Scott Gairdner – Sex Offender Shuffle

The story

In 1985 the Chicago Bears rapped The Super Bowl Shuffle and somehow got away with it. In 2009 Scott Gairdner, a 24-year-old California filmmaker, wondered what that video would look like if a county government made it about the registered sex offenders on your street. The answer is the Sex Offender Shuffle.

It's dressed up as a public-service tape from a made-up Miami Dade County Justice Department (Gairdner just liked how the name sounded). Subtitles place each offender in real towns like Hialeah Gardens, Doral and North Bay Village, and one by one they step up to rap their name, their crime and why they'd make a lovely neighbor. One swears his ex-wife framed him. Gairdner's girlfriend plays the lone woman on the roster. He told the Broward Palm Beach New Times he researched real offenses, shot it in about a day and went for the look of an '80s industrial video. Some viewers thought it was real. He also borrowed from a video of Del Monte salesmen rapping about Del Monte products, which is apparently a thing that exists.

The target was Florida, where offenders were sleeping under bridges and on park benches. By the time the local paper caught up with him, the video had passed 300,000 views and landed him a few meetings. Those turned into jobs at Funny or Die and Conan, then his own Comedy Central show, Moonbeam City, and later segments for the Oscars. Not bad for a guy whose calling card was a rap about the sex offender registry.