I was watching football yesterday and I was wondering if the Dallas Cowboys were the first NFL team to dress up their cheerleaders in blatantly sexy outfits like short shorts and halter tops. (I realize earlier cheerleader outfits were also sometimes sexy but not as obviously so.) Did Dallas invent the idea or did they just happen to be the first team to make it famous?
The sources I’m finding say that the Cowboys introduced cheerleading to pro football in 1960 as the Cowbelles and Beaus, a mixed gender squad that was akin to college football cheerleaders. The Cowgirls came along in 1972, when Tex Schramm decided to sex things up (he original tried models, but then went with women that could follow choreography).
I’m finding in Wikipedia that at least the Redskins and Raiders had cheering squads in the early 1960s, so tough to tell who went sexy first.
The Buffalo Jills claim an existence to 1967, although if they dressed like Dallas’ cheerleaders they’d have all frozen to death. The site says, “The Jills uniform has evolved quite a bit since 1967. Starting with knee length skirts, sweaters and sneakers to the now popular, 2-piece, bare mid-drift, Go-Go boot style.”
According to Wikipedia, the Eagles cheerleading squad was founded in 1948. So Dallas was definitely not the first team to have cheerleaders.
It’s not the existence of cheerleaders per se that is at issue, the question is whether they were dressed sexily or not.
Here’s a link to the Washington Redskins’ Cheerleader Alumni’s 1960s page. While their skirts are pretty short, the tops are none too revealing.
I don’t have anything to add except that, according to Wiki, the 1979 TV movie The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders got a 48% share!:eek: I know cable wasn’t in every home and all, but almost half the viewing public tuned in to that?
I have no cite, but I grew up in Dallas and remember this story:
In a nationally televised game (maybe a superbowl), they were showing the cheerleaders when one of them turned to the camera and gave a sexy wink. This set off a lot of libidos and I think helped create this legacy of sexy-cheerleaders in general and Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders specifically. But with no cite, this is just rumor/speculation/guesswork
It had Jane Seymour in it too.
I watched it - there really wasn’t a lot of choice on TV in those days, and the Dallas Cheerleaders really were HUGE at the time. The TV movie sucked, though. IIRC the story was that Jane Seymour was an investigative reporter who was going to go undercover and blow the lid off this Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader thing, but after joining she discovered that the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders really were as cool as everybody says. Whoops, spoilers.
I admit that I watched it. What I recall most is a loooong sequence in which the Dallas Cowboys organization holds a cattle call audition for new cheerleaders. They had groups of nubile young ladies get up and show off their dancing moves. It went on for a long while for a TV movie - just groups of girls in skimpy outfits getting up and struttin’ their assets - and the cameras were all trained straight at cleavage level.
So, it’s not THAT surprising it got a 48% share.
Remember there were basically 3 channels back then.
As to the 60’s Redskins, I’d totally tap that.
Dallas may have been the first to move from Cheerleading, to of a Pom-pon (dance) squad.
Public Service Announcement: CMT is currently airing Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: Making the Team 3.
