Poor Bonnie Tyler. Not only did the Amateur Transplants borrow the tune of "Total Eclipse of the Heart" for their "Anaesthetists Hymn", now one of the makers of literal videos has piled on with a hilarious take on the song's rather mind-boggling early-1980s MTV video, supposedly storyboarded by Jim (Bat out of Hell) Steinman, who must have had a little help from a whole pharmacopeia of illicit substances.
I'm not a rabid fan of literal videos unless they're vocally very similar to the original and have consistently clever lyrics. I don't like to watch three or four or seven minutes of video for only one or two good lines, and it ruins the joke if the vocal sound is too noticeably different. It also helps if I know the original video and/or song. I laughed myself sick last fall over this LV version of A-Ha's "Take on Me," the infamous "Sketchy Arm" and "Pipe Wrench Fight" video:
That one worked for me partly because it was one of my all-time favorite videos in the first place. I like an actual storyline in my videos, even if the song doesn't have anything much to do with it, and the back-and-forth between the real world and the world of the comic strip was a clever conceit for the time. (And it just occurred to me that I'm still stuck on it two decades later: it was one of my favorite elements in Repo! The Genetic Opera as well.) Was this the start of the literal video concept? I think it may have been.
But the literal video of "Total Eclipse" takes the concept to a whole other level, mostly because the original video -- which I don't recall ever seeing before -- is an incoherent head trip that suggests Tyler is an ephebephiliac with a particular yen for boarding school athletes and a phobia about choirboys. I really can't imagine what either Tyler or Steinman were thinking. I don't want to imagine what they were thinking.
So the maker of the literal video had plenty to work with; it practically satirizes itself. All he had to do was point out the "huh?!" moments (that would be most of the video) and the joke would just keep piling up. But he goes it several levels better than that. I won't spoil all the lines; watch for yourself:
"I've joined the Glee Club of the Damned."
I laughed so hard I cried.
Mullets with headlights?
Feathered hair?
The horror. The horror!
And the flying altar boys are creepy.
I've got to ask, at the risk of revealing my ignorance... What is a 'literal video'?
Posted by: Serge | June 03, 2009 at 03:16 PM
My favorite line of that is "I think he just flipped me the bird."
I remember seeing that video when it was new. I rather liked it, but no, it never made much sense (and even less now).
Posted by: Mary Aileen | June 03, 2009 at 03:27 PM
By the way, I did like those videos. They show more imagination than most of the mainstream stuff. I know, it's not that difficult to show more imagination than what usually consists of a bunch of thin girls baring their midriffs and wriggling their derrières. I get to see the devolution of video when I go to the gym, where monitors show things from various eras.
Posted by: Serge | June 03, 2009 at 03:35 PM
A literal video is a video in which the song has been redone so that the lyrics describe what is happening on the screen. It generally comes with subtitles.
I remember quite a lot of early-1980s videos from MTV back when it was new and actually showed videos. But I seem to have missed "Total Eclipse."
Posted by: Susan de Guardiola | June 03, 2009 at 03:37 PM
Susan... So, that's what a literal video is. Somehow I completely missed out on the concept when it was going on. Then again the 1980s were throwing many changes at my life that kept me otherwise occupied.
Posted by: Serge | June 03, 2009 at 03:59 PM
I love the ah-ha version, which Sandy has never seen before.
Now to watch more.
Posted by: jeff | June 03, 2009 at 05:37 PM
Serge: To clarigy, the originals of those videos are from the early 80's, but literal videos are a recent phenomemon.
Posted by: Mary Aileen | June 03, 2009 at 08:25 PM
And I can't spell. 'clarify' not 'clarigy' (whatever that means)
Posted by: Mary Aileen | June 03, 2009 at 08:26 PM
Mary Aileen,
Clarigy are ministers who are efficacious against allergies.
Posted by: Susan de Guardiola | June 03, 2009 at 08:40 PM
Susan... Clarigy are ministers who are efficacious against allergies
Sin-ufed?
Posted by: Serge | June 04, 2009 at 12:36 AM
Serge,
There were some very imaginative videos in the early days of MTV; they weren't all stock concert footage. "Thriller" is the ultimate one, of course. I think music videos as a dramatic form have real possibilities that few groups take advantage of, possibly because they are musicians, not actors.
For later stuff ('90s), Meatloaf's "I'd Lie For You (And That's The Truth)" video is a great Indiana Jones ripoff.
Posted by: Susan de Guardiola | June 04, 2009 at 09:55 AM
Susan... some very imaginative videos in the early days of MTV
There was also Peter Gabriel's stuff. And Tom Petty had that animated short that used images from Windsor McCay's "Little Nemo in Slumberland". I think the modern sad state of affairs may be a consequence of the glory days's videos trying to top each other, which meant more elaborate affairs, to the point where it became way too expensive.
(Meat Loaf as Indiana Jones? I've got to look for that on YouTube.)
Posted by: Serge | June 04, 2009 at 10:31 AM
Meatloaf was not Indiana Jones in the video, but the video itself is an Indy ripoff.
Posted by: Susan de Guardiola | June 04, 2009 at 10:52 AM
Susan... I wonder who that evil-looking woman garbed in black and coiffed with a matching batwinged evil hat was?
Posted by: Serge | June 04, 2009 at 04:36 PM
Brilliant. I, too, particularly like the "he just flipped me the bird" moment.
Posted by: Paul A. | June 05, 2009 at 12:12 PM
Clearly the original video begins as a dream sequence, and then Tyler wakes up and realises that she's living in a John Wyndham novel.
Also, I'm glad to say that's nothing like the school I'm working in. That would have had a reference to belly button piercings. Two of the girls claim they have glow in the dark ones.
Posted by: Neil Willcox | June 06, 2009 at 09:11 PM
I have a navel piercing. Seven piercings total. None of them glow in the dark.
Posted by: Susan de Guardiola | June 06, 2009 at 10:04 PM
Neil... Two of the girls claim they have glow in the dark ones
At first I thought you were saying that the girls glow when in the dark ones, but I couldn't figure out what 'ones' referred to. Don't you modern kids know about dashes? grumblegrmbledarnkidsgrumble
Posted by: Serge | June 06, 2009 at 10:58 PM
Neil... Tyler wakes up and realises that she's living in a John Wyndham novel
Tripods or triffids?
Posted by: Serge | June 06, 2009 at 10:59 PM
Tripods or triffids?
Cuckoos.
Posted by: Paul A. | June 07, 2009 at 09:17 AM
(Also, for Tripods you need John Christopher, not John Wyndham. I mention this merely as useful information, not criticism, because I also have a strong tendency to get those two confused.)
Posted by: Paul A. | June 07, 2009 at 09:19 AM
Don't you modern kids know about dashes?
I know of them.
Cuckoos.
Or possibly Chocky.
Posted by: Neil Willcox | June 07, 2009 at 10:48 AM
I never managed to take Chocky as seriously as e probably deserved. An enlightened vistor from another world really should not sound quite so much like a snack food.
Posted by: Paul A. | June 07, 2009 at 10:55 AM
I have no idea whatsoever what you guys are talking about.
But that's okay.
Carry on.
Posted by: Susan de Guardiola | June 07, 2009 at 11:30 AM
Paul A... Oops. Wrong John.
Posted by: Serge | June 07, 2009 at 12:17 PM
Susan... I have no idea whatsoever what you guys are talking about.
Any of it, Susan?
In retrospect, what Neil meant about Tyler being in a John Wyndham school should have been to yours truly, the Devourer of Cinéma. The 'cuckoo' is from his novel The Midwich Cuckoos, which was filmed twice as Village of the Damned: one day, everybody in a British village falls asleep; when they wake up, it is discovered that all women of child-bearing age are pregnant. The best version was the first one, from 1960. Here is its coming attraction.
As for Chocky, it is apparently about a kid who has an imaginary friend, and people think he's just going thru a phase. It turns out that the 'friend' really is an alien inside the kid's head. There are worse worse names to call an alien, but none come to mind right now.
Posted by: Serge | June 07, 2009 at 12:32 PM
Argh! I meant to say Chocky or Chrysalids. John Wyndham was a writer of especially English Science Fiction. I associate him with schools as Chocky was made into a children's TV series in the 80s when I was in school and was about school age children who have weird stuff happen to them and The Chrysalids was a book I had to read for school and is also about school age children and weird stuff happens.
His Wikipedia page may help to enlighten confused readers.
The Tripods are a trilogy of novels* by John Christopher and the first two were also made into a TV show in the 80s.
* Plus a prequel
Posted by: Neil Willcox | June 07, 2009 at 01:08 PM
Neil... Tripods is one of those many things I know of which I've never actually read or seen. I had hoped the TV series would be available on NetFlix. Alas, it's not. Was it any good?
Speaking of creepy teenagers... In the early 1960s, George Pal (producer of The Time Machine among others) tried to make a film based on Stapledon's Odd John (which I did read), with David McCullum as John. That might have been interesting.
Posted by: Serge | June 07, 2009 at 02:06 PM
Serge, I don't usually like alien invasion stories, but I thought the Tripod books were quite good.
Posted by: Mary Aileen | June 07, 2009 at 02:56 PM
Mary Aileen... By the way, I got the impression from what someone once told me that the books were published as Young Adult ones - or rather what was the closest equivalent in those day. Is that correct?
Posted by: Serge | June 07, 2009 at 03:17 PM
Speaking of Netflix and creepy teenagers, I watched Freaked last night. I have no idea how that got on my queueueue.
Posted by: Marilee J. Layman | June 07, 2009 at 04:52 PM
Serge, That sounds right. I got them from the library; I'm pretty sure they were in the Young Adult section. Or possibly Juvenile--it's been quite a while and I don't really remember.
Posted by: Mary Aileen | June 07, 2009 at 05:33 PM
It was the Wyndham and especially Chocky references that were going over my head. I'm not familiar with Wyndham or any movies made from his works (in chorus: 'cause Susan sees very few movies) and the only movie reference I was coming up for Chocky was Chucky, which I think was a horror movie about a toy. I am relieved to know that I am clueless due to lack of background as opposed to being an idiot or suffering memory loss.
John Christopher (a pseud, by the way) and the Tripods, however, I am familiar with. I read the trilogy sometime in the 1970s. They were definitely classed as YA; I probably read them around age 8 or so, before I moved to the adult section of the library. I thought they were quite good. I hadn't realized there'd been a prequel written as well. I might have to look that up. Or maybe not. I was a bit disappointed with some of my other favorites from that age, the Carbonel (King of the Cats) books, when I reread them recently.
Posted by: Susan de Guardiola | June 07, 2009 at 07:46 PM
Susan... (in chorus: 'cause Susan sees very few movies)
Is that the Chorus of a Geek Tragedy?
Posted by: Serge | June 07, 2009 at 10:43 PM
I hadn't realized there'd been a prequel written as well. I might have to look that up. Or maybe not.
I recommend "not". I found it disappointing even when I was that age.
Posted by: Paul A. | June 08, 2009 at 05:10 AM
Serge,
I don't think of it as tragic. I think of it as having a life interesting enough to not have time to waste sitting passively in front of a movie screen very often.
Posted by: Susan de Guardiola | June 08, 2009 at 05:46 AM
Paul,
Hmm, thanks. I was not strongly inclined to make the effort; now I am even less so.
Posted by: Susan de Guardiola | June 08, 2009 at 05:47 AM
Of course it's not a tragedy, Susan. It's just that you mentionned a chorus, and you have in the recent past referred to yourself as a geek. It is well known that yours truly seldom lets pass a chance at lame jokes.
As for movie-watching being a passive activity... It is a less active activity than reading, true, but it is another source of storytelling.
Posted by: Serge | June 08, 2009 at 07:28 AM
When I'm reading a book I don't generally get antsy for something else to do at the same time. It's a rare film or TV show that needs that much of my attention. When watching DVDs at home I am generally sewing or doing some other sort of crafting; it does not occur to me to just sit down and watch something unless I have work I need to do at the same time.
I gave up watching one of the next-gen Star Trek shows after a couple of episodes because even though I was working while I watched, I was frustrated because I had enough unused attention left to simultaneously read a novel but didn't have enough hands to turn pages while crafting.
Posted by: Susan de Guardiola | June 08, 2009 at 07:51 AM
...must... NOT!... make crack... about ST-TNG... must resist!...
Sometimes I'll have a movie on while I'm reading, but that's because I like having background noise. If I want to immerse myself in the movie's story, I don't do anything else. The closest to what you do would be my playing a favorite soundtrack (usually something by Bernard Hermann) while doing something else. When I'm working though, I turn off everything that makes a noise. I'm not sure I like what that says about my brain, but, heck, it's the only brain I have.
Posted by: Serge | June 08, 2009 at 12:48 PM
Tripods is one of those many things I know of which I've never actually read or seen. I had hoped the TV series would be available on NetFlix. Alas, it's not. Was it any good?
No.
The books were good, but the TV series was slow to start, boring and spent two episodes getting distracted from the plot to give us an introduction to winemaking. Worst of all, it was cancelled after adapting two of the three novels so doesn't end properly. (from memory)
Posted by: Neil Willcox | June 08, 2009 at 01:40 PM
Neil... And, considering when it was made, in the pre-CGI days, the visuals are probably in the low-budget end of things. Not that it's always a bad thing: Gaiman's Neverwhere" didn't let restrictions stop it.
Wine?
The invaders had a taste for grapes?
Posted by: Serge | June 08, 2009 at 02:02 PM
Yeah, I found out when I was in the hospital that I don't really like watching TV without something to work on in my hands. I think of the DVDs just the same way. The Explanation of Benefits from the first 14 days of the hospitalization came yesterday: $93,274.76. I don't know how much Medicare & Kaiser will really pay for that, but I only have to pay $250, which is the co-pay for the entire year, even if I get admitted again.
My favorite TV show starts the season tonight: The Closer and I'm looking forward to that.
Posted by: Marilee J. Layman | June 08, 2009 at 05:10 PM