South Brunswick Teachers Do 'Old Town Road' Parody

SOUTH BRUNSWICK, NJ — We may all secretly be fans of Lil' Nas X's and Billy Ray Cyrus' "Old Town Road" (admit it!), but you've never heard the summertime hit quite like this.

Before they gleefully departed for summer break, the teachers at South Brunswick's Crossroads South Middle School made this music video of the entire middle school staff singing along to the country/rap smash hit.

"We started making these end-of-the-year music videos in 2013," said Kristen Simms, 36, a technology teacher at Crossroads South. It was Simms, along with PE teacher C.J. Hendricks, 35, who organized, choreographed and directed it. "We were going back and forth like, 'Hmm, what are we going to do this June?' We thought 'Old Town Road' was a little played out, no offense. It's middle school, so what's popular one day is out the next."

But then the song came on at the Crossroads South eighth grade formal a few weeks ago and "the kids lost their minds. So right then it was decided: That's it. That's the song."

Watch:

The music video starts out with retiring seventh grade math teacher Toni Edwards asking Google for help finding "Old Town Road," a parody of the viral YouTube clip of an Italian grandma trying to figure out how to use Google Home.

It then cuts to Cory Slater, a beloved Crossroads South hall monitor, holding a bag of money as the bank robber and then Joe Dougherty, a longtime South Brunswick wrestling coach and now dean of students, leading a posse of "sheriffs" as they strut down the hallways of the middle school.

That's Hendricks as Lil' Nas X and fellow gym teacher Chris Ruskie as Billy Ray Cyrus, riding the Gator they borrowed from the Crossroads South maintenance department.

"We had to pull some strings to get that Gator," said Hendrix.

And that's Simms herself riding the little mini horse in the middle.

"Editing this was a marathon," said Simms, who teaches the students how to do video editing exactly like this, as well as robotics and computer engineering. "We filmed everything last Wednesday and Thursday and I edited it Friday and Saturday. We unveiled it to the kids Tuesday night at their eighth grade graduation ceremony."

Did the video receive pre-teen critical acclaim?

"They loved it!," said Simms. "Middle school is the perfect age to do this. Kids still like their teachers at this age, even though they sometimes pretend they don't. So it's cool we can be relevant and cheesy at the same time."

"It's our goodbye gift to them," said Hendricks. "It's the lasting impression we try to leave with them before the school year ends. And we always send our music videos to Ellen, even though she hasn't featured us yet."

And here's the original!