Puppy Bowl

The ***Puppy Bowl*** is an annual television program on Animal Planet that mimics an American football game similar to the Super Bowl, using puppies. It is shown each year on Super Soul Sunday, and consists of footage of puppies from shelters playing inside a model stadium, with commentary on their actions. The entire program is designed to raise awareness about adopting pets from shelters and rescuing abandoned animals.

## Format

The Puppy Bowl consists of a number of puppies from shelters playing in a model stadium ("GEICO stadium") with no audience (but with canned audience cheering), minimal commentary, and instant replay shoots. A "bowl cam" provides shots upwards through the transparent bottom of a special water bowl built into the stadium floor, with a wide-angle lens that allows viewers to watch the puppies drink water (and walk through it) up close. Ten full-size digital cameras and five GoPro miniature digital cameras were used in 2014 to capture the action. These numbers include the hidden cameras in the water bowls and toys.

A human "rufferee" watches over the "action on the field". For the first few years, it was a crew member randomly selected each year; in 2008, Animal Planet associate producer Andrew Schechter started serving as host until being replaced in 2012 by Dan Schachner, who has hosted ever since. The puppies' behavior and actions are illustrated by the announcer using football terminology. When a puppy drags one of the football-shaped toys into the end zone, a "puppy touchdown" is declared. There are no hard-and-fast rules about what constitutes a score.

"Penalties" are issued for puppies relieving themselves on the field. Timeouts are called if a water bowl needs to be refilled or if the puppies begin to fight (a behavior called "unnecessary rrruff-ness".) The show uses puns to mimic the rules of professional football, including paws references (pass interference), ruff sides (offsides), and dog-collar tackle (horse-collar tackle). Unique "penalties" called may also include howling, illegal bathing (playing in the water bowl), napping on the field, premature watering of the lawn (urination), "excessive fertilization" (defecation), "neutral bone infraction" (neutral zone infraction), and "ineligible retriever downfield" (ineligible receiver downfield). In 2015, three new penalty calls were introduced - "Terrorizing the ref" (for a puppy who acts aggressively towards the referee), "paws interference" (for when a puppy blocks another), and "Pancaking" (for when a tired puppy sprawls on the floor instead of playing).

Each year, a Most Valuable Puppy (MVP) chosen at the end of the show for the puppy considered to be the stand-out performer of the event. Beginning with *Puppy Bowl XI*, viewers were allowed to vote for the MVP. Voting was permitted for the program's airing.

Although puppies may urinate or defecate on the field as often as once every twenty seconds, all but one of the incidents was edited out of the show. In 2016, 315 plastic bags were needed to retrieve feces, and more than 1,500 absorbent pads used to clean up urination. Puppies occasionally engage in sexual activity, but this is edited out of the program.

### Kitty Half-Time Show

Starting with *Puppy Bowl II*, at the 1 hour, 15-minute mark, the puppies leave the field and a variety of kittens are brought out along with a giant scratching post for the Kitty Half-Time Show. This features kittens who spend thirty minutes playing with lights, laser pens, balls of yarn, a scratching post, flint sweepers, and a wide variety of other toys. The grand finale of this half-time show was a confetti blast that sent most of the cats running away scared. The half-time show for *Puppy Bowl IV* in 2008 was fifteen minutes in length. All of the kittens, like the puppies, are from shelters and adoptable.

The "stadium" is outfitted with a variety of scratching posts and toys that move to interest and encourage the kittens to move about. However, this usually does not work and catnip is distributed over the set to help the kittens be more active and interested in their surroundings.