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Halftime!
Spend a week with the MSU Spartan Marching Band as they prepare for a special Homecoming 2004 halftime performance celebrating 50 years of television from WKAR.

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WKAR-TV Takes Viewers Behind the Scenes with the MSU Spartan Marching Band
The MSU Marching Band halftime show lasts just seven minutes. The effort put into the show is almost endless.

That effort and the students who spend long hours to create an enjoyable experience for fans are the focus of Halftime!, a documentary produced, written, directed and edited by WKAR’s Mike Mihalus and Dick Best.

“This show will be like a week in the life of a marching band and what it takes to make a halftime show,” Mihalus says. “We want to tell the story of the band to people at home—the marching practices in the rain, getting up to practice at 7 a.m., the countless hours. We want people to understand how dedicated these kids are.”

Both Mihalus and Best are MSU graduates and Spartan fans. The idea for the documentary came from Best, WKAR videographer, who was a member of MSU’s marching band in the ‘60s. He then produced a show on the band’s experience in the 1988 Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif.

Mihalus said he and Best got to know several band members well and will get to the personal side of the story. “You see the kids out by themselves marching before practice just because they want to get it perfect. You see them talking about it after practice. I watch the kids doing it and say, ‘It looks perfect.’ But they want to get it past what the average person can see and get it so it’s perfect to them. That’s what impresses me—band is their life. They want to get it perfect.”

Halftime! features the October 2004 homecoming show in which the band saluted public television during WKAR’s 50th year by performing such numbers as the theme to “Masterpiece Theatre,” “Rubber Duckie,” “Sesame Street Theme,” and “It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (“Mister Rogers’ Theme). MSU Band Director John Madden added to the energy of the performance by having the band spell out the letters WKAR in tribute to the station.

first aired September 2005

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Scenes from
Halftime!

John Madden on the director's scaffold at marching band practice.	"Repitition builds confidence." -- John Madden
Routine trumpet maintenance.	In the rain on Adams Field.
Drum Major back-bend.	MSU Spartan Marching Band depicts "This Old House" as part of the tribute to WKAR .

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Behind the Scenes during the making of
Halftime!

WKAR Director Dick Best at marching band practice.	Up close with the trumpet line.
Dick Best with the flag corp.	WKAR's Ken Merley on the scaffold with Marching Band Director John Madden
WKAR Producer Mike Mihalus recorded the halftime performance from the press box.	WKAR camera crew on the field with QuizBusters host Matt Ottinger, Arthur, Station Manager Deanne Hamilton and Arthur fans.

photos by Erica Mellema