The Super Bowl Shuffle: How the ’85 Chicago Bears Revolutionized Music and Football In New HBO Documentary

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The Chicago Bears suffered their first loss of an otherwise undefeated season on December 2nd, 1985. The very next day, they did something unprecedented in the NFL: they recorded a rap song, complete with a dance and music video. Team spirits were understandably down; just twelve hours earlier, they’d lost to the Miami Dolphins 38-24 in a nationally televised Monday Night Football game – the only game on TV that night – in front of the entire country.

Despite a recent defeat, music producer Dick Meyer and Bears player Willie Gault came up with the idea for a rap song. They planned for the song’s success to rely on the entire team, and they wanted to donate all the money it earned to help feed people experiencing homelessness in Chicago. And so, “The Super Bowl Shuffle,” with all its memorable and surprisingly accurate predictions, was created.

Both the song and its music video were incredibly popular, reaching number 41 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. It was even nominated for a Grammy Award the next year for Best R&B Performance. Plus, several other NFL teams tried to create similar songs, but none of them came close to matching the success of “The Super Bowl Shuffle.”

HBO and NFL Films teamed up to make The Shuffle, a short documentary about how the 1985 Chicago Bears’ now-famous rap dance became a cultural phenomenon. It’s also the first in a series of short NFL documentaries airing on HBO.

Jeff Cameron’s The Shuffle Is A Must-Watch For Any Football, Rap, Or Film Fan

Director Jeff Cameron is known for telling compelling stories about the NFL. He’s given us an inside look at training camp with Hard Knocks, explored the lives of top quarterbacks in Quarterback, and now, with HBO’s The Shuffle, he’s revisiting the 1980s, when the Chicago Bears were a cultural phenomenon.

The NFL Films director noted that they always have plenty of game footage to work with. However, when creating content about music, it’s much harder because so little original material remains. Figuring out how to visually represent the origins of a song—when they don’t have footage of it being created—was difficult, but a creatively enjoyable challenge.

The documentary is excellent, offering insights from people closely involved with the song and the 1985 Chicago Bears. It includes interviews with Fred Breitberg, the recording engineer, Julia Meyer (wife of producer Dick Meyer), and several players from the team – Willie Gault, Jim McMahon, Gary Fencik, and Mike Singletary. They’ve all grown to appreciate the song’s legacy and what it symbolizes about that time and that iconic team.

Cameron explained that he hadn’t previously interviewed Mike Singletary. He recalled that Singletary is usually quiet, but Cameron knew him from NFL Films footage showing him as a powerfully aggressive player in the 1980s. During the interview, they discussed a difficult time after a loss to Miami, when some players were reluctant to continue filming. Singletary had to motivate them, and as he recounted the story, Cameron was struck by how his demeanor changed. Singletary’s voice grew louder and his eyes widened, instantly reminding Cameron who he was dealing with – the fierce competitor he knew from the films.

Cameron skillfully immerses viewers in the story of the 1985 Chicago Bears, showing not just the games themselves, but also how the team connected through the creation of “The Super Bowl Shuffle.” He explores the song and dance’s lasting impact on the NFL, the music world, and the city of Chicago.

You can watch the premiere of The Shuffle live on , and it will also be available to stream on beginning Tuesday, November 25th at 9 PM Eastern Time.

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2025-11-24 23:15