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?

  

Van Halen, "(Oh) Pretty Woman"

Cowboys and Tarzans and Napoleon, Oh My!  

THE VIDEO Van Halen, "(Oh) Pretty Woman," Diver Down, 1982, Warner Bros. SAMPLE LYRIC "Oh you look love-ly, as you could beee / are you lonely just, like meeeeeee? / [Growl]" 

THE VERDICT Van Halen's first video that isn't just performance taped for Musikladen or one of those kinds of shows, and zoinks, it's a total WTF-fest. I find a lot of people aren't familiar with it unless they're either a) serious David Lee Roth fans or b) serious viewers of Vh-1 classic, since MTV wouldn't air it back in the day. 

Considering that by their fourth album you'd assume Van Halen were making decent music video money, this low-budget weird-off makes no sense. Seriously, it's like the Manos, The Hands of Fate of music videos. 

Lord only knows where this was filmed. I'm guessing it's winter in California — there aren't leaves on the trees, but there are leaves on everything else, and it looks sunny but kinda cold, so we'll go with SoCal winter. The main action appears to take place in I don't even know what — a ghost town? A long-abandoned girl-scout camp? Seriously, I've got nothing here. 

But wait, I'm getting ahead of myself. I should note that in a bizarre touch, the video starts not just with the camera panning around this strange landscape, but also by establishing what we're watching (something you almost never see, except in much later high-end rap videos, where it's usually meant more to imitate movies). First we see "Van Halen" written in giant stone letters, a la Monty Python's Life of Brian logo. Then we get "in", done in Western-looking rope letters. Finally, "Pretty Woman," done tiki-style. These type treatments give us some idea of the narrative consistency to come. 

With the song's lengthy instrumental opening, we move through this weird empty town (or whatever it is) to find a very slim woman in a white dress, nylons, gold heels, and a white headband who has been bound by her hands between two posts. She's struggling, and being aggressively fondled by a pair of little men who appear to be clad in red long underwear. I want to say this is the weirdest part of the video, but honestly it's probably not. It is, however, the part that MTV was not down with at the time.

 

We then go inside one of the shacks, where the little-person-bondage action is playing on a TV set that's covered in sort of security guard detritus (a bunch of empty coffee cups, what appears to be a plate of partially-eaten chicken). There's a little Quasimodo-type guy dressed in colorful clothing watching the TV from across the room. He jumps up and races toward the camera, and we see him bending in to twist knobs (as if we were behind the TV's screen). 

Some people claim it's David Lee Roth playing the hunchback, but I think that's just 'cause both make exaggerated faces. The hunchback sort of freaks out and spins across his little garbage-strewn room (which is illuminated by a bare light bulb — weird that it's this crap-looking but still has full-color surveillance capabilities, isn't it?). He climbs up a very rustic-looking ladder — apparently he has a better view of the lady being tortured from his second floor than he does from his TV. 

He runs back downstairs and — of course — gets on the phone. 'Cause yeah, even though based on the buildings' appearances this place wouldn't even have running water, they have electricity and phone service. Who ya gonna call? (Oh crap, now I'm gonna have the Ghostbusters theme stuck in my head all day. Whatever, I've brought it on myself.) 

Anyway, he calls Michael Anthony, who's elaborately dressed as a Samurai. This video is Michael Anthony's golden hour. Normally he kind of reminds me of George Costanza, but in this video he is almost reminiscent of Chris Pratt. And not of Chris Pratt as Che, the final nail in The O.C.'s coffin, but as Andy Dwyer, the swoon-worthy buffoon on my beloved Parks and Recreation. 

Anyway, Michael Anthony is standing next to a concrete wall and a bored-looking palomino horse, practicing swinging his sword around and yelling. He notices his phone — since of course, he also has a phone right there — and picks up, we assume talking to the hunchback. He puts on a hat and heads for the horse.

 

Next Quasimodo calls Alex Van Halen. Wow. Now speaking of being in your magic hour. This video is definitely Alex's finest moment. He looks like some kind of sexy Jeff Goldblum here, glad in a tiger-skin loincloth. He's squatting on top of a zebra skin in a reed hut, surrounded by random bones and, naturally, a phone. He's also wearing aviator sunglasses and a big necklace. Alex picks up the phone, doesn't say anything, and just throws the phone aside, runs out of his hut, and gives a big Tarzan yell. 

We then cut to Eddie Van Halen, already on the phone. He's a cowboy, sitting beside the remains of a campfire. Eddie has on a Richie Sambora-style black, flat-top cowboy hat, a red bandanna, black vest, one black glove (why?), and what appear to be black leather pants. He finishes his call, throws his cigarette into the fire, and then his stunt double does some gun-twirling (I mean, if Ed were doing it himself, we'd probably see more than just his hand in the shot, right?). 

And speaking of stunt doubles — we then see "Michael Anthony" riding his horse. Later we also get shots of "Eddie Van Halen" riding his horse through some water — they don't mess around here, putting a bandanna over the rider's face. 

But we must set that aside for a moment, because, at last, David Lee Roth has entered the video. And of course, is Diamond Dave squatting outside in the dirt? Oh hell no. He is sitting at a long tale in a fancy, formal dining room, and he is dressed as (naturally) Napoleon Bonaparte. He's writing in a ledger with a feather pen when suddenly he pauses, and — we cut to Alex running through a field. 

Oh, but then we're back with Dave. He's making a studiedly expressionless face while on the phone. And his phone is red — he couldn't even have the same phone as the other guys. Dave stands up, and then we see him walking through his giant house, which has an elaborate checkerboard floor. 

Suddenly, it's night, and the lady in white is still battling the little people. One is now wearing sunglasses and a Native American-style feathered headdress, while the other has on a cape and a top hat. Eddie, Alex, and Michael simultaneously walk up to face this little scene. 

Their arrival greatly alarms the little people, who let the woman go momentarily. Somehow in the confusion of all these reaction shots, the woman is suddenly untied, though she doesn't run toward the band, she just kind of jumps around.

 

Next thing you know, a white stretch limo comes roaring in through the fog (which has also mysteriously suddenly appeared). The Quasimodo guy (who was driving it?) runs around to open the passenger door, and of course, you know it's Dave. Too good for a plain phone, too good for a horse. I know I sound like I'm being harsh on DLR, but if you read this at all regularly, you know the man is like my patron saint, so I say these things in love. 

Dave looks at everyone else in the band, then sort of makes this lascivious chin jerk at the camera. Even keeping as much of a straight face as he does in this video, Dave still manages to throw off a slutty vibe. Then he turns, somewhat alarmed. 

Why? Because we've hit what may be the weirdest part of the video. The untied woman runs toward him, and as she does, she pulls off her hair and headband — apparently it was a wig. Not only that, but her face is ghastly pale, and her eyes appear sunken. She walks toward the camera, smirks, and — so wait, is she dead? Is she a zombie? No wait, on closer examination — is that a dude? WTF is up with this video? 

So, so many questions, and basically no answers. If I had to put where I liked this video, I'd still put it behind the late version Roy Orbison made (since obviously music videos weren't a thing in 1964), but well ahead of the Julia Roberts hooker-princess movie. 

P.S.: It was either this title or "Oh Bondage, Up Yours!", and quite frankly, I get enough hits from people searching for p*rn as it is.

Crimson Glory, "Lonely"

The Men Behind the Masks  

THE VIDEO Crimson Glory, "Lonely," Transcendence, 1988, Roadracer/MCA 

SAMPLE LYRIC "She can't wait another night / take another day / she doesn't want to be / lonely in looooooove / lone-ly in looooooooove" 

THE VERDICT I should love this song, but I just can't get past the goofy metal Phantom of the Opera masks. I am pretty sure I have turned down Crimson Glory merchandise in the past — they're one of those bands like the BulletBoys or House of Lords where deadstock is very available, but for a reason. 

I get that it's sort of progressive metal, but IDK — given how accessible this song is, sonically and lyrically, they probably should've just dropped the masks. Crimson Glory sort of feel like Grim Reaper put on masks and tried to make a stealth comeback. Okay not really, it's just that both bands have made the bold move of going with pudgy-faced, unattractive frontmen with super-pouffy hair. And in this case, one who calls himself simply "Midnight" (RIP). 

Still, this isn't a bad song, and it's interesting because it's a very power ballad-y topic — a sad woman who feels lonely, heartbroken over a man she should have never been involved with in the first place — but they've made it into a much more rocking song. 

Usually rocking songs written from a woman's perspective are less sympathetic to the woman — sort of bad choices/good girl gone bad stuff ("Fallen Angel"), exploring the woman's secret sexy side ("Thrills in the Night"), or, of course, implying the woman is actually a homicidal killer who victimizes men ("Midnite Maniac"). 

 

So long story short, it's not a bad song. Unfortunately, this ridiculous video — like those ridiculous masks — doesn't do them any favors. 

The video alternates between footage of a blonde woman, mostly alone in a bed, and the band performing the song. The band members are each playing atop their own cube, each of which is bathing their crotches in blue light. Humongous amounts of dry ice fog drift through the room, and I would be remiss if I didn't mention the red laser lights up above. In all, the room looks like your standard-issue cheap laser tag place. 

Laser tag aside though, for me this video is oddly Vixen-esque. The band walking out at the beginning silhouetted in fog reminds me of "Edge of a Broken Heart," and singing a rockin' number from a realistic woman's perspective while standing on platforms reminds me of "Cryin'". (It's the addition of the song that makes the latter Vixen-like, since lots of bands sing on top of platforms — think Dio's "I Could Have Been a Dreamer" and W.A.S.P.'s "I Wanna Be Somebody".) 

Huge, ghost pirates-like amounts of dry ice fog provide all the transitions in this video, by blurring out the screen and allowing for a smooth switch to the next thing that's happening. We see the woman walking around through dry ice fog in a white lace bodystocking, with the guitarist superimposed over her. The lead singer, Midnight, regularly disappears and reappears in banks of dry ice fog. 

I like that it looks like they couldn't get the woman anywhere near the band. We mostly see her sort of rolling on her back in an all-white bed, looking concerned. It feels like it might be an ad for one of those depression medications or birth control pills that they're trying to expand into covering PMS, or for a feminine hygiene product. From the expression on her face, it appears she may be experiencing a 'not so fresh' feeling. And given the band's name... okay, let's just stop right there.

 

Also the room she's in is completely white, and it's tiny — for some reason, the bed is in the middle of the room, and it looks like there's only one to two feet between it and the wall on each side. Based on these dimensions, we can guess this is an apartment in Manhattan. 

Well, more seriously, based on the budget of this video, we can guess this is (best case scenario) a fake apartment set they made just for this video, or (worst case scenario) a fake apartment set they made in the bassist's mom's basement. 

The other way we see the woman is, as mentioned above, walking through the fog in a lace bodystocking. Is it the same gal? I'm assuming it is, even though the woman in the bed has very fine, straight blonde hair, and the woman walking around has a teased mane of it. (Hair products were strong in the 80s!) 

While the walking woman looks a bit different from the laying-down woman, I'm assuming they couldn't afford two models to be in the video. I would say also that having two women doesn't really makes sense, but given how little anything in this video makes sense, that probably wasn't a consideration. 

They do a quick meet-the-band sequence at the end of the video, but come on — they're all wearing black leather and those goofy masks! It's beyond impossible to tell who's who, especially without the instruments (which in the case of the two guitarists, still don't help). 

I mean yeah, each guy is taking his mask off for the camera, but given that they are semi-opaque and super-imposed over footage of them walking toward the camera, it's impossible to really tell what's going on. In any event, it doesn't really matter, as they finish walking past the camera and we're left with just dry ice fog and laser lights. 

P.S.: Sorry the quality of the images on this post aren't up to my usual standards — good copies of some of these more obscure videos are really hard to come by! 

P.P.S.: Re: the title, come on people! Alice Cooper, anyone?

David Lee Roth, "Just Like Paradise"

Paradise Lost  

THE VIDEO David Lee Roth, "Just Like Paradise", Skyscraper, 1988, Warner Bros. 

SAMPLE LYRIC "This must be just like livin' in paradise / just like para-di-ise! / and I don't wanna go ho-ooommme" 

THE VERDICT I know, I know — this video is coming close to the nadir of Roth-dom. But I've had this song in my head a lot lately. Why? Hmm, let's think. It's the middle of winter. Most of the country is covered in snow, with more snow being dumped on it all the time. And here I am, jogging outside in shorts, 'cause it's 76 degrees and sunny. No humidity, palm trees, warm breeze. Yes, this is just like living in paradise. And I actually do live here! 

The downside of this, of course, is that this song is pretty rough. I think that if this were Van Halen, they could've possibly pulled it off, but solo Diamond Dave not so much. Skyscraper is probably Roth's most straightforward, non-campy solo work, and it makes you realize that if Eddie Van Halen's not there, he probably needs to stick to the "ze-bop!" 

The video features a lot of footage of Dave rock climbing, which according to his autobiography is a big hobby of his. Actually, he seems to be pretty into extreme sports and travel in general — like half the photos in Crazy from the Heat (the book, not the album) are of him in places like Papua New Guinea doing outdoorsy stuff. 

The ads for this album also were all about the rock climbing. I have the April 1988 issue of Hit Parader (which features an amazing Dokken cover, btw) and the back cover is an ad for Skyscraper with the tag line "EXTREME ROCK" over a photo of Dave rock climbing that's clearly from when this video was shot. 

If only he had stayed super-successful a couple of years longer, Dave could've totally guested on MTV Sports. 'Memba that one? Come on, you know you thought Dan Cortese was cool at the time. 

Actually, no. Dan Cortese was never cool. He's got the Diamond Dave all-crazy-all-the-time personality, but none of the charm. Though I do give the guy credit for basically spoofing himself in the Seinfeld episode where Elaine dates him just for his looks, and he takes George and Kramer rock climbing. See?! Rock climbing!

 

In retrospect, I'm surprised Dave was never in any of MTV's "Rock N Jock" specials (I mean, Sammy Hagar was). Apparently MTV2 has a more recent series called Rock N Jock, but it's not the same thing as the old "Rock N Jock B-Ball Jam", trust. (Okay if you click that last link, I'm not sure which is the more amazing part — watching all those awkward white women sing along, or the four times that Marky Mark Mark Wahlberg pulls his pants all the way down and raps in his tightie-whities.) 

Or I mean look at the 1991 Rock N Jock softball game — Bret Michaels, Kip Winger, and Steven Adler all play in the game, and Steve Vai plays the national anthem! Wow, this is the most fun I've had with Youtube in a while. I know I'm preaching to the choir on this one, but dang I miss old MTV. 

Anyway. Besides Dave's penchant for extreme sports, what else gets indulged in this video? Uhh basically all of it. It's just Dave and friends playing on a stage with tons of colored lights. Dave changes outfits a bunch, but he's mostly wearing what I would describe as a sort of Tyrolean-inspired vest and chaps ensemble. 

Steve Vai is there, and he's definitely bringing the cheese. One thing I notice is I make fun of Steve Vai pretty regularly on here, but he's the one person who fits in that category whom I've never gotten a single email defending. Maybe everyone else finds his constant guitar-humping as unappealing as I do. Steve takes this to a new level in this video with his heart-shaped, three-necked guitar. 

For real, guys. I remember seeing this video as an eight-year-old and thinking that that was stupid. And that was when I was eight. Which was in the 80s. I mean if there was one time in history when someone such as a naive little child could have been persuaded Steve Vai's heart-shaped guitar was cool, that was it. Then again, considering I was watching David Lee Roth videos, I wasn't that naive I guess.

 

This video also features (just barely) a random bassist and a keyboardist, but Dave and Steve really run the show here. Gregg Bissonette is occasionally visible, wearing what appears to be a neon wetsuit, in keeping with the extreme sports theme. At one point he climbs on top of the drum kit, sort of the drummer equivalent of all the Steve Vai guitar antics. 

Every time you think this video is just them prancing around the stage and making faces at the camera, something completely ridiculous happens. Dave does some slow-mo jumps in silky pants. Everything goes into super-saturated colors, or skips frames, so the motion looks jerky and weird. So much crotch thrusting you can't believe it. 

And then next thing you know, the drum kit has lifted off the stage into the air. Dave is in an effing boxing ring flying over where the crowd would be, if one were there. He punches at the camera with his glittering, rhinestone-covered boxing gloves. OMG, now Dave's got a samurai sword. 

Seriously, it's like every idea they had, no matter how cheesy, got the green light for this one. They're synchronized dancing in dry ice fog. And this isn't half-assed "Hot for Teacher" dancing. You can tell Steve Vai is 100% down with the dancing. 

Just when you think it can't get any cheesier, Dave rides a flying surfboard off the stage. According to a photo caption in his autobio, the flying surfboard can be explained thusly: "It starts with tiny multi-colored chaser lights around your rear license plate. But eventually you graduate to this sort of thing." He actually brought the flying surfboard on tour with him. 

Once Dave has the headband on, you know it's all downhill from there. He can re-join Van Halen, or not re-join, but it's never going to be the same again. Something about that headband signifies that a bridge has been crossed. 

Maybe it's that he's admitting he's aging, and his hairline isn't what it used to be? Maybe it's that it seems to lead to more over-the-top costumery? I'm not sure. All I can say is that once the headband comes out, there's trouble in paradise.

Judas Priest, "Don't Go"

You Are About to Enter The Scary Door  

THE VIDEO Judas Priest, "Don't Go," Point of Entry, 1981, Columbia 

SAMPLE LYRIC "Don't go, please don't leave me / don't go in the mornin' / don't go, please don't deceive me / don't take it away" 

THE VERDICT Can you believe I've run a metal videos site for coming on seven years now, and I've never done a Judas Priest video? Then again, I've been at it that long and never done a Metallica video, either. But it's not for the same reasons. I mean, I'm not afraid of Judas Priest. Am I afraid of Metallica? Well, yes, sort of. Not their music, no. But their litigiousness, yes. 

But anyway, focusing on Priest. I don't know why I've put them off so long. Yes, their later videos are, in a word, hella boring. But their early videos — of which there are a surprisingly large amount — are masterpieces of cheese. They really answer the question, "What can you do with £500 and a camera?" 

"Don't Go" is no exception to this. We start off with just a door floating in space, with the words "Point of Entry" (aka the album title) stenciled above it. It reminds me of a store in the next town over from where I grew up called the House of Doors. That name cracked me up when I was a kid. 

More to my point here though, it is almost exactly like in Futurama when they watch The Scary Door. Yeah, you're probably going to want to click on that link so you understand the other things I say here. (But aren't they both just The Twilight Zone? Trust me, this video is not high-budget enough. It's The Scary Door.) 

In any event, we follow the camera through the door, and as in a couple of their other early videos, Priest appear to be playing the song in the back of a tractor trailer. Okay, it's not quite that narrow of a space, so let's be generous. Priest appear to be playing the song in a double-wide trailer. But someone has painted lines all down the sides, so at least it appears to be very long and skinny — that's how stripes work, isn't it? 

There's also a large, framed picture of a cloudy sky behind Dave Holland. I think maybe here and definitely in "Heading Out to the Highway" they might have been trying to recreate the album art but, call me old-fashioned, it might have been a better idea to just actually go outdoors instead of trying to create long, open vistas in tiny indoor spaces. I mean really, a painting of the sky?

 

Anyway, Judas Priest are just playing the song in their weird box. I should probably also mention that it's windy in there, so everyone with long hair is having their hair blown around. Clearly, this doesn't affect Rob Halford (he's even wearing a hat, and that's sticking on). Everyone else in Priest faces the door, while Rob mostly faces the band. 

It shouldn't surprise anyone, by the way, that there's a lot of black leather in that shoebox. Rob is more or less singing to the other members of the band. "Don't Go" through the Scary Door. They don't want to listen. 

Bassist Ian Hill heads through the door first, even though Rob is waving and singing at him. Unfortunately, what happens when he goes through the door is very confusing and badly lit. Ian looks around, looks down, sees a bunch of colorful lights, and then sort of screams. I'm not sure what happened. 

K.K. Downing goes next, and luckily what happens to him is way slower, so we can figure out wtf is going on in this video. It really is the Scary Door. They seem to go through it and into weird dreams or fantasies or something. 

The other thing that's weird is yeah, Rob is upset for them to leave, but it's not like anything really happens. I mean, the shoebox room doesn't empty out (which quite frankly would make more sense). Instead, everyone who leaves just reappears back in the room and is visible in the background while the next person is leaving. 

Anyway, K.K. steps through the Scary Door and is immediately in a hospital corridor. He's wearing all white, and walking down the hallway, which is brightly lit and all white except for a checkerboard floor. I guess K.K.'s a doctor, 'cause he's wearing a stethoscope and stuff. 

But let's also mention that the place is full of white rabbits. There are rabbits laying all over the floor, so much that he has to step over them. Okay, so I think what happens through the Scary Door is they are going into their dreams. I mean a bunch of bunnies lying all around a hospital? Dream sequence.

 

Then K.K.'s bit gets weirder. At the end of the hospital corridor, he makes it to another Scary Door, with a bunch of rabbits lying in front of it. He opens that one and surprise! It's full of dry ice, and a bunch of women in pleather doing all kinds of freaky stuff. They pull K.K. into whatever it is they're up to in there. 

This seems to make Glenn Tipton want to go through the Scary Door. He pushes Rob Halford aside and heads on in. Glenn is dressed as a sort of Prohibition-era gangster, with hat and coat and everything. Unfortunately, what exactly happens in his sequence is really, really poorly lit, but he appears to be in a back alley. He runs down some stairs and into a waiting Dick Tracy-looking car, which he uses to flee from what appear to be (as best as I can tell in this video's pitch-black lighting) a bunch of gun-toting gangsters. 

Rob Halford goes last. He jumps through what seriously does appear to be the Scary Door — I mean, it's floating around in space with a bunch of stars behind it. Rob is dressed sort of as Jiffy-Pop, but I think really as a space man. He floats around, does sort of a somersault in the air, then pulls himself back through the door. 

Does Dave Holland get a fantasy sequence? Nope, not even a two-second one like Ian had. Boo. Instead, the video ends with the lights going out in their little trailer. All we can see is the painting of the sky at the very back, and Rob Halford at the very front, begging the camera not to go. But the Scary Door closes on him, and the camera pulls away. 

You know, in addition to the video taking us to a vicinity of an area adjacent to a location, this song is sort of like a sludgy, metal version of "Wake Me Up (Before You Go-Go)." I mean yeah, it doesn't have the implications of going dancing later that evening, or possibly just staying in bed instead, but the lyrics are really not that different in the scheme of things. 

I know, I know, I just keep coming up with weird connections between songs that don't really exist. (The connections, I mean, obviously the songs exist!)

McAuley-Schenker Group, "Love is Not a Game"

Somebody Turn On the Damn Lights!  

THE VIDEO McAuley-Schenker Group, "Love is Not a Game," Perfect Timing, 1987, Capitol

SAMPLE LYRIC "Love is not a game / the stakes are high / you're playin' with fire / love is not a game / knock over the pieces / and start it again" 

THE VERDICT Ah, roller derby. It's the swing dancing of sports — it's unclear when it ever really was that popular, but people remember it with tremendous nostalgia. 

Magazines like Spin and Rolling Stone write a few articles about how it's being re-adopted by people with dyed black hair and ironic tattoos, suddenly there's a movie capitalizing on the new 'craze' (viz. Whip It), and next thing you know, whoosh, it's gone again, swept back into the great dustbin that is pop culture. 

But was anyone you ever knew actually into it? Who were these swing dancers and roller, uh, derby-ers? Well, this video doesn't provide the answers, and it has nothing to do with swing dancing. It kind of has nothing to do with anything, really, except sort of roller derby. What? Well, next time you try writing an intro to a video featuring roller derby! Not so easy, is it? 

The McAuley-Schenker Group is one of those bands where I will go through long periods of completely forgetting they exist, then suddenly it all comes back to me when I stumble upon a WTF-fest of a video like this. In general, I never really enjoy bands built around a virtuoso guitarist (e.g. Yngwie Malmsteen). 

Like others of this ilk, the Michael Schenker Group/McAuley-Schenker Group features a revolving door of minor players, focusing mainly on that Teutonic terror, the Edgar Winter of metal, Michael Schenker. 

Seriously guys. If I could ask Rudy Schenker from the Scorpions one thing, it would be dude, what is the deal with your brother. I mean Michael Schenker has the hair they always describe Dawn Schafer as having in the Baby-sitters' Club books — nearly waist-length, almost white blonde, super-fine hair. Isn't this a little suspish, given that his bro Rudy is a balding brunette whose hair never even reaches his shoulders? 

Likewise, while Rudy always seems like a fun guy, Michael has one facial expression: Brooding. A virtuoso guitarist who doesn't make guitar face? It doesn't sound possible, and yet here he is. 

If I could ask Michael Schenker one thing, though, it might well be dude, what is the deal with this video. MSG are never really ones for videos that make sense, but this video pushes this tendency well past its limits. It's impossible to find anywhere in any kind of decent quality, but even in HD this video would still be totally confounding. 

It's horribly lit, with the lights turning on and off all the time, and everything bathed in sort of this Yves Klein blue. As if that weren't enough, most of this video is shot on an extreme angle, like the cameraperson was either drunk or really tired (possibly both) and is leaning on something. 

As far as I can tell though, MSG are playing the song in the middle of a roller derby track. Yes, that's right. MSG live, in concert, with a bunch of hardcore girls on roller skates hurtling around them. The gals are doing it up, pushing each other over, falling into the stacks of Marshall amps, toppling over the railing. 

Are they hot? I can't tell. You can't tell. The McAuley-Schenker Group can't tell. It's totally dark in there, and every time one of the spotlights turns on, it's frickin' blinding. Seriously, why don't they just start some fog machines, too? Or just turn off the camera? Oh wait, I'm not even sure this is women's roller derby — I think I just spotted a guy, but really I can't be sure.

 

Most of what little we can see in any level of detail is just close-ups of Robin McAuley's face. He looks kind of like an ugly Adam Lambert, or maybe Michael Sweet dressed up as Adam Lambert. Or maybe Pat Benatar's husband/guitarist what's-his-name. Regardless, it's a weird look. 

We only really see Michael Schenker clearly during the guitar solo. He mostly just stares at his guitar. 

Seriously, this video could be used to induce motion sickness in experimental situations. It's completely disorienting! Between the tilted camera, the lack of lighting, the weird colors, and then the fuzzy footage of roller derby crashes, it's making me feel a little ill (then again, could be all the doughnuts I ate today — nah, who ever heard of anything bad happening as a result of doughnuts?!). 

I don't even know if I can handle doing the images for this video, because I don't know if any of them will be clear enough for anyone to be able to tell what was going on. Could the people in this video tell what was going on? 

On the one hand, I'm thoroughly nauseated. On the other hand, if this video doesn't fit this month's theme of forgotten or simply never remembered videos, then I don't know what does! 

I mean seriously... can you imagine the record company meeting where they developed the concept for this video? Allow me to take some creative license and stage a dramatic reenactment. Okay, okay, a dramatic imagining. 

Exec 1: "Hmm, if love is not a game, what is a game?" 

Exec 2: "Well, they talk about knocking over pieces and then picking them up — what about Jenga?"

Exec 1: "We'll have the band play the song on top of a giant Jenga tower! Shirley, get me Robin McAuley on line one! [on phone] What? Michael doesn't like it? If the Jenga tower falls over he may be forced to make facial expressions? I see. All right. Back to the drawing board." 

Exec 2: "Hmm." 

Exec 1: "Hmmmmm." 

Exec 2: "What about roller derby? People loved Rollerball." 

Exec 1: "I think you're onto something, Johnson! But we can't afford that level of special effects." 

Exec 2: "I know, we'll just turn out all the lights!" 

Exec 1: "Johnson, you're a genius! We begin filming tomorrow at 8 am, sharp!" 

Exec 2: "We end filming tomorrow at 12 noon, sharp!" 

In my mind, it then turns into them getting drunk to celebrate coming up with such a high-concept video, then explaining the concept to the band and crew the next day while still half-drunk, hence explaining the tilted camera. 

I don't know if it did happen, and probably it didn't, but it's the most plausible explanation I can come up with. 

P.S.: I know, I know, I skimped on the photos for this one. But seriously, it's darn near impossible to make out anything in this video, and I figured fewer, better images was better than more, blurrier ones.

 

Autograph, "Turn Up the Radio"

The Curl Conundrum

THE VIDEO Autograph, "Turn Up the Radio," Sign In Please, 1984, RCA

Click here to watch this video NOW!

SAMPLE LYRIC Turn up! The radio! / I need the music, gimme some mo' / turn up! the ray-dio! / I got to feel it, gotta give me some mo'"

THE VERDICT Do you ever sit around thinking to yourself, what is the most ridiculous metal video I can think of? Okay, maybe that's just me. And probably, you wouldn't think of this one. Personally, I'd think of something by Y&T. But this Autograph video really takes the cake. Every time you think "it can't get more dumber than this," it gets dumber. In fact, it gets dumberer. Seriously -- look at what happens in this video:

1) The album cover comes to life. Autograph enter a weird, futuristic garage-looking room, where the robot from the cover of their album tells them the title of their album ("sign in please"). A printer shoots out a sheet that says "Autograph," and they all sign in next to their instrument. Except their drummer, Keni Richards, who just writes an "X." Somehow this causes the robot to electrocute him, and make his headband display an "error" message. I'm not making this up!

2) Wait, I forgot to mention the mechanical pencil. When the robot asks them to sign in, vocalist Steve Plunkett makes this sassy face (get used to it, he keeps making it for pretty much the whole rest of the video). In any event, a big green laser ray appears, and Plunk grabs a mechanical pencil out of it. Did they bother to get some kind of cool-looking prop, maybe something chrome? No. No, no. This is one of those plastic mechanical pencils that's made to look like a regular old #2, with a yellow plastic body and a pink rubber eraser. Clearly, no expense has been spared.

3) The robot sort of DJs for them. This isn't Daft Punk. The robot doesn't really move. There's just a lot of pointing, and some laser lights. But the robot is standing at some kind of station, and appears to be running the show.



4) Everyone acts like they're BFFs. Seriously, the members of Autograph spend so much time leaning against each other and smiling, you kind of begin to wonder if one of them is holding the camera at arms length, and if they're just filming themselves that way. It's really weird. Steve Plunkett seems to especially like leaning on bassist Randy Rand, but then again Randy seems to like leaning on everyone in the video. Possibly Randy was the best cameraman.

5) Omg look at the audience. So even though we never see them in any of the shots of the band, apparently there's an audience watching them perform. It appears to be made up of middle-aged people who have brought their tweenage children. Seriously. There's a woman who looks kind of like Cheri Oteri, a bunch of kind of stringy-looking white dudes, and some surly chubby boys. And of course, there's the one hot chick who's supposed to be ogling the band. She looks like a female A.C. Slater, or possibly just an extra who got lost on her way to a shoot for a Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam video.

6) Special effects! As Butt-head would say, "these special effects aren't very special." They do a ludicrous slo-mo shot of Plunk jumping off the drum riser. This is only topped by Steve Lynch's guitar solor, which we see from a zillion angles, but most notably in a shot where they make it appear as if there are two of him simply by splitting the screen and playing the same shot twice, side by side.

7) The robot is kind of their chauffeur. In this midst of all this, there's a totally rando shot of the robot sitting behind the wheel of a car. This isn't picked up again till nearly the end, when suddenly we see there is a limo full of dry ice waiting for the band. The robot's driving them.



8) They act it out for those of us who don't understand what "turn up the radio" means. Seriously. Seriously. For the sort of breakdown part at the end of the song, the rest of the band chants the chorus and claps, while keyboardist Steve Isham (who looks like some kind of unholy offspring of Don Dokken and my eighth grade boyfriend) dances around and mimes turning up the radio with a little transistor radio. Guys, we knew what you meant.

9) The mechanical pencil's back. To give the video some kind of continuity and plot, the mechanical pencil returns. As the band runs to get into the limo, the crowd -- and notably the hot chick -- cry out for them. Plunk doesn't know what to do, but then Keni grabs the pencil (which earlier he'd stashed in his frizzy hair) and hands it to him. Plunk hurls it like a knife and she catches it. This is so weird. It's like the bouquet toss at a wedding, only much, much cheaper.

10) Dramatic re-use of footage. In case that moment with the pencil didn't bring you closure, fear not -- they have re-used the exact same footage of Plunk jumping off the drum riser. It ends with the album cover. Ah, the circle of life crappy videos.

Okay, so why are we looking at this utterly weirdo video? Well okay, one, because that's pretty much all we do here. But two, because I recently was issued a challenge, or possibly a potential corollary, to my theory about metal bands' hair colors. Simply stated, it goes: The more brunettes in your band, the more metal you are. Blondes dilute metalness. (Admittedly, redheads I don't know what to do with, although really, who does.)

In any event, it was recently put to me: What to make of curly hair? Does it mean anything for a band's metalness? I have thought about this long and hard (surprise), and come up with an answer: Curly hair is for wusses. Now before you curly-locked folk get up in arms, please let me acknowledge that I am marrying a man with a full head of extremely curly hair. I am no curl hater. But come on, look at metal men with extremely curly hair -- it does not look badass. In fact, quite the opposite.



That said, there are two ways that rockers with curly tresses seem to deal with it. One is by just, you know, going with it, a la Autograph. I would also add as a yet another law of metal hair that the more members of your band with short hair (shoulder-length or less), the less metal your band is. I mean just look at Krokus. Or think about it -- bands like Def Leppard (Phil Collen, Rick Allen) or Bon Jovi (Tico Torres, Alec John Such, that keyboardist whose name I'm blanking on for some reason... David Bryan!). Right? Short hair waters down the metal.

However, there's another direction for curly-haired boys. And that is to fight their natural wussy texture by going all-out metal. Because think about it -- where do you find the most men with curly hair? And I mean serious curls, not just like wavy texture. Thrash bands. They are totally all in thrash bands.

I mean think about it: Tom Araya. Marty Friedman from Megadeth, who has seriously the curliest hair ever. If he had straightened it in its prime, it probably would've been to his knees. Kirk Hammett. The lead singer from Overkill. This is serious, y'all.

Is it a result of having to endure ridicule during the incredible amount of time it must have taken them to grow their curls that long? Is it just knowing in their hearts that curly hair is for wusses? Is it the fact that flat iron technology was not yet there in the 80s? The world may never know. But I will continue to try to help the world figure out by coming up with additional laws of hair metal hairdom.

Great White, "Stick It"

It's Shark Week Again

THE VIDEO Great White, "Stick It," Great White, 1984, EMI

Click here to watch this video NOW!

SAMPLE LYRIC "I'm out on the road, and I'm rockin'! / (Stick it, stick it) / I'm on out the road there's no stoppin' / (Stick it, stick it)"

THE VERDICT Don't let the fact that most Great White songs are either covers or pretty terrible ballads (not to mention the fact that at this point they are way more famous for causing considerable death and devastation than they are for even "Once Bitten, Twice Shy") keep you away from this gem. This is a great song. For serious. They managed a couple of genuinely great songs back in their day, and this is one of them ("On Your Knees" is the other one, if you're wondering.)

This video is no slouch either. Even more than I enjoy songs about the right to rock, I love metal videos that feel like they're from some lost 80s movie that desperately needs to be unearthed. "Stick It" is actually sort of a combination of that with like, a long lost ZZ Top video -- I mean fantasy, babes, a car? That's serious Top territory. And of course, bathing suits of the 80s, which always provide a fun trip down memory lane (or just like, to the ever-pornier American Apparel).

So the video takes us through the (increasingly surreal) misadventures of a youngish teen guy working at a greasy spoon diner that appears to exist well, literally nowhere -- it's surrounded by white space at all times. His boss is a big fat dude with glasses. The colors are very drab and washed out -- the entire diner is more or less gray with some tan and rust, and all the customers are dressed in neutral colors (lots of black).

Things start off pretty normal, with the kid and the fat dude serving the customers sitting at the counter. Slowly, the kid edges away, and heads over to a radio mounted on the wall to turn up the volume.

Doing so causes a sort of video-photo of Jack Russell to come flinging out of the radio, overtaking the screen until we are watching Great White perform. The band is in front of a small crowd of people, and they're lit by spotlights which we can completely see (we can even see the people operating them, always an extra touch of class). Great White are a skeezy band even at their best, and this video is no exception. Mark Kendall is absurdly perky, pursing his lips and waggling his guitar at the crowd. Not-long-for-this-band members Lorne Black (bass) and Gary Holland (drums) similarly telegraph overenthusiasm, and we also need to mention are way better looking than the core of the band, Russell and Kendall (Holland looks like a lighter-haired Tommy Lee, and Black looks about like Rick Savage did around this time, again with slightly different hair). Is it KISS syndrome? Sort of, except none of the various members of KISS have ever been even kind of good looking.



Jack Russell looks, of course, like a total skeezoid. I will forever be baffled by all the anecdotes about the revolving door of skanks that his tourbus was. Him? Really? He's got ratty, thinning hair, and is wearing a white leather vest and a gold chain with nothing else (at least that we can see, I'm sure he is wearing pants. Or at least satiny briefs, ew ew).

We jump back to the diner, where the kid's boss has noticed what he's doing, and yanked him away from the radio. He marches him around to the front of the counter, where the customers watch with blase expressions as he's thrown to the ground. As we see the kid lying on the ground looking up at them, one might notice the perfect fried eggs laying there next to him. Remember those.

We're back with the band for a second, then we return to the diner, where the kid is behind the counter again. Though the customers were eating normal food from plates at the beginning of the video, now there are just these pairs of fried eggs laying all over the place. The diner also apparently is using all its coffee pots to hold slightly blue-tinted water. Remember those, too.

The kid starts to refill one of the customer's water glasses, when suddenly he spots something. We get a close-up of his jaw dropping and his eyes going all wide. What could he possibly see? Come on, it's a metal video, you know darn well what he's seeing! Chicks. The camera zooms out the window, where suddenly we see four women in heels and one-piece bathing suits hanging around a large white sedan. One girl sits on the hood, one lounges on top of the car, while the other two sit partially hanging out the windows, tossing a beach ball back and forth over the top of the car. They all smile and throw the beach ball toward him as they notice his stare. Oh, did I mention the car exists in just empty, white space? It does.

We go back to a close-up of the boy's eyes, then we see that he is still pouring the water. The customer pulls the glass away, and the water continues to pour and pour, splashing all over the counter and getting everywhere. Apparently it really is a bottomless beverage deal at this diner. The kid finally runs out of water, and jerks his head around as if he has noticed something else. Two men we haven't seen before who are dressed I guess as cooks (they have aprons around their waists) are doing a complicated juggling act over the diner counter. Celery, baguettes, pans, and more are tossed back and forth.

The kid looks outside again, and sees all the women now sitting in a row, drinking soda through straws. His attention is quickly distracted though, as his fat boss is coming after him. He looks back outside, and one of the women is smiling as she pours blue water from a coffee pot all over herself.



The boss grabs the kid by the neck again, yanking him around the counter. He shoves a mop into his hand, then points -- the kid is supposed to clean the diner, which is suddenly absolutely filthy, with piles of garbage on every surface. He trudges slowly further into the room.

But then oh, we're back with the band, and Mark Kendall is working his way to a furious guitargasm. The crowd shake their fists, and I love that you can clearly see one guy turn and check whether he's on camera. Congrats dude, you are. I also like that someone else in the crowd keeps holding up a pair of sunglasses and trying to align them with the ones on Mark's face for no clear reason. They're sort of like, "well, as long as we're having to be part of this Great White video, we may as well make the best of it."

Following a long segment featuring pretty much just Mark's right hand, we see Lorne and Jack sort of thrusting away in unison. Jack is indeed wearing pants -- red leather. Could've been worse.

After much screaming and thrusting, we're back at the diner, which is still trashed. Dishes are everywhere, as are those baguettes that were being juggled before. The kid looks disgusted and confused as he walks around, while his boss looks on from the corner. For some reason, the patrons have TP'd the diner, and so now toilet paper is hanging from the lighting fixtures.

The kid looks out the window, and he sees the women getting into the car, which is now facing away from the diner. As they close the doors, we go back to the band, where Jack is encouraging the crowd to raise their fists in unison. We see some girls in the crowd chanting "stick it!" After some shots of Jack and Mark looking and acting lecherous, we see a ridiculous dude in the crowd (with a horrible mustache -- I mean, more horrible than most even) take off his sunglasses and attempt a scary face. I can just imagine some poor AD being like "Yeah! Now show me more metal, more metal, that's it!" Then Jack holds his mic out to Lorne so he can say "stick it!"

The camera zooms out from Great White, and then we're back at the diner. The boss appears to be lecturing the kid, who looks exasperated. Behind them, the diner appears to be on fire. The kid walks away from the fire, his boss, and the filth, and looks out one of the windows, bracing his arms against the windowpanes.

His boss continues to hector him, and he looks back at him before gazing out the window again. Suddenly, he pulls his arms back and punches through the window with both fists, shattering the glass. He jumps out the window, landing on all fours. The ladies open up the driver's side door, and the kid army crawls toward the car (which I'm thinking now is a Cadillac). They all gesture to him to come get in, although the one in the red suit seems underwhelmed at the prospect.



As he jumps in and slams the door, we go back to Great White. The video ends with everyone throwing their hands in the air, and Gary throwing a drumstick in the air. It fades out on a shot of just the drumstick flying through the air.

So given all that, I know there's one question on everybody's minds: Was it all a dream? Is Jack wearing a wig in later Great White videos? His hair looks pretty sparse and ratty here, but especially right up front -- his hairline looks pretty dicey, and I swear there are some shots where you can see right through the middle. And yet within just a couple of years, he's got a lush, full mane of blonde hair replete with thick, straight bangs. On the one hand, possibly he's not just a member, he's also a client or whatever, and he magically grew an incredible amount of thick, evenly textured hair completely unlike what he's working with here. But given that all through their later albums, he's got exactly the same haircut (and never moves his head around that much either, come to think of it), and it's not even a very metal haircut -- do you think it's a rug? I mean, years later, now with shorter hair, it doesn't like it did in the band's most successful years.

I don't know how they didn't manage to use this song in the gymnastics movie Stick It, which if you're wondering was pretty good (and did have some okay music since I do enjoy the occasional Jock Jam), even if the jokes were kind of off and the heroine was seriously the tallest gymnast in the history of elite gymnastics. Dang, now I am wishing I had cable so I could watch (among the zillion other things I'd watch if I had cable) that bitchy gymnasts show on ABC Family. That show looked pretty good.

The one movie alert cinema-going metalheads may have noticed that this was in was the Harold and Kumar sequel (Escape from Guantamano Bay). Good gracious it was horrible, way too topical, and nearly ruined my goodwill toward both the hilarious first movie and Beverly D'Angelo, BUT. In the scene where they are hanging out with George Bush in his little hunting-lodge-type house, you can hear this song playing quietly in the background. It darn near made me burst into spontaneous applause in the theater! Mainly because it was the high point of the film, but seriously, that was the case not just because the movie was awful, but because this song never gets the respect and credit it deserves. Hence, here I am now -- and here you are now. Go listen to it!

P.S.: Remember when I made that whole plan about how I was going to talk less about what happens in the videos and write shorter posts? Yeah, I remember it too. Sigh.

Scorpions, "I'm Leaving You"

A League of Their Own

THE VIDEO Scorpions, "I'm Leaving You," Love at First Sting, 1984, Mercury

Click here to watch this video NOW!

SAMPLE LYRIC "Ooh, girl, I'm leaving you / yes, I'm leaving you / I've got to go to tonight" (repeat ad nauseam)

THE VERDICT It's almost the fourth of July, so I felt an all-out patriotism-fest was in order. Yes, the Scorpions are German. But this WTF-fest of a video feels like it could only have been made in the USA. There's no apple pie or fireworks (the latter of which, yes, invented by the Chinese, but heavily associated with Independence Day, right?). But what this video lacks in apple pie and fireworks, it makes up for with everything it does have. It's not movie footage, it just feels like you're watching some long lost "late night comedy" from the 80s (as Netflix so charmingly euphemizes it).

The Scorpions' ridiculously adorable old tour bus (not their real tour bus, I'm going to venture) rolls into the town of Bedford, which the sign announces to us has a population of a mere 405. The bus appears to break down or run out of gas or something pretty much right away, which is lucky for the Scorpions, since about half this town's population (or okay about 1/25th of it) is a klutzy ladies' softball league that plays braless in rompers. We're talking uniforms made out of hight-waisted hotpants connected to halter tops, people. If American Apparel hasn't brought this back yet, they will soon. (FYI, they more or less have, without the collar. So I'm sure a collar version is on its way.)

Anyway, these skinny white women, who appear to range in age from about 15 to about 40, are terrible athletes. It probably doesn't help them that they're being heckled by local good ol' boys, or that there's a dog running around in the outfield. One lady is so distracted by seeing the Scorps' bus roll by that she fails to notice the ball laying by her feet, even though we see another lady yell "Get the ball!"



Following their game, all the ladies pile into a diner and enjoy a giant meal of what looks like hamburgers. They all freak out and press against the window, as it's right outside said diner that the Scorpions' bus comes to a halt, and the denizens of Deutschland pile out looking like rock gods. (Come on, it was the 80s people, this was how we thought it was cool to look.) Herman Rarebell is wearing black leather pants and a black leather jacket with no shirt. Francis Buchholz is also sporting black leather pants, but with a sleeveless tee. Rudy Schenker has on the same outfit, but Matthias Jabs steps it up in leopard-print pants, a white tank top, and a jean jacket. Klaus Meine makes it off the bus last, in black leather pants and a red shirt unbuttoned much to far for my comfort.

The Scorpions all pose around the bus, while the women continue to excitedly jam their faces at the window to get a better look. Weirdly, the Scorpions are very well reflected in the window, so I don't think the band can see in. One of the ladies makes an "I'm getting an idea" face as one of the local boys sort of stumbles past the Scorpions. She then says "come on" to the other gals in the restaurant.

Next we get a "getting ready" montage, always one of my favorites in any movie, but particularly 80s movies. This being a "late night comedy," it's also a prime opportunity to show the girls running around in teddies. They all keep running across a porch past a guy who looks like he's in his twenties but is clearly meant to be an old man -- gray wig, reading the newspaper on the porch, dressed like George Costanza's dad. Why couldn't they just cast an actual old man? That's just one of the mysteries of this video. Anyway, he stares after them as they run back and forth. As one of them finishes putting on perfume, we get a close-up of her vanity table and see -- ew!! -- an actual scorpion zipping around.

No sooner do the Scorpions arrive in their hotel rooms (okay, it looks like they're staying more at a bed and breakfast or a boarding house than a hotel), the ladies are all over them, asking them to sign copies of their records. Every time one of them sits down or enters a room, ladies are popping out of closets, climbing through the windows, and crawling from under the bed to get autographs and to take pictures of them with cameras with those old-time flash cubes -- remember those? The things that looked sort of like stacks of light bulbs, and you got to use each of the light bulbs like once? I also enjoy that apparently Matthias and Herman have to share a room, but no one else does.



Next thing we know, the fake-old-man guy is fake-limping down the street with a shotgun. We see the ladies talking to each other in the boarding house hallway, and running back and forth between the rooms, when suddenly the fake-old dude shows up brandishing his shotgun and fake-limping even more ridiculously (he's basically pogoing on his left leg). Um, are we meant to believe all of these girls are his daughters? He chases some of the girls through the rooms, threatening the Scorpions.

Meanwhile, this one lady is walking down the hall, dropping actual, insect scorpions onto the floor. What?! As she drops each one, we see sort of a semi-transparent shot of each of the band members whipping around to face the camera dramatically superimposed over the shot of the insect walking on the floor. Ummm... are we meant to believe the scorpions are the Scorpions? Is this a magical transformation sequence? Or is this lady just trying to like, get a bunch of the girls' feet all swollen up from stings? Maybe she's on a rival softball team. That doesn't make much sense though, because these girls' softball team was incredible horrible.

She turns around and looks pleased with herself once she's dropped all the bugs, who are crawling into the different rooms (no one seems to have closed their doors). It's either this or the guitar solo that makes Rudy suddenly jump up, grab his guitar and run out of the room. The girls are displeased by this.

The rest of the Scorpions follow suit, and they all meet up downstairs in the lobby, where for the first time in the video, we actually see them with instruments playing the song. The girls all run down after them, and pile up on the stairs watching them play. We then get a weird second meet-the-band sequence featuring each member of the Scorpions, in profile in front of some venetian blinds, singing directly to a different one of the women. Matthias and Herman seem to have had some luck in their double room, as their girls are most enthusiastic, while Francis' one just looks pissed.



Without warning, the Scorpions fade and disappear from the room, and we see the women -- now looking much less fresh-faced and all-American, and much more like heavily made-up concert-goers, looking pouty and depressed. Suddenly the lady who was dropping all the scorpions appears in the middle of the lobby (where, for some reason, all of the instruments except the drums have disappeared along with the band). The girls look exasperated with her, and she makes a sassy face in return before spinning on her heel and also evaporating into thin air.

What, what, what!?!? This video is the Scorpions' weirdest by far, I have to say, and they are known to do some weird stuff in their videos. I think it's taking this sort of mundane realistic presence -- they blow into town, ruin all the women, and leave -- and adding the insects and disappearing and stuff, which makes it totally bizarre. Okay, I mean not that the like, sexy women's softball league wasn't kind of weird to begin with. But it wasn't supernatural!

P.S.: I know, this one's not at the beach, but it still feels like a summertime video to me. It also reminds me strongly of one of my favorite Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes, Zombie Nightmare. Seriously, click that link! You can watch the whole thing. The parallels are there, I'm telling you. Baseball? Yup. Babes? Check. WTFery? Can't check this enough times.