro football very much, since I prefer the jaw dropping boneheadedness that comes with freshmen newbies in college football. I used to be really into the Superbowl for the commercials, but with all the internet hype and ad meters magnifying every second, that’s not much fun anymore either. Since I am not a guy, the Lingerie Bowl doesn’t do a thing for me. But God in heaven above saw fit to correct the lack of Amy Options On Superbowl Sunday by smacking some smarty pants at Animal Planet with the idea of the Puppy Bowl, now in its third year.

It doesn’t matter that the Superbowl itself is officially over, you can catch clips of the Puppy Bowl on Animal Planet’s website.

There are no rules, there is no rhyme or reason, it’s exactly what it sounds like. They built a Puppy sized stadium, threw a bunch of puppies in there, a bunch of chew toys, trained about 10 cameras on them and hoped for the best. I’m sure there was plenty of peeing, pooping and humping, but it’s all been carefully edited out. (though there are a couple of times where a ref calls a time out to clean up the field, ha ha ha.) There’s even a puppy tailgate party outside. They’ve thought of everything.

Seriously people, I dare you to watch more than ten seconds of this and not find yourself oddly hypnotized by the cute little fluffy bundles of love. I got Roomie Heckle, who’s called cuteoverload.com “porn for girls” in the past, to watch five seconds of it and he was HOOKED. “I can’t…I can’t believe this,” he sputtered, not being able to stop himself from sinking down onto the couch as Sonny the puggle faced down three Samoyed puppies. “Somebody over at Animal Planet is a f’ing millionaire for thinking this up.” And yet he couldn’t stop watching. Roomie Heckle’s buddy came to pick him up to go to their Superbowl Party, and sank down onto the couch too as Jackson the golden retriever puppy kept picking fights with Milo the French Bulldog (who sported a neck vein so bulging I really did think it was gonna pop at some point.) Then Roomie Jekyll came in, “What the f are you guys WATCHING?” she says, but as soon as she saw the Bowl Cam (they stuck a camera underneath a transparent water bowl to get super close up shots for puppy tongues lapping the water, and puppy feet including PINK PUPPY PAW PADS splashing around) she was hooked too. It’s a drug, people. You don’t wanna stop.

Dear God, thank you for the Puppy Bowl. Thank you for the silliness, the inanity, the puppies. Thank you for the patient Referee and his vacuum. Thank you for the cameramen who might have thought at one point there has to be better gigs than tracking the movements of a directionless pack o’ puppies with no game plan. Because honestly, there ISN’T a better gig. This is it. Puppies, squeaky toys, pink puppy paw pads, sniffy noses and cockeyed ears. Thanks for the kitten halftime show, too, because even though I’m not the biggest kitten fan in the world, kittens playing on a playset to disco music is damn funny. Thank you thank you thank you. Amen.

P.S. Thank you for Prince’s halftime show on the real Superbowl, because he RAWKED. Thank you especially for his cover of “The Best of You.” That was my favorite. Amen.