The Fun Bunch isnt offended by Cam Newtons dance, because its fun

Here are three things you need to know about Charlie Brown, the former Redskins receiver and sergeant-at-arms of the Fun Bunch, perhaps the greatest collection of touchdown celebrators the NFL has ever seen.

1. He’s now a high school football coach in South Carolina, and he forbids his players from doing any end zone celebrations. That stuff doesn’t play with high school officials, and Brown doesn’t need his guys taking any costly penalties.

2. He lives in Panthers country, which means his players “love Cam Newton,” he said. “They LOVE Cam Newton.”

3. He remains “burgundy and gold until I die,” and he hasn’t lost that Fun Bunch ethos, where a little dash of post-touchdown happiness and joy was not just permitted but encouraged. And so what does Charlie Brown think of Newton’s much-discussed end-zone dance, which has become among the biggest NFL stories of the week?

“I don’t think he’s doing anything that’s going to damage the image of the NFL. I don’t see that,” Brown said this week. “I think it enlightens the NFL, from a certain aspect, full of jubilation. … As long as you can keep it at a place where it’s not going to damage the NFL shield or the NFL in general, I think you should do it. I think it brings more to the game.”

[Redskins: Newton can’t dance if we don’t let him score]

Brown isn’t the only one. Here’s Doc Walker, the founder and president of the Fun Bunch, who was quoted across the nation 30 years ago about the meaning of celebratory end zone displays.

“I wish the league would focus on calling games better rather than worrying about end-zone stuff,” Walker told me. “Most quarterbacks are so robotic in this league, and under so much pressure and scrutiny, that I love to see a guy that shows some personality. And he’s running over people. He’s really doing some heroic things. … I think Cam’s good for the game.”

Newton’s dance moves are different from the Fun Bunch’s leap in many ways, which calls for a history lesson. It starts with Art Monk, Washington’s budding offensive star, who was injured at the end of the 1982 regular season. Teammates, Walker said, were devastated by his absence. During warm-up and stretching drills in the ensuing days, Washington’s skill players talked about creating a tribute for the missing Monk, eventually settling on a group leap in the end zone, meant to signify that every touchdown was inevitably the work of many men, and that they were still thinking about Monk.

Their next game was a playoff meeting with Detroit. Alvin Garrett scored three times, but forgot about the jump the first two times. Finally, after his third touchdown, everyone met up. After performing the agreed upon gesture — crossing their arms twice across their chests to signal togetherness — everyone jumped in a communal high-five.

And that started a sensation. Before long, there were posters and t-shirts. There were newspaper and magazine stories everywhere. Mark Russell talked about the Fun Bunch during his comic routine. After one playoff win, fans were spotted doing the Fun Bunch leap in the Georgetown streets. This was more than three decades ago, yet Brown said there’s still not a day that someone doesn’t mention the Fun Bunch to him — “I’m serious, Dan, not a day,” he said.

“Honestly, now I understand how popular it was and how much people loved it,” Brown told me. “But back then, I didn’t have a clue, man. And I guess it’s because we didn’t look at it as some kind of popular thing; we just looked at it as our celebration of Art, and of getting in the end zone. We never made no money off it. Take Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley; right now, they’re worth more than they were when they were on earth. That’s what the Fun Bunch reminds me of.”

The fun was scheduled to end when Monk returned the following season. The Fun Bunch — which included running backs and fullbacks, tight ends and receivers — did the leap after Monk caught a 20-yard touchdown in St. Louis in early October. Walker said that was his favorite jump they ever did, because it finally involved Monk, the man who had inspired the routine.

“And it was supposed to stop right then,” Walker said. “It was really like ‘Okay, you got back, and now we’re done.’ But it was so popular. I mean, everybody was going nuts over it.”

Indeed, to read coverage of the Fun Bunch is to remind you of a league where such on-field jubilation, to use Brown’s word, was not the norm. It’s also to remind you of days when the Redskins were a juggernaut, and the city was infatuated.

“It really caught on in Washington,” Garrett said back then. “All the kids in elementary school and junior high school are doing it.”

“Kids write me letters telling me about it, and saying they want to be in the Fun Bunch when they grow up,” Brown told reporters.

“A rite of celebration so delightful, so child-like, that once you see it you want to have a picture of it, to prove to folks that however much money these guys make, they still are kids having fun,” Dave Kindred wrote in The Post.

[Titans fan admonishes Cam Newton for his post-TD antics]

Kids happily imitating successful NFL stars? That means the Fun Bunch never prompted any of the hand-wringing that Newton has inspired, none of the snipes from opposing defenders or concerns about ruining the moral purity of the sport, right? Well, not exactly. Turns out fun has enemies in every era, dedicated to the idea that men tossing around a ball while wearing tight clothing is Very Serious.

And so Lyle Alzado lashed out at the group before the 1984 Super Bowl, saying the Fun Bunch stunk, their name stunk, and their celebration stunk.

“Soon you’re going to have offensive linemen dancing after a block,” he groused. “Then you’ll have quarterbacks dancing after a touchdown pass. It’s going to be a bleeping disco.”

Dolphins Coach Don Shula — who got Fun Bunched in the previous year’s Super Bowl — said the celebration was a “potential bombshell.” And when the Redskins leaped in a Dallas end zone during a demolition of the Cowboys in the 1983 regular season, well, Cam Newton would have been familiar with the response. Cowboys defensive backs Michael Downs and Dennis Thurman elbowed their way into the group, setting off a shoving match.

“This is Dallas,” one of the backs reportedly said. “We’re not going to let you do that here.”

“Maybe they were trying to join the Fun Bunch?” Joe Theismann suggested.

“It was something out of high school,” Garrett said of the Cowboys response. “I thought this team had more class than that.”

“If we play ’em again in Washington, we’ll make room for him and he can join in,” Walker said.

The Fun Bunch, as it turned out, was too much fun for the NFL. After the 1984 season — when the Redskins lost to Alzado’s grumpy Raiders — NFL owners did away with prolonged or premeditated celebrations, via a five-yard penalty. Shula and Cowboys President Tex Schramm — the men whose teams Washington had beaten en route to the 1983 title — announced the change, and don’t think the Fun Bunch didn’t notice that, or doesn’t remember it still. Their plaintive cries after the new rule was announced would fit in any era: Here was a successful team with a creative and joyful signature move, and then here were some old guys in suits telling them to cut it out.

“Why are they picking on us?” Virgil Seay asked then. “What have we done to upset anyone? … It seems like they’re trying to take fun out of football. What harm did we ever do? I’m really upset about this; it’s ruined my day.”

“I’ve never heard of anything that ridiculous,” Brown said at the time. “Haven’t they got more important things to do than worry about the Fun Bunch?”

“I think people are just upset when we score on them,” Walker said then. “And since they couldn’t stop us from scoring, the only way they could retaliate was to discuss what we did after we scored.”

In other words, it’s the exact same arguments being used today. Newton said this week that his dancing “takes me to a happy place,” and that seeing kids mimic him also makes him happy. Who exactly objects to that?

[No, Cam Newton’s dance was not named after Dabo Swinney]

The original Fun Bunchers will tell you that Newton’s move is individualistic while they were about selflessly paying tribute to a teammate, and emphasizing group success. They will tell you that the entire point of the Fun Bunch was not to taunt defenders, but to remind them of their larger purpose. But they will also say the most obvious point of all that their name was well-chosen. This was just one little joyful exclamation mark, one mirthful snort during a cacophony of laughter.

“It was a lot of fun,” Brown confirmed this week. “I mean, we really enjoyed that celebration a great deal. It just made us closer as a group. It didn’t matter who scored; we were just waiting to get in the end zone, to run up the sideline and do our thing. … It brings enjoyment, not just for the players, but the most important part of playing in the NFL is our fans. And the fans loved it. I mean, they loved it.”

“Other fans, I guess they didn’t like it, but who cares?” Walker said. “Nobody was concerned about them, because it wasn’t for them, or not for them. It was for Art. … It was popular and we were winning. and when you win, you can almost do anything. But it wasn’t to taunt. It was for Art.”

Sounds reasonable, right? And those thoughts also apply to the modern game.

“I think the fans want to see something that’s a little bit different, you know what I mean, but with respect,” Brown said. “I don’t see anything wrong with the celebrations I see today.”

Me neither. I just see fun.

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