IAMA Palm Tree in the Super Bowl XLIX Halftime Performance featuring Katy Perry. AMA!

Why didn't you audition for the part of "Left Shark"?

The sharks were originally supposed to be dancers from Mesa Community College but 2-3 days before the performance Katy decided she wanted her own people in costume.

i totally agree with the sentiment, you wouldnt want them to make a fool of themselves on stage

The worst part is the MCC dancers had been practicing it for much longer and definitely knew it better at least in my opinion.

What a time to be alive.

Right? Still riding the hype train from earlier today.

Can you ask the sharks to do an ama?

I would if I knew them.

Supposedly one was Snoop. Can you corroborate? https://twitter.com/snoopdogg/status/562058576416346112

Sorry but it was not Snoop

When you guys were little trees, did you ever think you'd make it this far in showbiz?

I always had dreams...aspirations and I finally made it. I'm a rockstar!

Were you compensated?

We were not compensated. It was a volunteer position.

Katy Perry didn't even get compensated. Usually the artists have to pay the NFL to perform. Katy, however, said she wasn't gonna do that. Source

EDIT: As others have pointed out, the NFL has never made an artist pay before this was just the first year they were considering it. Katy still didn't get paid though.

It seems to be a trend in recent years that the artists don't pay. The NFL covers the production costs, which are in the millions. I still think that dancers should get paid, though.

Pretty sure Pepsi covers most of the production cost considering their name is on the halftime show

From the Forbes link:

"Her arrangement will be similar to recent performers like Bruno Mars and Beyoncé: the league won’t give her a fee, but they’ll cover the show’s multi-million dollar production costs."

I stand corrected.

What was your favorite part of the whole experience? Did you get to meet Katy herself? If so, what was her personality like?

She showed up to our Props Cast rehearsal on Monday and said hi. That's the closest any of us got to meeting her. She seemed nice, bubbly personality. Also she has the cutest damn dog, it looks like a teddy bear.

Do you think that you will be able to brag about this for years to come, or will your be forgotten in the sands of time, and all this will come to nothing?

I will brag about it until the end of time!

1. How old are you?

2. What is your dream job?

3. Sorry I'm so fixated on the shark costumes, but HOW CAN I GET MY HANDS ON ONE OF THEM?

1. 22

2. I want to build rockets. I'm a senior in Aerospace Engineering at ASU.

3. I wish I knew! They were definitely the best, but I have no idea what is happening to any of the costumes.

Are you planning on having sex while wearing the costume, or is it too late to ask?

Come on, people. SOMEONE would ask eventually!

We didn't get to keep the costumes :(

When you first saw your costume, what were you thinking when you found out that you were going to be a tree that looks like it has Down Syndrome in front of millions of viewers?

I honestly didn't care what it looked like. It's Katy Perry so I knew it would be a little absurd. Just the opportunity was enough to outweigh the drawbacks to the costume.

What were you wearing under the costume? Were you naked?

We were in unitards with only boxer-briefs or compressions shorts on underneath, so pretty close.

Can't remember if the palm trees did it but the sharks and the beach balls definitely had moving mouths. I can imagine since the beach balls don't have arms you could operate the mouth with a hand rather easily, but what about the sharks, how did they move the mouth bits with their hands in the fins?

Our mouths definitely moved. We had to use our hands to flip the upper lip to simulate singing along to the chorus. For the sharks they would actually pull one hand out of the fin to operate the mouth.

That's awesome, I thought it was a nice little touch to the costumes, you guys looked great out there. I'm not normally one to care at all about half-time shows but this one actually caught my attention and thought it was very well done (thanks in no small part to the backups/props). The 'beach' routine was my favorite so give yourself a pat on the back! Those sharks were show stealers though!

Thanks I/We really appreciate that. All your praise definitely goes to the production crew and wardrobe crew though who were all absolutely phenomenal people to work with.

The whole beach routine never hit me until I saw this image of it http://imgur.com/XI5XPil.

Would you rather have been a shark? Do you think you would have done better than the left shark?

I would have to say no because unfortunately my dance skills are much worse. I will say the shark costume was definitely the best out of all of them.

If you have a chance, will you do it again?

(BTW, I also pick up mascot job now and then. Something like this would've been my dream gig for sure.)

If I had the time I would do it again in a heartbeat. It was a very worthwhile experience. Definitely was not expecting how awesome it would feel on game day.

I really hope you get the chance to do it someday!

The biggest mascot gig I've done in a stadium was in front of 20,000+ people at a Canadian Football game halftime. Performing in front of 70,000+ and millions more watching on TV would totally blow my mind. I bet there'll be quite a pressure to not fuck up but at the same time you'd want to enjoy the moment as much as possible.

Cherish the moment, bud. Cheers.

The trees were really top heavy so all of us were hoping not to fall over in the middle of the performance. Me especially because my tree was the problem child of the group.

I really hope you get the opportunity to do something like we did!

Just think of how famous you would be if you were the tree that did fall over. You'd be even more talked about than left shark.

This is a really good point...

Was Snoop Dogg in one of the sharks?

He was not. It was two of the chess pieces from the Dark Horse portion of her show.

so Snoop was one of the chess pieces from Dark Horse?

Get out.

ok but honestly, how mad were you that katy didn't grind up on you?

I wanted to kill /u/asumello61 and take his place.

How many rehearsals did you have/how long in advance did you start preparing for the show? Also, what was the coolest thing you saw behind the scenes?

We started on January 22nd. We had two sectionals on the 22nd and 23rd. Then on Sunday we had a put together rehearsal with the orbs (both opening and closing orbs). That Monday and Tuesday were another sort of sectional put together rehearsal. Wednesday-Friday were the full dress rehearsals in the stadium. The sectionals were shorter but the put-together and dress rehearsals were usually 3-4 hours long.

The coolest behind the scenes thing was definitely have Katy show up to our Props Cast rehearsal. I was a little star struck. Seeing the Lion for the first time was pretty awesome too.

Awesome! Thanks for responding! How exactly did the lion function? Do you know what was supporting it on the bottom?

I'm trying to respond to everyone I can this is really exciting!

The lion was supported by a huge steel frame on wheels that went up into the structure of it. The outside of it was made by what I think was fiberglass covered in that gold foil.

When did you guys know that the kids from our old high school would be there as well?

When we showed up to the rehearsal that was at the school. SO MANY HIGH SCHOOL KIDS. I want to say there were at least 3-5 high schools participating. Mostly band kids and dancers.

1. Did you get to meet any NFL players?
2. Did you get free food?

1. I did not.

2. Yes. They fed us at all but one rehearsal.

Patriots or Seahawks?

Patriots! I'm a Denver Bronco fan so I was still bitter after last year.

Katy perry looks like a sweetheart. Is she a diva or bitch in person?

I honestly can't say for sure. When she showed up to our rehearsal she seemed nice and said hi to all of us. During some of the full dress rehearsals she would get a little antsy. In my opinion I think that's because it was the biggest performance of her career and she wanted to do it right.

I like the performance. I enjoyed it.

I actually haven't seen the whole thing yet. Can only see so much through the foam eyes of the palm tree.

When you finish the AMA, you must say that you have to make like a tree and leave. It's a given.

With that being said, would you rather fight 100 duck-sized dancing sharks, or one dancing shark-sized duck?

Depends. Is it 100 duck-sized dancing left sharks or 100 duck-sized dancing right sharks?

50/50 split.

That's too many Right Sharks. I'll go with the dancing shark-sized duck.

Were you the guy she rubbed up on?

That would be /u/asumello61

Did they at least let you keep the converse?

Yup! They're actually pretty nice, too. Wearing em right now on Mill ave!

TFTI!

Seriously...

Yeah Buddy!

http://imgur.com/wqg4puG

Would you have called for a pass play at the 1 yard line with 30 seconds left and 2 time outs?

Not when I have an overrated quarterback and beast mode in the back field.

How did you change the scenery so quickly between songs? Also did you get to watch the game for free?

The camera aimed over at Lenny and Katy while we waddled onto the stage. Definitely not as fast as it seems.

How did you manage to land such a sweet deal like this? Did someone approach you or did you seek it out?

It was actually through Arizona State marching band. They posted about needing 30+ people for what was known then as the Sunshine Cast (Inflatables in California Gurls), and then a second post was made looking for 6'0" or taller slim guys for prop crew. The marching band was already set to play at the Super Bowl since nearly a year ago, so I'm assuming they saw that as an easy way to get people that actually have a clue about timings and musical cues.

What were your thoughts while you were onstage?

What were your thoughts while you were onstage?

"Please don't fall, please don't fall, please don't fall" the costumes were very top-heavy and took a while to get used to. surprisingly, no one ever fell during any of the rehearsals.

I will piggy back off of this and say at the last rehearsal I almost got knocked over twice.

I would pass out from embarrassment if I fell over during the live show. How would you even get up! I'd be lying there for the rest of the show like "this is my life now"

There was absolutely no way to get up if we fell down. I'd probably just lay there and cry.

Did you all have fun or was it more like hard work?

There was one point where we had to wear the costumes for an hour because we had no idea when we were going to do a full run through. That was the only time it felt like hard work. Other than that it was a blast.

So uh... did you get a nice view?

I was in the front, but I definitely made sure to include rotating along with my bouncing "choreography" to get a nice view. The other two definitely had a better view than me.

I was all the way back, stage right. Great view.

Were you the one twisting so much near the end that I was concerned you would topple over?

That could have been any of us to be honest

Are you still wearing the costume? If not, did you get to keep it?

I wouldn't want to wear that costume longer than I had to it was really inconvenient. Basically a backpack with a pvc pipe attached to it that held the costume up.

No we did not get to keep them.

Did you get to meet Missy Elliott or Lenny Kravitz? Were they nice?

Missy walked by us a few times during rehearsal but that's about it. Anytime Lenny was around I was in costume so I don't know if anyone else got to meet him.

WHO WERE THE SHARKS???

KATY PERRY'S DANCERS!!!

Do you think you have what it takes to pursue a career as a dancing palm tree in the big leagues?

Is the Super Bowl not the big leagues?

Who were you rooting for? Seahawks, patriots, or your friend who katy grinded on?

Patriots.

Why would I root for my friend? I wanted his spot!