On her 2014 tour, Katy Perry cavorted with an animatronic horse. But because the Super Bowl demands more, she upped the ante during Sunday's halftime performance.
The singer strutted into America's living rooms astride a giant animatronic tiger, all the better to quote Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger" and proclaim, "I am the champion and you're going to hear me roar."
Perry is seasoned at spectacle, a veteran of arena tours as an A-list pop star and hitmaker. She's also savvy enough to cater to two audiences: a wide-eyed, candy-colored cartoon who enchants the kids, and a walking double-entendre with just enough sass for their parents. In that sense, if she didn't exist, the National Football League tastemakers would probably have to invent her to keep ratings and revenue pouring in during the part of the game that used to be reserved for pizza deliveries and beer refills.
The singer stuffed her 12 minutes with pyro, four costume changes and two guest stars. Missy Elliott, rarely seen in recent years, made a welcome return in what looked like a black, modified NASCAR-driver jump suit and leather camp, and strung together a few of her hits, including "Get Ur Freak On" and "Work It." The hip-hop innovator made the most of her screen time and Perry's willingness to share the spotlight.
Lenny Kravitz, on the other hand, played a rote guitar solo underneath Perry's "I Kissed a Girl" and disappeared. In a Super Bowl where Seattle Seahawks wide receiver Chris Matthews went from shoe-store salesman to a football star, Kravitz went from a former rock star to Perry's sideman.
Elliott's appearance gave Perry time to make her fourth and final costume change. After a beach-themed kids section, featuring singing sharks and dancing beach balls, she ascended on a pair of sparks-shooting stars while singing to the backing track of "Firework." It wasn't quite as spectacular as Diana Ross' helicopter airlift at Super Bowl XXX, but then Ross didn't have an animatronic tiger either.
No news was good news for the pre-game performances of "The Star-Spangled Banner" and "America the Beautiful." In recent years, Alicia Keys stirred up purists by stretching the national anthem to 2:40 in 2013, and Christina Aguilera showed off her multi-octave range but flubbed the lyrics in 2011.
This year, controversy took a nap while the musical mix of solemnness and spectacle (jets zooming the stadium) played out. John Legenddelivered a crisp "America the Beautiful" solo at a grand piano, with only a teensy bit of embellishment as he neared the finish line. "Frozen" star Idina Menzel couldn't resist stretching a few notes like taffy during the national anthem - "glare,""wave" and, of course, "free" and "brave" got multi-syllabic makeovers. But her a cappella performance clocked in at a mere 2:04, a half-minute shorter than Keys, though still a half-minute longer than Kelly Clarkson's snappy 2012 version.