I was having lunch with my colleague Jim Weidman and the Weekly Standard’s Jonathan Last yesterday when the conversation turned to football — or at least what happened at halftime during Sunday night’s game between the Dallas Cowboys and Philadelphia Eagles.

I wasn’t watching, so I had no idea NBC had gone “green” and literally turned out the lights on Bob Costas at the New York studio. Broadcasting in the dark with a couple of candles, Costas amazingly kept a straight face and conducted an interview with Matt Lauer, who was reporting from Greenland. (Al Roker was at the equator and Ann Curry at the South Pole.)

The following video gives you an idea of how absurd the whole thing was. (But I’m sure it was great PR for NBC parent General Electric.) The best response came during last night’s game on ESPN when the anchors joked about the lights being on at PNC Park, the empty baseball stadium next to Heinz Field. One of the broadcasters (Tony Kornheiser, perhaps) made sure to note that the crew would at least do its part by recycling.