Your AFL, in living color, and five parts

Check out those retro Raiders, Chargers, Bills and Patroits jerseys last night. And those made-for-TV unis changed them over the years ... why?

The colorful, crazy and Ron Mix-ed up history of the American Football League, celebrating its 50th season of existence, is documented in a five-part series called "Full Color Football," produced from the NFL Films archives, that'll start airing on Showtime on Wednesday (8 p.m.) and continuing at the same time each week through Oct. 14.

It leads into the series, "Inside the NFL," which many may not remember is also Showtime property. Since CBS' Viacom owns this whole mess, perhaps the over-the-air net will figure out a way to not only promote this, but eventually air it before it heads to DVD down the road.

"The AFL is one of the great American success stories," says NFL Films president Steve Sabol, "and it's a story with a lot of colorful characters. In this project, we celebrate the AFL while also debunking myths about why the league succeeded."

It wasn't because of Al Davis' iron will?

Davis, John Madden and Joe Namath are among the many interviewed and included to talk about how the league came about after Lamar Hunt was refused admission into the NFL. He started his own team, the Kansas City Chiefs. Take that.

The Los Angeles Chargers were also part of that 1960 launch, but moved south a year later. Why? Maybe we find out here. Did Paris Hilton's great grandma have anything to do with it?

The first episode, "The New Frontier," discusses Hunt's idea born on an airplane and goes through the 1962 AFL championship, a double OT game.