Rate Your Music score: 2.39 out of 5!
During the 1985-86 NFL season, the Chicago Bears seemed to be trying to lay claim as "America's team." They ended the regular season with a smashing 15-1 record, and everyone knew they were well on their way to play in Super Bowl XX.
So, not long before the big game, the Bears recorded this charity single that had a hip-hop beat. The team had built such a strong national following that the record was played on the radio all over the country and managed to peak just one notch shy of the nationwide top 40. Profits from the record were donated to an organization that helped needy Chicago area families.
After "Superbowl Shuffle" was released, the Bears went on to destroy the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XX at the Louisiana Superdome. That was the Super Bowl that had the Up with People halftime show where the guy wearing ridiculous clothes sang the Huey Lewis song "The Power Of Love"...
I had thought he also wore fluorescent suspenders, but I must have been thinking of someone else.
After that was when I started being forced to attend a terrible Catholic school for the rest of 7th grade. During the spring was the 8th graders' variety show. This was a live performance that the class gave for the entire school and community. One of the skits consisted of some of the 8th grade girls wearing football jerseys and dancing to "Superbowl Shuffle." The entire show was G-rated, yet somehow, it was too much for the ultraconservative citizenry of Cold Spring, Kentucky, to handle. A year later, when I was in 8th grade, the school refused to let us have a variety show. They said it was because spring was a time solely for reflection, and that the previous year's show had offended the community. It is believed that the "Superbowl Shuffle" segment provoked much of the outrage. I don't see how it was offensive at all.
When our show was canceled, some of my 8th grade classmates begged me to write a petition to have it reinstated. But the rest of the time, they kept harassing me. Oops, there went their petition. They harassed me, and they lost their variety show. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
In 2014 - almost 30 years after "Superbowl Shuffle" was recorded - some of the Bears players who performed on the record sued the company that held the license to the song, rightly saying the proceeds should continue to go to charity. It's sad that even charities are no longer safe from the greed of companies that try to rip them off.
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