Buffalo Bills - in Popular Culture

In Popular Culture

Buffalo's rivalry with the Miami Dolphins is referenced on Steve Martin's 1979 album Comedy Is Not Pretty on the track "How To Meet A Girl." On the track Martin simulates chatter about football at a party and one "partier" expresses disbelief that Buffalo could beat Miami - at the time of the album's release the Dolphins had won 18 straight over the Bills.

Howard University's mascot, the Bison, is designed identically to the Buffalo Bills' "charging buffalo" logo.

In the 1996 X-Files episode "Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man", the titular character, a member of a shadowy government cabal, states that the Buffalo Bills will not win a Super Bowl while he lives.

The Buffalo Bills were featured on the direct-to-TV movie, Second String and in the Vincent Gallo drama Buffalo 66. The Buffalo Bills are mentioned in the 1995 movie Heavyweights. The character Josh (Shaun Weiss) says, "Perkis caved like the Buffalo Bills in the Super Bowl", referring to their string of four straight Super Bowl losses in the early 1990s.

On the show "Malcolm in the Middle", you can spot a Buffalo Bills 'football field' rug in the boys' bedroom.

In the 1996 Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman episode S04E01, "Lord of the Flies", Clark picks up a blue Buffalo Bills hat with the Charging Buffalo emblem in the center and uses it to help disguise himself. Dean Cain, who played Clark Kent/Superman, had previously tried out for the Bills. In a later episode, he lets it be known that the Metropolis Mammoths were playing the Bills.

The Bills are one of the favorite teams of ESPN announcer Chris Berman, who picked the Bills to reach the Super Bowl nearly every year in the 1990s. Berman often uses the catchphrase "no one circles the wagons like the Buffalo Bills!" Berman gave the induction speech for Bills owner Ralph Wilson when Wilson was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2009. The Bills were also a favorite of late NBC political commentator Tim Russert, a South Buffalo native, who often referred to the Bills on his Sunday morning talk show, Meet the Press. Actor Nick Bakay, a Buffalo native, is also a well-known Bills fan; he has discussed the team in segments of NFL Top 10.

In an April 2011 episode of the television series 30 Rock, Alec Baldwin's character Jack Donaghy discovers that, in an alternate future, he would not only be wealthier and more successful, but he would also be the owner of a "New York football team." He later is disappointed to learn that the team is not the New York Giants or New York Jets, but the Buffalo Bills.

Several former Buffalo Bills players have earned a name in politics after their playing careers had ended, almost always as members of the Republican Party. The most famous of these was quarterback Jack Kemp, who was elected to Congress from Western New York almost immediately after his playing career ended and remained there for nearly three decades, serving as the Republican nominee for Vice President of the United States under Bob Dole in 1996. Kemp's backup, Ed Rutkowski, served as county executive of Erie County from 1979 to 1987. Former tight end Jay Riemersma, defensive tackle Fred Smerlas and defensive end Phil Hansen have all run for Congress, though Riemersma lost in a primary and Smerlas withdrew; Hansen's campaign is, as of 2012, ongoing. Quarterback Jim Kelly and running back Thurman Thomas have also both been mentioned as potential candidates for political office, although both have declined all requests to date.