Super Bowl II pits the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League against the Oakland Raiders of the American Football League. Melvin Durslag opines in the back of this TV Guide that "the standard-bearer for the Nationals is favored, and it would hit with suffocating shock if the form did not prevail." We also get this awesome "CLOSE-UP" preview of the game.
Twelve-year-old me in 1968 ... well, heck, who are we kidding? ... 44-year-old me in 1968 would ideally be spending Saturday, Jan. 13, gathering up all of his football cards for both teams and pairing them off against one another with the assistance of electric football or some other board game. Sometimes, I feel embarrassed for still being so interested in kiddie stuff like football cards and board games and pretend, but, whatever, the heart loves what the heart loves and, man, oh, man, does my heart ever love this stuff.
So, anyway, here go the lineups for my big pretend Super Bowl II, in anticipation of real Super Bowl II on pretend tomorrow 1968.
When the Packers have the ball, ...
When the Raiders have the ball, ...
Now, I got on Amazon last night and saw that I could pick up Forrest Gregg, Jerry Kramer and Fuzzy Thurston of the Packers and Dan Birdwell, Roger Hagberg, Isaac Lassiter, Kent McCloughan, Bill Miller, Gus Otto and Larry Todd of the Raiders. But that would've been 10 cards for better than $20 plus shipping, and--I don't care how old and/or rare they are--I have a hard time paying more than a quarter per, given that I grew up paying only 25 cents for a whole pack. So, neither pretend Vince Lombardi nor pretend John Rauch can count on much help from his bench in pretend Super Bowl II.
The first game that I'm going to try is NFL Quarterback Football Game. I found it at a yard sale several years ago, and I know that I at least tried to fire it up for a Sunday-school class that I was part of back in North Carolina. I seem to remember that the game was broken in some sort of definitive way when I tried it then, but we'll see. It'll be fun to at least give it a go.
Also, in 1968, I certainly would've had the TV blaring the whole time I was playing this game, so this issue of TV Guide--which Super Wife I gave me for Christmas this year--is a huge help in this regard. For example, I don't remember ever even hearing of this cartoon, Shazzan, which I might've watched on CBS at 10 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 13, 1968:
