But they do watch the Super Bowl for one thing – boobies. Across the world yesterday, hundreds of millions of people tuned into to the Super Bowl to see who’d accidentally flop a knocker out during the halftime show. Sadly, all we got was Bruce Springsteen.

Bruce Springsteen yesterday performed a Super Bowl halftime set that was as flat and lifeless as any in recent memory, and he’s received lukewarm reviews for it at best. Plus, let’s be honest, his tits are terrible.

Aside from the actual football – which couldn’t be more dreary if it took place between two different gangs of nearly-dead emphysemic pensioners – people tend to watch the Super Bowl for either the ads or the halftime show. And usually one of those will have something going for it.

Not this year, though. As far as the Superbowl commercials went, we were spared Kevin Federline and adorably violent homophobia and instead got two things that made us instinctively dry-heave – the first was Bob Dylan doing a duet with Will.i.am in an advert for Pepsi, and the second was that 3D promo for Jay Leno’s new show where he drove around, tried to poke us in the eye with his chin and pulled a horrifyingly smug face all at the same time. Never say Jay Leno can’t multitask.

As for the music, the Super Bowl halftime show continued its dull tradition of violently eschewing sexiness and showmanship in favour of ground-out craftmanship. Bruce Springsteen was the performer last night, and in his 12-minute slot he avoided recent controversies like the Janet Jackson nipple-slip or the Prince devil penis so that he could concentrate on belting out some of his biggest hits.

Well, some of his biggest hits and a new song. A new song that sounds like it was written by a cynically-minded internet Bruce Springsteen song generator that’s on the fritz. And, because of that, the reviews of Bruce Springsteen’s Super Bowl halftime show haven’t been all that amazing. The New York Times reports:

The final discomforts were all Springsteen’s. At the end, he shouted inexplicably, “I’m going to Disneyland!” A moment earlier, a man dressed as a referee appeared on stage, threw a yellow flag and crossed his arms in front of Springsteen, the signal for delay of game. Springsteen mock fretted about the ticking clock, and Van Zandt protested, screaming, “It’s Boss time!” Except that it wasn’t, and everyone knew it.

Maybe it’s a little harsh to criticise Bruce Springsteen for his performance – a 12-minute Super Bowl halftime show didn’t really give him the chance to show off what he does best, which is a) playing concerts that go on for such incalculably long periods of time that members of the audience routinely end up developing spinal fusion, full-length beards and elderly incontinence, and b) singing songs about bumming prostitues.

But, hey, at least nobody saw any nipples – even if we do suspect that if the Super Bowl continues to book halftime acts based on their sturdy reliability, then next year we’ll be treated to a 12-minute set by an actual sack of potatos.

And, you know. At least it wasn’t Tom Petty again. That’s something to be thankful for, at least.

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In the seventies you’d know the Jacksons as that annoying bunch of kids whose songs were more infectious then the Ebola virus, while the eighties and early nineties saw Michael Jackson pull away and gain success on his own.

Sadly MJ knackered things up towards the end of the nineties with “botched surgery” plaguing the Jackson name. Then at the turn of the millennium, things got worse as the tags “dodgy alleged child molester”, “rubber masked mo’ fo’” and “strange reality show contestant” were thrown around.

Whilst all the male members of the Jackson family were being beaten daily by their father to perform like dancing bears, poor Janet Jackson didn’t get a look in, with only Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, Marlon, Michael and Randy involved in the Jackson 5 set-up.

Sadly, she’d have to go alone at it, using her surname like the unfamous sibling of a celebrity does. Yes she released some songs, but they weren’t “omg wow amazing,” though getting her tit out at the Super Bowl XXXVIII show in February 2004 did help.

Employed to entertain a rabble of drunken Americans whilst they waited for a poor man’s rugby game to kick off again, Janet was joined by her mate Justin Timberlake. The song itself was doing little to entertain anyone watching, but the real fun didn’t kick in until the end when Timberlake messed around with Janet’s costume. Tearing open her top, he exposed her right breast. Dubbing it as a “wardrobe malfunction,” the two were in for a right telling off. It made Bubbles the monkey cry for God’s sake!

Because Americans are scared of seeing another human naked, the CBS network was fined $550,000 and forced to show all future Super Bowl events on a delay. You know, just incase Paul McCartney whips down his trousers and makes a daisy chain out of his pubes if he was ever asked to play at halftime.

Because Janet is running out of fresh, innovative ideas, she has had to resort to past glories like these for a money spinning opportunity. Her lingerie line Pleasure Principle – named after a song that no-one really knows about from 1987 – apparently aims to make women feel feminine and sexy. At least she’s not set out to make ladies look hairy, butch and transgender. Janet said:

“People have come to me with other ideas, but lingerie is a passion for me, and just like music and acting, I can’t do it unless I put 100% into it.”

It remains to be seen if there will be a super special bra which will have a unusual pad for you to rip off in order to get that Super Bowl feeling. Failing that, we’re sure that a life size cardboard cut out of Justin Timberlake complete with strange, shocked reaction-face will be provided so you can recreate the moment in your front room.

With Janet Jackson’s bra and knickers to be set rolling out of sweatshops imminently, we hope that Michael Jackson will bring out his own brand of face scarves to cover up any individual’s face. Failing that, at least a Dummies Guide To Avoiding Kiddy Fiddling Charges. Gary Glitter would have bought a copy three years ago.