Any debate about the greatest NFL team of all time has to include the 1985 Chicago Bears—but you can make an argument for the 1962 Green Bay Packers, the 1972 Miami Dolphins, or the 1978 Pittsburgh Steelers, among others.
What can’t be disputed: The ’85 Bears transcended football and exploded into a popular culture supernova—everything from posters and magazine covers to a William “Refrigerator” Perry G.I. Joe action figure to players making appearances on “The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson” and “Late Night with David Letterman,” restaurants and nightclubs such as Walter Payton’s America’s Bar in River North and Jim McMahon’s in Lincoln Park, weekly radio and TV shows in Chicago, even serving as partial inspiration for “Bill Swerski’s Superfans” sketch on “SNL” a few years later.
Craziest of all: they recorded a hit single called “The Super Bowl Shuffle” that was nominated for a Grammy for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group, alongside Prince & the Revolution, Run-DMC, Ashford & Simpson, Sade, and Cameo. Granted, they lost out to Prince & the Revolution’s “Kiss” because the voters hadn’t lost their minds, but still.
If you’re a longtime Bears fan, you probably already have that drum-machine beat playing in your head, and you’re remembering such immortal lyrics as “I’m not here to feathers ruffle, I’m just here to do the Super Bowl Shuffle.” For me, the memories came flooding back in the breezy, entertaining HBO Original documentary short “The Shuffle,” directed, produced, and edited with smooth skill and efficiency by Jeff Cameron (“Hard Knocks”), debuting November 25th at 9 pm ET/PT.
The 40-minute running time feels just right; this isn’t subject matter that merits the Ken Burns treatment, or the 10-part story arc of “The Last Dance.” Apart from one befuddling footnote, it’s a predictable and straightforward accounting of events, featuring interviews with 1985 stalwarts Mike Singletary, Willie Gault, Jim McMahon, and Gary Fencik (who all look great some four decades later), and a treasure trove of archival footage in era-perfect, beautifully imperfect analog—slightly grainy, with warm color palettes and that “mildly smeared” look that screams mid-1980s.
“The Super Bowl Shuffle” was the brainchild of the late Dick Meyer, an advertising exec who spearheaded the Jōvan musk oil phenomenon and founded the Chicago-based Red Label Records. This was the era of “We Are the World” and Live Aid, so when Meyer pitched the Bears on recording a line dance/rap tune with half the proceeds going to charity (with Willie Gault acting as the chief recruiter for Walter Payton et al.), they agreed to do it. “When you say something’s for charity, you can quite often get people to do ridiculous things,” notes the great sportswriter Rick Telander.
As for the song…get this. The music for “The Super Bowl Shuffle” was originally recorded for a novelty rap tune called “The Kingfish Shuffle,” based on the character from the racist, stereotype-riddled radio/television show “Amos’n’ Andy.” That’s right: in the 1980s, somebody thought it would be a clever idea to make a song called “The Kingfish Shuffle.” To whoever made the call to shelve the thing: GOOD DECISION. The Linn 9000 drum machine groove was set to new lyrics, starting with, “We are the Bears Shufflin’ Crew, shufflin’ on down, doin’ it for you, we’re so bad, we know we’re good, blowin’ your mind like we knew we would.” It was kinda terrible but somehow also great.
The audio was recorded in Meyer’s basement home studio during Week 7 of the season—but the video session at the Park West in Chicago wasn’t scheduled until early December, on the morning after the Bears had suffered an embarrassing 38-24 loss to the Miami Dolphins in the Orange Bowl on “Monday Night Football,” ending their run for an undefeated season. Organizers worried that the Bears would not even show up for the video shoot after taking a redeye back to Chicago. Singletary remembers thinking, “What the heck have we gotten ourselves into? If we don’t go to the Super Bowl, we’re going to be the biggest idiots ever.”
Eventually, players started straggling in. We’re treated to behind-the-scenes footage of the shoot, where it soon became evident that most of these great athletes were NOT good dancers. In typical fashion, Singletary took the lead in trying to get the squad to work together, and he actually credits that day with providing the starters and backups a chance to interact for a common goal: “It became a rallying point that brought us together, got us refocused.” Still, stars Walter Payton and Jim McMahon were no-shows, and they recorded their parts in front of a blue screen in the racquetball court at Halas Hall. (The technology was pretty good for the time, but if you re-watch the video, it’s obvious they’re not in the same room with their teammates.)
The following weekend, the novelty tune was released, and it was a monster. Fans gobbled up the single for $1.99 and the VHS for $19.95, as the song reached #41 on the Billboard charts, was nominated for a Grammy, and raised more than $300,000 for charity. An epilogue title card notes “The Super Bowl Shuffle” became the second-best-selling music video ever, behind Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” The 1985 team was arguably the best in NFL history, and they delivered the GOAT of novelty singles.
