Every October in Maryland, oodles of puppies are gathered for the Puppy Bowl phenomenon. The idea of the show started as a joke, but it has become close competition for the Super Bowl.

 Not everybody in America is a football fan. Some people just do not understand the game, or they feel it is too much attention on just one game that lasts about two hours. There were enough people to start a controversy about how nothing interesting is aired on Feb. 2 other than the game. Animal Planet acknowledged this, so the Puppy Bowl was created.

The idea of a Puppy Bowl was originally a joke, according to Margo Kent, the executive producer. The idea was just mocking the Super, Pro, and Cotton Bowls. Kent told Rolling Stone, “It was always a joke: How do you counter the Super Bowl? Let’s just put a box of puppies up there and call it a day. It’s not worth trying to go against the Super Bowl.” The first display of playing puppies attracted 5.58 million viewers – the Super Bowl had over 70 million. After a few years the viewer numbers competed with the Cotton Bowl and even the Pro Bowl. Now, a decade later, 12.4 million people watched the curious pups. The only show that had a higher viewer count was the actual Super Bowl.

The 2014 Puppy Bowl featured many new characters. The hamsters provided the audience with an aerial view of the game, and the penguin cheerleaders gave the pups a reason to be peppy. The Kitty Halftime Show returned, and this time there was a special appearance by Keyboard Cat. Meep the Bird served as a commentator for the game, and tweeted for the whole duration of the game. Meep was a sarcastic little parakeet, tweeting: “Three #PuppyBowl puppies score more than the entire Broncos organization. #SuperBowl” This was all in good fun, except it isn’t necessarily lying.

Due to its popularity, other animals have tried rivaling the Puppy Bowl. This year, different channels aired a Kitty Bowl and even a Fish Bowl. Yes, National Geographic actually held a fish bowl. The Kitty Bowl consisted of 71 kittens, while the Puppy Bowl had 68 baby dogs. The Fish Bowl didn’t even count the number of fish that… competed. Actually, all that was shown was one goldfish just swimming around. The Puppy Bowl had normal dog names, such as Rudy, Ginger, and Dee Dee. The cats took on some player names, such as Tim TeePaw, Tomcat Brady, and Feline Manning. It is unknown how many fish were used in the Fish Bowl, but since it was pre-filmed, most of the goldfish are probably dead by now.

Many stations, animals, and even humans have tried to distract viewers from the Puppy Bowl, but very few have succeeded. Especially due to this year’s Super Bowl, people resorted to spending their hours watching little doggies run around. At least it was entertaining. Hey, even if puppies are not your thing, you can always watch the Kitty Bowl. Or, if you’re really that picky, maybe National Geographic will air another Fish Bowl next year.