Twisted Sister feat. Alice Cooper, "Be Chrool to Your Scuel"

Schoolday of the Dead  

THE VIDEO Twisted Sister featuring Alice Cooper, "Be Chrool to Your Scuel", Come Out and Play, 1985, Atlantic 

SAMPLE LYRIC "Be cruel to your schoo-ool! / 'Cause you may never get another! / Be cruel to your schoo-ool! / In the name of rock n' roll!" 

THE VERDICT Never seen this one before? Not too surprising — MTV rejected it as too offensive at the time, Vh-1 Classic doesn't even air it now, and even Twisted Sister themselves have more or less buried it. 

It's pretty much their Heaven's Gate. What with all the celeb guests — Alice Cooper, obviously, as well as Bobcat Goldthwait; but behind the scenes you've purportedly got Brian Setzer, Clarence Clemons, and most bizarrely, Billy Joel — clearly this production cost a ton. We've moved beyond just like, people who are only famous for being in Animal House (though I know, Niedermeyer goes on to be the Maestro in Seinfeld. But that comes later). I think they pretty much blew their Stay Hungry money on this one. 

And as the opening of this video pointedly reminds us, Dee Snider was feeling pretty self-righteous about censorship as it was, having somewhat inadvertently having become the face (and voice) of heavy metal during the Parents Music Resource Center hearings (no one else from the world of metal really showed up to testify). It's no wonder that after working up this whole song and video only to have MTV pretty much kill it, they decided to shelve the whole thing. 

You also have to imagine that all the non-Dee Snider members of Twisted Sister weren't that into it anyway, as they barely figure in the video to begin with. All they really get to do is open lockers and peek inside. 

Anyway, the video begins with two quotes, both from the September 28, 1985 U.S. Senate Hearings on Rock Lyrics. First, from Dee: "Our videos are simply meant to be cartoons with human actors." Second, from Senator Ernest Hollings (D-SC, but really that D is in the old-line, Strom Thurmond southern Democrat sense): "It's just outrageous filth." 

I have to say, I do appreciate that at least at some point, something cool got discussed during one of these things. When I was in college, I had a work-study job at the library, and I worked in the government documents collection. OMG, does the U.S. government pump out a lot of paper. I spent a lot of time shelving the Congressional Record, so I'm glad that at least in 1985 it might have included some of this.

 

Then we get a lengthy vignette featuring Bobcat Goldthwait as a frantic high school teacher. Yeah, I kind of relate to this sequence. Sometimes when I'm teaching, I will just kind of go out of body for a second and be like, "Wait, does what I'm saying make sense at all? Or am I just saying completely random things?" I mean, the answers are always yes, and then no, but it's kind of like how sometimes you'll be driving your car, and suddenly you'll have a moment where you're like 'Oh, whoa, I'm driving right now', almost as if you somehow forgot you were driving? 

I know, I'm making you fear for the educational future of your children or whatnot right now. But really, if you're reading this, you should probably already be worried about your kids, heh heh. 

Anyway, the bell rings, and we get the usual teacher-gets-jostled-about-in-the-crowd-of-students shot. Does this ever really happen, outside of heavy metal videos and charismatic-teacher/principal-turns-around-a-troubled-school movies? I don't remember ever being in such a hurry to leave class that I needed to like, trample somebody. 

Fade to Bob quickly regaining his composure in an incredibly spacious teacher's lounge, with giant windows and ample seating. He grabs his Walkman from a cubby and settles into a couch beside another teacher who's also listening to headphones. The first teacher asks him what he's listening to, and Bob responds by yelling "TWISTED SISTER!" right into the guy's face. 

The other teacher plugs his headphones into Bob's giant Walkman so he can listen too, and suddenly — two full freakin' minutes in — Bob opens his eyes and transforms into Dee Snider. And the other teacher opens his eyes and transforms into Alice Cooper! 

There's spooky blue lighting, and dry ice fog, and naturally the other teachers have become Mark Mendoza, Jay Jay French, etc. I also enjoy how everyone demonstrates their transformation by looking at their palms in astonishment. 

Is that what one does when one wakes up as someone else? At least in Big and 17 Again and The Hot Chick and stuff like that, people react by looking in mirrors and completely freaking out and screaming a lot and stuff. But I think they decided (rightly) that this video was long enough.

 

Dee and Alice head into the hall and yup, the students are zombies. This is like the one heavy metal video about school that doesn't use some kind of A Clockwork Orange-type scenario, but zombies give you the same idea I suppose — less that education is force-fed, but still the same idea that it is somehow mindless. 

Despite the fact that Dee and Alice just push past the zombies, who seem totally harmless and uninterested in eating their brains, it's clearly the zombie footage that got this video nixed. Probably the grossest thing in it is the zombies-making-out scene, which involves one zombie sort of trying to pull the other zombie's jaw off—yup, it looks like when David Coverdale and Tawny Kitaen make out, only with rotting flesh. 

But on the plus, it reminds me of one of my favorite scenes in the best-show-you-haven't-watched, Bob's Burgers — Tina's zombie dream. Seriously, I love everything Jon Benjamin does so much.

Actually, it's not just the making out. A lot of disgusting stuff happens in this video. A student leaves an apple on teacher Dee's desk, and his hand and forearm get left along with it. 

Then again, I feel like worse stuff (and with much more realistic special effects) happens in "Thriller." I mean when that one corpse has all that green stuff come out of its mouth? Gee-ross. Okay, but then Dee acts like he's going to eat the arm, so. Michael Jackson did a lot of weird stuff, but cannibalism (or would this be like, necrophagy or something?) wasn't among it. 

The cafeteria scene is oddly reminiscent of "Hot for Teacher," with the band playing on a raised platform in one corner. But why is the lunch lady serving the zombies rubber rats? Shouldn't she be serving them brains? Or at least cold spaghetti noodles and peeled grapes? (Come on, you never did that when you were a kid? "These were his eyes!")

 

Okay, actually I think the grossest scene in this video is — well I'm not sure what's happening. At first it seems like it's the school nurse, but then you see other kids watching, so maybe it's some kind of bio class. But a zombie teacher is decapitating one zombie student, and then a student in the classroom imitates this by ripping open his own neck and going for what's in there. Yeah, it's early in the morning as I write this and that's making me feel a little queasy. Tracheotomies freak me out. (Wait, are there people who aren't freaked out by tracheotomies? Don't answer that.)

Suddenly Alice is dressed as a doctor too, and he shines his little light in one student's ear and has it come out the other. WTF is going on in this video?! Annnnd now he's got a scalpel out. Sorry Dee, but this is no Wile E. Coyote-style giant Acme anvil. You're getting a little too gruesome with this one. 

Though to his credit, he does use a fire extinguisher on the home ec teacher whose hands are on fire. But now Dee's biting people again. Is he the only real zombie here? 

There's a sequence with a zombie band playing that's pretty straightforward, and I assume is covering for the fact that aside from Alice, they couldn't actually get any of their guest musicians to appear in the video. Hence a zombie stand-in for Clarence Clemons, etc. Apparently this is where the bar was for him (RIP): He'd be in a Lady GaGa video, but not this. 

As the zombie students crowd into the auditorium, Twisted Sister quickly run to replace the zombie band. Speaking of zombies, have I mentioned yet that Alice Cooper looks freakin' exhausted in this video? You can tell the whole time that Dee is so into it, but Alice looks like he's barely even going through the motions.

 

Anyway, the whole zombie crew pours through the halls, and we get a quick meet-the-band sequence actually showing the non-Dee members of Twisted Sister — hey, remember them? 

Then we're back in the now normally-lit teachers' lounge with Bob, who's waking up. Wait, was it all just a dream? He puts his Walkman back in his cubby and heads out into the hall — where he is instantly smothered with zombie hands. Dunt-dunt-DAH! 

I think this video's biggest downfall might not even be the video — it's the song. Now I know I'm no big Twisted Sister fan, but among their singles I think this is actually the weakest. It's clear they love mining the look, feel, and sound of the 50s/pre-Beatles 60s (I mean remember what the other big single from this album was?). But this bizarre homage to the Beach Boys' "Be True to Your School" just doesn't work.  

P.S.: Oh my gosh, even in this already super-long post, I can't believe I forgot the one salient successful element of this video — it was one of the first things Luke Perry was cast in, and Twisted Sister are at times credited with having 'discovered' the future Dylan McKay. Can you believe it? 

I can't for the life of me figure out who he is in this video. He would have been about 19 or 20 when it was shot. My first guess was the kid in the center of the first photo strip, but he seems too young. Then again, Luke was playing high school-aged Dylan whilst in his late 20s/early 30s, so maybe when he actually was that age he looked like he was a tween? My second guess is the self tracheotomy guy (left photo in the bottom strip), though that might be the same guy. What do you all think? 

P.P.S.: Get it? Like the George Romero sequel?

  

Alice Cooper, "Poison"

Don't Call It a Comeback

THE VIDEO Alice Cooper, "Poison," Trash, 1989, Epic

Click here to watch this video NOW!

SAMPLE LYRIC "Poi-saaaaaahn / you're poison runnin' through my veins / poi-saaaaaaahhn / I don't wanna break these chains"

THE VERDICT This video is like a time capsule of what heterosexual men thought was sexy in 1989. High-waisted thongs, high-waisted jeans, straight blond hair a la Christina Applegate and curly light-brown hair a la Rebecca Gayheart (actually, this gal looks quite a bit like Keri Russell). If you were to extend this into a full-length feature, it would also need to have clothes from Merry-Go-Round (it may already have this come to think) and Designer Imposters fragrances (which I know they still make, but I feel like approximately 1988 through 1994 was their heyday). I guess I should also note if you're really into this stuff, the uncensored version of the video lets you see the Keri Russell-looking-one topless.

Other than the two afore-described ladies lounging around, fonding chains, and trying to poison Alice, this video mostly features, well, Alice, looking at once especially leathery and the same as he's always looked. He's surrounded by a relatively generic-looking bunch of musicians who I'm pretty sure aren't the same guys who appear in the other videos from this album. Definitely not "House of Fire," though the "House of Fire" guys may well be the iteration of the band that appears in Wayne's World (digression on that to come!).

In this vid, he's got one guy with Zakk Wylde-esque hair (as always, I mean the hot Zakk Wylde, not today's Zakk Wylde) and a blonde guitarist who is seriously hott (yes, with two t's). He looks like the best of Duff McKagan crossed with the best of Taime Downe somehow shoved into one guy. Possibly after this video they realized they needed to surround Alice with way less hot guys. They should've put Kip Winger back in the band! (*Rimshot*)



Here's the promised Wayne's World digression: I also like that even though it's a bit later, the Alice Cooper of Trash always makes me think of Wayne's World. Alice is of course in real life a big-time conservative, which pains me greatly. I bring this up in the Wayne's World vein because his cameo in that movie (as well as his special guest appearance on The Muppet Show, which was one of my favorites growing up and is what I associate Welcome to My Nightmare Alice Cooper with) makes me think that unlike those other metal conservatives (I'm talking about you, Paul and Gene) Alice seems like a nice guy who's not unwilling to make fun of himself.

Of course, notorious metal conservative Ted Nugent and his tongue-in-cheek performance as himself on Undeclared combined with his real-life douchery only confounds this picture further. (As does big-time metal liberal Dave Mustaine's seeming inability to make fun of himself.) Sigh! As long as we're talking Wayne's World though, let me also mention the guitarist in Cassandra's band Crucial Taunt -- it's Marc Ferrari from Keel! He did the music for the movie and plays in her band. Also, regardless of your party affiliation, you must agree he's ah-dorable.

Long story short, we've got babes, we've got Alice, we've got a bright blue background, some pieces of diaphanous red fabric waving through the air, chains, chairs getting kicked over -- it's pretty much what metal videos are starting to look like at this point in time, as the 80s wind down and we head into the early 90s, when basically all metal videos will look like this (viz. 1991's "No More Tears," which is basically the same video just with more water and an exceptionally hot young Zakk Wylde). What I really want to talk about here is the song.



This was Alice Cooper's big comeback song -- I mean yes, there were singles in the 80s, like that horrible Friday the 13th one, but not like this. This song is what happens when you go out and hire yourself a hitman. I don't mean a mafioso, and for once, I don't mean Bret 'The Hitman' Hart (though get ready 'cause I'm about to go on a big tangent about wrestling). I mean a producer who can write songs that the whole world wants to hear, regardless of who's singing them. I mean what else has Desmond Child worked on: Bon Jovi's biggest albums, 80s KISS, 80s Aerosmith... think about it. (And I'm not hating, I have heard Alice himself say as much about this album.) I mean think about this song -- it's freakin' genius. Who could screw it up? Nobody.

I've been thinking about this lately because of something that happened to me, about which I am very, very ashamed. As I've mentioned before, I love professional wrestling (shut! That's not the thing I'm ashamed of!), and as I don't think I've mentioned before, I've finally found in my fiance a man who's willing to watch it with me (so let's throw out all your gendered stereotypes about who watches what right now, okay?). Anyway. I hadn't watched it consistently in a couple of years when we started watching it again this past January, at which point I got really into not just wrestling for the zillionth time, but the music of wrestling.

Now, back when I was first watching wrestling in the 1980s, sure, wrestlers had entrance music. But except for Hulk Hogan's Rick Derringer theme ("Real American" -- don't act like you don't remember!), it was mostly instrumental and repetitive. A lot of it I would guess was public domain (e.g., Ric Flair's "Also Sprach Zarathrusta", Randy 'Macho Man' Savage's bizarre choice of "Pomp and Circumstance").

As it turns out, at least for WWF/WWE wrestlers, these are all written by the same guy, who also plays many of the instruments, which is a heck of a thing to do. Anyway, he's been doing that for a couple of decades. But long story short, at some point in the 90s, they began to shift away from having theme music to wrestlers having theme songs. And while these theme songs vary in musical style (girl pop for Tiffany, Jimi Hendrix tribute for John Morrison), a great many of them are pretty much lyrical metal. Though some feature performers from nu-metal bands (e.g. Randy Orton's theme, which I have grown to utterly love), there's nothing nu about the sound they wind up with.



So it wasn't really a surprise to me that I wound up really digging the theme song to Monday Night RAW -- it's this rocking, rollicking thing that you could imagine Slaughter or even Cinderella doing. Or really anyone doing. It's that kind of song -- there isn't a band on earth that could screw this thing up, that's how well-produced it is. And as if to prove my point, once I finally went to figure out who performed the Monday Night RAW theme ...it's ...ulp ...oh god ...it's Nickelback. Yes, the band widely reviled as bottomfeeders of basically, well, the entire music industry. Nickelback. A band basically synonymous with suck. Why, why couldn't it have been Creed? Or Uncle Kracker? Or something else equally embarassing? But no, it's Nickelback. Yes, dear reader, I like a Nickelback song. By accident! By accident!

But here's the thing: Could Nickelback have accomplished this one their own? Oh hell no. You know who produced the album this came from? That's right, the former Mr. Shania Twain, Mutt Lange. Do you know what else he produced? An assload of hits for AC/DC and Def Leppard. If this were performed by AC/DC or Def Leppard, I wouldn't be ashamed. But this is the damnedest part of the whole thing. If this were performed by AC/DC or Def Leppard (particularly the latter), it wouldn't sound that different. That's the thing. Producers, composers, lyricists like Desmond Child or Mutt Lange -- they help you create songs that are just impossible for performers to screw up. Or for listeners to get out of their heads. Thus explaining why Ke$ha has a hit with a song ripped off from "there's a place in France where the naked ladies dance."

P.S.: In all my distraction with this song's production, I forgot all about the weird Burning Man-looking sculpture in the video. It's hard to see in grainy black and white, but I think Alice is tied to it at one point.

P.P.S.: One other thing I love to do with all these wrestling themes is come up with the perfect 80s metal band to perform them. The Big Show's "welllll" is just calling for the voice of Glenn Danzig, and similarly, the wailing in Edge's theme would be well-suited to Geoff Tate and Queensryche. I'm pretty sure the new theme for the newly 'dashing' Cody Rhodes was written explicitly to rip off Slippery When Wet-era Bon Jovi, so why not have them cover it? Winger are perfect for the sleaze-rock of Dolph Ziggler's theme, and come on, a silly rap-rock theme for The Miz? Somebody call Anthrax!

P.P.P.S.: I know a lot of people find this post because they're searching "who are the girls in the Alice Cooper 'Poison' video" or something like that. I can't find any info whatsoever on the blonde (sorry!), but many sources point to the brunette (who I described as looking like Felicity/Keri Russell) being a gal named Rana Kennedy. So far as I can tell, she's now a Pilates instructor in North County, and most of the other work she did even back in the late 80s/early 90s was fitness modeling. (Cue NBC's little 'The More You Know' shooting star thing.)