Format
The Puppy Bowl consists of a number of puppies playing in a model stadium ("Animal Planet Stadium") with no audience (but with canned audience cheering), minimal commentary, and instant replay shots. A "bowl cam" provides shots upwards through the transparent bottom of a special water bowl built into the stadium floor, with a wide-angle lens that allows viewers to watch the puppies drink water (and walk through it) up close. The first Puppy Bowl featured a "ball cam," a camera mounted on an radio-controlled car chassis with a football skin covering the camera that drove among the puppies on the field near the one-hour mark. Some puppies seemed scared of it, while others appeared curious and investigated it. The puppies are given a wide variety of chew-toys and bones to play with, and they are free to tackle, bite, and do as they wish. Jazz music is added to the clips in post-production.
A human "referee" watches over the "action on the field." In the first few years of Puppy Bowl, this was a crew member randomly selected each year. Beginning in 2008, it was Animal Planet associate producer Andrew Schechter. For the 2012 Puppy Bowl, Schechter was replaced by SportsNet New York and Beer Money! host Dan Schachner. Football terminology is often used by the announcer and referee to illustrate the puppies' behavior and actions. When a puppy drags one of the football-shaped toys into the end zone, a "puppy touchdown" is declared. "Penalties" are issued for puppies relieving themselves on the field. Timeouts are called if the water bowl needs to be refilled, or if the puppies begin to fight (a behavior called "unnecessary rrruff-ness"). In Puppy Bowl VI, substitutions were made whenever a puppy fell asleep on the field. Puppy Bowl III, V, VI, VII and VIII also featured a tailgate party outside the stadium with several other dogs watching the event on televisions with cuts to their reactions throughout.
The running time of Puppy Bowls I through IV was 180 minutes (including commercials). The running time of Puppy Bowl V was decreased to 120 minutes (including commercials). Jessie Dinh, producer at Discovery Studios, explained the reason for the decrease: "We only did two hours this year so that we had the opportunity to include some other fun elements."
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