TVSquad

If you're like me (you have my deepest sympathy), you don't have a dog in this Sunday's hunt.

Thanks to the Arizona Cardinals' first appearance this weekend, my hometown team, the New Orleans Saints, will now be one of only five left in the NFL that have never made a Super Bowl appearance. Three if you don't count the expansion clubs.

So if you're a Cardinals fan and don't have the stomach to endure their slow, agonizing and inevitable defeat at the hands of the Pittsburgh Steelers, here are some alternative shows you can watch instead of the Super Bowl.

Animal Planet will have their fifth annual Puppy Bowl during the big game. If you haven't seen it, then by all means watch it or risk dying angry. It literally features wall-to-wall coverage of puppies from adoption clinics running around a miniature football field doing what they do best: being cuter than cute will allow. They run, they jump, they dive. They do everything an over-paid tight end can do, except make you wish your TV had arms so it could hug you back.

Of course, the show has grown in popularity every year and this time, Animal Planet has pulled out all of the stops. The Philadelphia Phillies' Harry Kalas will provide color commentary, an all-star lineup of kittens will perform during halftime and a frigging parrot will sing the National Anthem! It's all the cuteness of a litter of pets in your home minus the hay fever and rising cost of Scotchgarding everything you own.

A&E will feature a day long marathon of The Sopranos that will run long after the Steelers have turned the Cardinals into so much pigskin stuffing, if there is a God in heaven. The marathon will feature all six episodes from the sixth and final season, starting with Uncle Junior shooting Tony and ending with the family sitting down to another carb laced dinner to the tune of that stupid Journey song. I still can't get it out of my head, the song and the ending.

TruTV will have a six Cops marathon that parallels the Super Bowl. Tune in for a special guest appearance by former Dallas Cowboy Pacman Jones!

Then for the ladies, TBS will run a marathon of chick flicks starting with Clueless just before noon and ending sometime after 10 p.m. central with My Big Fat Greek Wedding. The Hallmark Channel will have a day long I Love Lucy marathon. CMT will have both versions of Trading Spouses. That is, of course, if she's not too busy baking your chicken wings, refilling the dip bowl and making beer runs for you and the guys.

Then for the kids, Cartoon Network will run the movie Monster House, an episode of Star Wars: The Clone Wars and The Secret Saturdays before moving into their Adult Swim block at the tail end of the game.

And for the completely deaf and blind, ABC will run the Wipeout Bowl.

Finally, MSNBC has the worst titled marathon in the bunch with the Predator Bowl, a day long marathon of To Catch a Predator. I don't really know who that one is for, or maybe I just don't want to.