Kevin Bacon Will Attend This Year’s Prom at ‘Footloose’ School

In honor of Footloose’s 40th anniversary, Kevin Bacon is returning to the high school where he shot the film for prom.

Current students at Payson High School in Payson, Utah have been pushing for Bacon to make an appearance at this year’s prom, not only because of the anniversary of the film’s release, but also because Payson High School is moving. The school is relocating at the end of this year — which means the famous hallways where Bacon roamed as the iconoclastic, dance-loving Ren McCormack will be no more. If he was ever going to return, it was now or never.

To try to to convince Bacon to show up for the prom, the current students of Payson started a “#bacontopayson” hashtag and have been making homemade videos on social media, recreating scenes from the film, and hosting events to benefit Bacon’s SixDegrees.org charity.

Today on The Today Show, Bacon gave Payson students his answer. You can watch what he said — and the students’ reaction — below.

What did you think was going to happen? Bacon was going to go live on The Today Show to tell a bunch of Utah high school kids to buzz off?

Released in 1984, Footloose became a surprise hit and a generational favorite of ’80s kids everywhere. Bacon plays Ren, the new kid in a small town that has banned dancing. He tries to get the town to reverse the ban, which was the brainchild of a local reverend played by John Lithgow.

The famous title song was performed by Kenny Loggins, and the soundtrack also includes the iconic ’80s favorite “Let’s Hear It For the Boy” by Deniece Williams. Footloose was remade in 2011 (Kenny Wormald played Ren in that one) and also got turned into a musical which played over 700 performances on Broadway, starting in 1998.

All these years later, the dancing scenes still hold up.