5 Fun Things You Need to Know About Eli/OBJ’s “Dirty Dancing” Super Bowl Commercial

A Giant Team Effort with 1,625 Pounds of Backup Dancers!

Eli and OBJ were not the only Giants’ teammates featured in this commercial.  Those backups dancers?  Those are Eli’s offensive linemen showing their dance moves:  Brett Jones, John Greco, Chad Wheeler, D.J. Fluker, and John Jerry.

As for the teammate on the sideline who tells the coach the memorable line, “Let them Dance”….that’s two-time Pro Bowl safety Landon Collins.  The commercial was filmed inside the Giants’ practice facility.

Patrick Swayze Played Football, Too!

Patrick Swayze is from Houston, Texas and he learned to dance in a studio owned and run by his mom, Patsy.  I know this because my aunt grew up in the same neighborhood and took dance lessons from Miss Patsy; my aunt remembers Patrick as a little kid running around his mom’s studio. Anyway…Swayze was very athletic and played football at Waltrip High School.  His hopes to earn a college football scholarship were derailed by a knee injury.

As for the Patrick Swayze/Jennifer Grey duo, Dirty Dancing (released in 1987) was not their first film together.  Three years earlier they co-starred in Red Dawn.  Give yourself a gold star if you remember that Swayze’s character in Dirty Dancing was named Johnny Castle and that Grey’s character, “Baby” was named Frances.

Hamilton-esque Broadway Dance Credentials!

Maybe Eli, OBJ and the starting offensive line are better on a football field than a dance studio, but those were some Broadway-esque dance moves.  The commercial was choreographed by Stephanie Klemons, the original dance captain and associate choreographer of the Broadway smash hit Hamilton which won the Tony Award for choreography.  Klemons also was dance captain for In the Heights, the other Tony Award winning musical created by Lin Manuel-Miranda.

The Eli/OBJ commercial culminates with Odell sprinting towards Eli in slow motion.  But this time, it’s Eli making the winning catch, a la Patrick Swayze.

only won Grammy Awards for Best Pop Performance by a Duo and Best Song Written for Motion Picture/TV, but also won the Oscar for Best Original Song.

The song went to #1 on the pop charts.  And the movie was a smash hit even though (and this is hard to believe) the low-budget film was originally slated to play in movie theatres for only one week before going to video.  But the unexpected happened and the film became so popular it played for months in theatres.  And when it finally went to video, it became the first film to sell one million copies.

By the Way, What Were Eli & OBJ Advertising?

Okay, the commercial was voted as most popular of the Super Bowl telecast, but why were Eli & OBJ having the time of their lives?  What were they advertising?

It was actually a commercial done for the league, to celebrate NFL touchdown celebration.  The spot ends with the tag line: “To all the touchdowns to come”.

“Celebrations were a highlight of this season and we have so many breakout moments where players showed their creativity together,” According to Dawn Hudson, NFL Chief Marketing Officer.  “We wanted to keep that fun going for the Super Bowl and give our fans something to smile and laugh at that was just about football and how awesome it is to be part of a team.”

As of Monday 12pm eastern, Eli & OBJ’s official version of Dirty Dancing on YouTube had 798,000 views.  But they have a long way to go to catch Swayze/Grey whose YouTube video has over 263 million views.