• Knowing it would be years before his expansion franchise became competitive, Saints' founding owner John Mecom knew he needed something extra to keep fans interested. So he hired Tommy Walker as Entertainment Director.
• Tommy's chief claim to fame was the six-note "Charge" trumpet fanfare that he wrote it in 1947 while serving as drum major at USC. Walker became more famous than your average drum major because he also served as the Trojans' extra point kicker. During the game, Tommy sat on the bench wearing a helmet with no pads underneath his uniform shirt and pants. Ever the showman, he would move toward the band as halftime neared and make a big show of changing from a football uniform to a band uniform. He set the Pacific Coast Conference record for conversions in a season (19) and certainly holds the all-time record for most points scored by a college kicker who was also a drum major.
• In 1955, Walker staged the opening ceremonies for Walt Disney's theme park in Anaheim. Five years later, he wrote March of the Olympians for the games in Rome. The year before the Saints entered the league, Tommy staged the halftime show for Super Bowl I.
• Tommy's job was to turn Saints games at Tulane Stadium into "Mardi Gras in the Fall." For the opening regular season game against the Los Angeles Rams in 1967, Tommy had a hot air balloon ready to take off before kickoff. New Orleans' own jazz trumpeter Al Hirt, who would lead a live jazz band at field level during timeouts, would play "Up, Up and Away." Unfortunately, an attendant pulled the wrong cord and tore the balloon's red-and-white canopy. Hirt went through 10 choruses of his tune, but the balloon never inflated. That would not be Tommy's last balloon bust.
• During halftime of the All Saints Day game against the Rams in 1970, Tommy staged a reenactment of the Battle of New Orleans that went awry. "One of the Most Dangerous" shows ever staged, as it was dubbed, included an antique, muzzle-loading cannon set up in the end zone. As the two Chalmette National Park Cannoneers, dressed in military outfits, were loading the gun, it went off prematurely, knocking both to the ground. One was bleeding about the face and neck, and smoke was still coming from his jacket when he was carried off on a stretcher. The other one ran off the field with three fingers blown off. Two fans were injured when the ramrod used in loading the cannon sailed into the stands.
  To make matters worse, the Saints lost to the Rams 30-17 to drop their record to 1-5-1, and Coach Tom Fears was fired the next day. (A week later, in J. D. Roberts' first game as head coach, Tom Dempsey kicked a 63y FG to beat the Lions as time expired.)
• Walker staged the pregame and halftime shows at Super Bowl IV in Tulane Stadium. Undeterred by the previous glitches, Tommy put balloons in the pregame show and reenacted the Battle of New Orleans at halftime. The battle went off without a hitch this time - although there was so much smoke from the muskets and cannons that most spectators couldn't see the field. However, the balloons didn't behave again. Two balloons, one with the Vikings mascot and the other with the Kansas City Chief, were supposed to lift off during the National Anthem and fly over the Stadium to a safe landing area. But the Viking balloon hardly got off the ground, bounced once and careened toward the lower deck in the northeast corner of the field. Fortunately, no one was hurt as the spectators in that section ran for their lives. Watch a video of the accident ...
  The Saints parted ways with Walker after the 1970 season. The dance team he formed lives on today as the Saintsations.

Vignette #2: Who's Your Daddy?

• As another example of why many call New Orleans the biggest small town in America, rumors started circulating midway through the 2001 season.
• The story was that WR Joe Horn was the father of OT Willie Roaf's six-week-old daughter, Carrington. Some even speculated that the tension between the two contributed to the disappointing 7-9 season after the Saints finally won a playoff game the year before.
• The rumor became so widespread that Roaf called Times-Picayune reporter Brian Allee-Walsh in January. "I've talked to Joe Horn about it, and Joe said he didn't know Michelle, and Michelle said she didn't know Joe. The baby looks like me ... But I did take a blood test ... so I'll find out the results shortly. But I feel comfortable that the child is mine." The next day, Horn called the same reporter to dispel the rumors as well. Brian said he'd never had to deal with such a sordid story in his nearly 20-year tenure on the Saints beat.
• Three weeks later, Roaf demanded to be traded or released. He cited irreconcilable difference with Coach Jim Haslett. "It would be very difficult at this stage to repair the differences I have with Coach Haslett. Things were said between coach and myself that I don't want to talk about."
• Haslett, who insiders said went out of his way to protect Roaf as he battled the vicious rumor, was flabbergasted and felt betrayed. Shortly after taking over the team in 2000, he said, "Willie is a future Hall of Famer. He's the best left tackle I've ever seen."
• Willie went AWOL after Game 5 of the 2001 season. Haslett told reporters Roaf was in Colorado getting a second opinion on his injured knee. In reality, he was there to meet with his agent and receive counseling about his troubled personal life. Saints coaches and executives worried that their star LT had slipped into a serious bout of depression. Years later, Willie revealed that he was upset with the Saints because his knee injury had been misdiagnosed.
• Saints management finally decided that the damage was irreparable and traded to Kansas City in March 2002 for only a conditional fourth-round draft choice.
• Haslett's prediction came true when Willie was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2012.