O’Donnell: HBO gives it the old hip-hop try with tale of ‘The Super Bowl Shuffle’
IS THERE A FANATIC DOMAIN on the planet subject to harsher outcomes than the one forever enveloping the Chicago Bears?
The cruelest dividing line has to do with coincidence of births:
That would be those old enough to have lived through the mystical 1985 Super Bowl XX championship season and those who came after.
It's not fair.
THE CURRENT AUTUMN IS the 40th anniversary of Mike Ditka's magic men and their magnificent march to New Orleans. In truth the season has been generally devoid of any overwhelming celebration. Carved pumpkins on front porches have chewed up as much stored orange glee.
HBO — now on the far side of the arc as a primary cable option — tries to plug the memory dyke Tuesday when it premieres a short-form “documentary” on the making of “The Super Bowl Shuffle.”
“The Shuffle,” a joint effort of HBO and NFL Films, debuts at 8 p.m. with subsequent streaming on HBO Max.
FOR THOSE ALIVE AND AWARE in 1985, “The Super Bowl Shuffle” was a memorable accent on the road to Super Bowl XX. As a hip-hop recording, it was a 93 with a beat even the most stone feet could glide to.
In fact, it was the product of a bang-bang marriage of creativity and ambition between an advertising hustler named Dick Meyer and Willie Gault, the world-class sprinter who spread the field as a wide receiver for Bears offensive coordinator Ed Hughes.
Gault wanted to be an actor. Meyer wanted to be a mogul.
MEYER WAS NOTHING IF NOT audacious. He had sniffed pop globality in 1981 when he convinced the fragrant folks at Jovan Musk to pay a reported $1 million to have their brand printed on tickets for the mammoth 1981 American tour of the Rolling Stones.
By 1985 Meyer – like just about every other promoter within hailing distance of Halas Hall – wanted to try and seize some profit tangent from Ditka's Bears.
He came up with the concept of a hip-hop tune featuring members of the high-marquee football troupe. Gault served as his locker room recruiter.
THE CORE INSPIRATION WAS a novelty tune from the audio vault of the “Amos 'n Andy” radio/TV series titled “The Kingfish Shuffle.” Back in 1985, not a whit of notice was offered of the project's slippery inspiration.
Working in a compact time frame, Gault tried to get the best and biggest among his teammates to participate. The lure was that a large chunk of the proceeds would go to Chicago charities.
Dan Hampton and Steve McMichael both said “no.” That was notable since they were two of the more musical on the '85 roster.
WALTER PAYTON AGREED to participate, which was key. Ditto for Jim McMahon and William “The Refrigerator” Perry.
Perry, the king-sized rookie DT from Clemson, was a hot pop commodity by December 1985. No less than Bob Hope flew in on a Friday night from southern California to tape a segment for his NBC Christmas special with “The Fridge” at the Merchandise Mart.
Meyer enlisted a cadre of excellent musical stylists to flesh out his sound vision. One of the most important was a Nashville-based lyricist named Mel Owens, who would later die broke and alone in government-subsidized housing.
PRINCIPAL VIDEO FOR THE PROJECT was shot the day after the team's lone loss – a 38-24 “Monday Night Football” defeat at Miami.
The song itself was released two weeks later. Meyer and an associate from his small Red Label Records walked a tape into the hit-making WLS-AM (890).
Li'l Tommy Edwards, the program director at the time, told the Daily Herald Friday: “I listened and was stunned. I had to walk it into (station manager) John Gehron's office. He gave me the OK and we had it on the air within an hour or so. The rest is history.”
THE FULL HISTORY IS FAR TOO MUCH for HBO and director Jeff Cameron to tell in 40 minutes. The song itself and accompanying video were sensational. The many frayed feelings that resulted from disbursement of profits and other concerns were not.
The Bears still had road games vs. the Jets and the Lions before a playoffs sequence of up to three games would begin. Some questioned the boldness of releasing such an anthem for the bulletin-board ear buds of opponents beforehand.
DITKA, WHEN ASKED, SAID:
“I think they're saying we're gonna win it all and if you don't think you're gonna win, you're not going to. I don't think any song is going to make that big of a difference.”
In the end, Da' Coach was right.
And Chicago's Fanatic Domain had a defining soundtrack that still shuffles on.
Jim O'Donnell's Sports and Media column appears each week on Sunday and Wednesday. Reach him at jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com. All communications may be considered for publication.