1985 Bears Coverage: Patriots `shuffle' not quite Bearable

Every day of the 2015 Chicago Bears season, Chicago Sun-Times Sports will revisit its coverage 30 years ago during the 1985 Bears’ run to a Super Bowl title.

Patriots `shuffle’ not quite Bearable

Jim Merriner

Originally published Jan. 17, 1986

They got some ex-jocks, they got the mayor, to try to mimic the Chicago Bears.

But Boston ain’t got no parity, in videos recorded for charity.

Mayor Raymond Flynn tried to raise a fracas, singing without Gov. Michael Dukakis.

They probably won’t get no more auditions, the Bears’ “Super Bowl Shuffle” had no politicians.

Five weeks after the Bears released the “Super Bowl Shuffle” music video, Boston celebrities gathered in a recording studio last night in an effort to follow suit for the Patriots.

“New England, the Patriots and Me” will be released this weekend to raise funds for charity, sponsors said.

Radio personality Morgan White Jr. and newsman Bob Kantztcn said they produced the video “in response to the Bears’ daring `Super Bowl Shuffle.’ ”

“I could see, if the Patriots did go all the way, we were going to look like stepchildren without the media,” said White as he hurriedly lined up musicians and singers in the cramped studio.

The recording session was postponed twice this week because of song copyright hassles. Gov. Dukakis, originally scheduled, was unable to attend last night.

Mayor Flynn replied to Mayor Washington’s prediction yesterday of a minimum 10-point Bears victory by claiming that Washington is a secret Patriots fan.

“Down deep, he’s a real Patriots supporter. He was an underdog like me in the mayor’s election,” Flynn said.

“People said he couldn’t win. That is what they are saying about the Patriots.

“The underdogs work harder. We’ve got the Cinderella team and Mayor Washington was the Cinderella candidate.”

Flynn joined ex-Boston Celtics star M. L. Carr and dozens of local media people in clapping hands and singing the chorus, “New England, the Patriots and Me.”

Carr, towering over the crowd, waved a T-shirt over his head that read “Berry the Bears,” a reference to Patriots Coach Raymond Berry.

Other celebrities arrived to re cord lyrics on the order of, “Unplug the refrigerator and beat the Bears, this is our Super Bowl wish.”

However, White said, “I don’t know if that line will make the final cut.”

Somehow it lacks the ring of, say, Otis Wilson rapping, “I’m mama’s boy Otis, one of a kind, the ladies all love me for my body and my mind,” in “Super Bowl Shuffle.”

White and Kantztcn at first wrote “Patriot Fans Are We,” taking off on the `70s disco hit, “We Are Family” by Sister Sledge.

But threats of a copyright suit forced a rewrite, White said. The new melody, such as it is, was composed by musicians at the Soundtrack studio on Boston’s North End.

Proceeds will be donated to the Jimmy Fund, a local charity for childhood diseases.

Patriot supporters don’t know where it’s at, in making videos they’re just copy-cat.

Flynn was decked out in a pinstripe suit, the Patriots’ coach is named after a fruit.

They were just trying to stir up trouble, they can’t do the Super Bowl Shuffle.