Album cover of 'The Super Bowl Shuffle' featuring the 1985 Chicago Bears Shufflin' Crew posing in uniform.

The Super Bowl Shuffle

1985viral videoclassic

Published October 2, 2026

The Super Bowl Shuffle is a 1985 rap song by members of the Chicago Bears that won a Grammy and became an endlessly parodied template for sports teams, companies and comedy sketches. Its boastful, low-budget charm inspired decades of imitations ranging from wrestling promos to a viral Sex Offender Shuffle.

nfl memes parody song memes super bowl memes pre digital memes hip hop memes

Overview

The Super Bowl Shuffle is a music video in which roughly a dozen Chicago Bears take turns rapping verses about their own skills and their predicted championship win, backed by a stiff synth beat and matching blue tracksuits1. The clip's charm comes from how committed and unselfconscious the players look while delivering clunky rhymes, which is exactly what later parodies seize on2.

The format later became a reliable template: gather a group, line them up, give each person a short braggy verse, and shoot it as cheaply as possible. Imitators range from the Boston College men's hockey team to the Houston Rockets to a 1980s food brokerage sales staff2. The video also keeps circulating online as a nostalgic clip whenever the Bears or the 1985 season come up1.

Origin & Background

Platform
Music video (1985) / YouTube (viral spread)
Creator
Chicago Bears players
Date
1985

The Chicago Bears recorded The Super Bowl Shuffle during their 1985 season, before they went on to win Super Bowl XX. The song was nominated for Best Rhythm and Blues Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals at the 1987 Grammy Awards2. The official music video, featuring players like Walter Payton, Jim McMahon, Mike Singletary and William "The Refrigerator" Perry delivering solo verses, is widely mirrored on YouTube1.

In the years after its release, the song picked up a second life as a parody template. Early imitators came from the sports world, including the Kansas Wesleyan football team, Boston College men's ice hockey and the Houston Rockets2.

How It Spread

The video's online second life started building in the mid-2000s. On January 31st, 2006, YouTuber Kerri Miller uploaded a 1980s promo for the Southern Food Brokerage Corporation in which salespeople perform a shot-for-shot office parody called the Super Broker Shuffle3. On January 22nd, 2007, Ebaum's World posted the original Chicago Bears clip, where it collected tens of thousands of views over the following years3.

Parody uploads kept coming. YouTuber superLINUSxxx posted the American Wrestling Association's WrestleRock Rumble, a wrestler-led knockoff of the Bears video3. On November 30th, 2009, YouTuber Scott Gairdner uploaded Sex Offender Shuffle, a sketch of actors playing sex offenders rapping about their convictions, which pulled in more than 2.9 million views within six years3. Boost Mobile ran a Super Bowl Shuffle parody commercial in February 20103.

Later remixes and sketches kept the format alive. On August 11th, 2011, YouTuber bow2tragic posted a remix of the original song3. On September 26th, 2013, Key & Peele released a sketch in which rival football players shoot competing hype rap videos in the same spirit3. The Sex Offender Shuffle was later resurfaced on the r/NotTimAndEric subreddit on August 23rd, 20144.

Timeline

1985

The Chicago Bears record and release The Super Bowl Shuffle music video during their championship season.

1987

The song is nominated for Best Rhythm and Blues Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals at the Grammy Awards.

2006-01-31

YouTuber Kerri Miller uploads the 1980s Southern Food Brokerage Corporation Super Broker Shuffle parody.

2007-01-22

Ebaum's World posts the original Chicago Bears music video.

2009-11-30

YouTuber Scott Gairdner uploads Sex Offender Shuffle, which gets millions of views.

2010-02

Boost Mobile airs a commercial parodying The Super Bowl Shuffle.

2013-09-26

Key & Peele release a sketch built around competing hype rap videos in the Shuffle format.

2014-08-23

Sex Offender Shuffle is reposted to the r/NotTimAndEric subreddit.

Frequently Asked Questions