In 1985, the world met the Shufflin’ Crew, and they shuffled it on down, bringing it to you.

The Super Bowl Shuffle was a rather remarkable song. Remarkable because “The Super Bowl Shuffle” was so bad, and remarkable because “The Super Bowl Shuffle” was a smash hit.

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Athletes are athletes for a reason. If they could sing, they would be singers. Some athletes, like Shaq and Deion Sanders, fail to understand this ultimately simple concept. That’s why Shaq’s music career is more of a joke than his free-throw percentage. But oh ho ho, the ’85 Chicago Bears were iconoclastic. Da Bears defied the norm, mixing the words athlete and musician like oil and vinegar, singing (and that’s a questionable verb) the smash-hit “The Super Bowl Shuffle.”

Not that the Bears were being greedy or anything. They were just singing to feed the needy.

Several famous Chicago Bear personalities were part of this triumph, including Jim “The Punky QB” McMahon, and Walter “I’m the baddest running back in the history of the NFL, in fact, my stiff arm can knock your teeth into the back of your mouth” Payton. Let’s take a brief look at these almost-cartoon-like personalities.

Walter Payton, bless his soul, out-worked his way to the Hall of Fame. And for a while, Payton was single-handedly the Bears’ offense. When Payton first arrived in Chicago, his offensive line was as scary as a pack of sedated newborns. Payton’s phony saxophone in “The Super Bowl Shuffle” was also very scary. Like Al Gore’s make-out session with his wife at the Democratic convention a few years back, everyone knew that Payton’s saxophone was a fake. Hell, Payton could have played a wonderful back-up to Milli Vanilli.

The Punky QB probably is my favorite quarterback in the history of quarterbacks. So what if he doomed the franchise to a perpetual three wins and 10,000 losses grave by denouncing Doug Flutie, a future Pro Bowl quarterback and known game winner. In retrospect, the smart-ass turned Pro Bowler made that Cade “Hollywood” McNown look like the California trash he was. Oh yeah, McMahon also rapped about “throwing the field” during “The Super Bowl Shuffle.”

Flashback to grade school, circa 1990. The administrative board decided on throwing an anti-drug rally in the gym of our school. As part of the grand finale, the teachers showed us a video of “The Super Bowl Shuffle.” What “The Super Bowl Shuffle” had to do with fighting crack in the mean streets of Flossmoor, Ill., was beyond me.

Nevertheless, “The Super Bowl Shuffle” was fun. Personalities like “The Fridge” and “The Punky QB” were fun. And songs like “The Super Bowl Shuffle” were … bad.