[5] Among the shows of this era were also performances produced by such groups as The Walt Disney Company,[6] Air Force Entertainment (Tops In Blue), and Radio City Productions.
Up with People were included as performers in the Super Bowl V halftime show, which was headlined by the Southeast Missouri State Marching Band with Anita Bryant as a guest.
[7][8][9][10] At Super Bowl X, Up with People accompanied Tom Sullivan in performing "The Star-Spangled Banner" (the national anthem of the United States) before the start of the game.
Nashawaty criticized Up with People in general, calling them a, "Benetton-ad collection of students from all over the world gathered together to make the cast of Fame look like hardened criminals."
"[12] In a 2010 article for Bleacher Report, Tim McGhee criticized the performance, quipping, "it was as if your church's choir had taken off the robes to reveal Republican fashions and Mister Rogers was the choreographer.
[20] That year's Super Bowl took place in Pontiac, Michigan, near the city of Detroit, where the genre Motown traced its roots.
[20] The performers spent more than three weeks in the Detroit area in advance of the game, with some rehearsal taking place at an indoor facility located at the University of Michigan.
He criticized the decision to have Up with People perform, instead of the marching band of the University of Michigan (located relatively near the site of that year's Super Bowl).
[3] Contrarily, a 2012 The Washington Times article gave the performance a positive retrospective look, ranking it the ninth-best Super Bowl halftime show up through 2012, considering it to be enjoyably wholesome in comparison to more modern Super Bowl halftime shows, writing that Up with People, "were as inoffensive as puppies eating ice cream and apple pie".
[28] The halftime performance was dedicated in memory of Martin Luther King Jr.[25] It featured a taped segment with Bill Cosby and Lily Tomlin encouraging Americans to participate in the upcoming Hands Across America demonstration.
[33] Also ahead of the game, Bill Modoono of The Pittsburgh Press noted that the "perpetual cheeriness" of Up with People makes some viewers, "nauseous".
Expressing his profound displeasure, commissioner Pete Rozelle reportedly opened the meeting with the following statement: "There are three words I never want to hear again: Up...With...People.
[2] A 2017 mlive article by Edward Pevos considered the mix of slower songs and upbeat tunes to be "bizarre", and opined that, despite its theme, the show failed to look futuristic.
[25] In a 2020 Lineups article, Tyler Worthington ranked this the sixth-worst halftime show up through 2020, writing, "Up With People is a music group that didn't do anything excited and just had us hoping that the game would get started again.
[1] A 2010 San Francisco Chronicle article opined, "I hope you were throwing the football in your front yard during halftime shows in the 1970s and early 1980s, which all seemed to feature Up With People or Carol Channing.
Up With People always had a creepy-weird cultish quality, with exaggerated dance moves, brightly colored yet chaste clothing and industrial-grade happiness.
[2] In a 2022 Adweek article, Robert Klara negatively looked back at Up with People as halftime performers, describing them as a "treacly (and overwhelmingly white) dance troupe".
[40] In a 2022 Live365 article, Kathryn Milewski collectively ranked every Super Bowl halftime performance by Up with People as the fifth-worst Super Bowl halftime shows, opining, "If you're from an older generation and remember watching this group on your television set, you may actually appreciate the Up With People performances due to the nostalgia they bring.
Why did the NFL let a cheesy nonprofit group of young people throw high school showchoir-esque numbers in the middle of American TV's biggest night?
"[41]In a 2016 Houston Chronicle piece, characterizing Up With People's shows as belonging to a more "innocent era" of Super Bowl entertainment, Ken Hoffman described Up With People as, "the squeaky clean, optimistic and, sure, corny and slap-happy group of fresh-faced entertainers whose most sinister wardrobe malfunction was maybe a tilted American flag lapel pin.