Hmm, I didn't see the Happy Days theme coming. I'll have to confess that I never watched that show about 50s nostalgia during the sucky 70s. I did watch Laverne and Shirley but it's been a while plus I don't think they were that related. All I really know is that some character disappeared and Fonzie was the Urkel of his day.
(Note: Fonzie is OK according to this spell checker but Urkel isn't. Go figure.)
So the premise of this video is that Weezer is inserted into a episode where some character has them singing at his diner. Wasn't this fat Italian character one of the fathers in Laverne and Shirley? I'd buy the DVDs to a lot of the junk I watched as a kid if I had money to throw away. Anyway, he holds a concert by some swinging, but clean cut teens who are into that new rock and roll thing. Since this was originally a sitcom episode, they leave in the audience laughter even if they edited out the gags. During the whole video we see reaction shots from Happy Days cast members and Fonzie dances towards the end.
The song itself includes a lot of anachronistic slang. Although the idea of teens saying homies in the fifties amuses me. The song tells us about a guy who doesn't like being harrassed by some guys. He is addressing his girlfriend. The harrassers are even violent, but that isn't stopping the singer or his gal. They're in love, or great friends, or something.
We get to the chorus. Singer says he looks just like Buddy Holly and his gal as Mary Tyler Moore. So I guess we're combining 50s nostalgia with 60s nostalgia. Or 70s nostalgia. I'm not sure what Mary Tyler Moore did in the fifties. I guess the singer is saying, "Me? I'm like the legendary rock and roller. And you? You're like that hot wife from that sitcom!" Anyway, singer has created his own little fantasy for the two and that's good enough for him.
Singer is now acting as a white knight for his gal. He says that she has slit eyes, which means she's probably Asian, and her tongue is twisted, which means she's Satan. Or Richard Keil. Or that guy from KISS. What she needs he reasons is his protection. Smooth, dude.
Suddenly the music video stops as a gag. The music video resumes after a fake commercial bumper. Suddenly the lyrics tell us that the couple is getting attacked, even though the song still sounds cheerful. There's no resolution to this. We're just told that the singer still doesn't care.
Fonzie concludes the video by doing a Russian squat dance. And that's why they handed the show to him. (Man, if the Internet was around in the 70s they probably would have made him out to be like Chuck Norris.)
I'm honestly lost about the meaning of the song or its connection to the video. I'm stuck between the interpretation that the song is about a nerd sticking up for a friend, or a darker song that doesn't match the lighthearted presentation. I want to say it's good, and it's not bad at all, but I just don't get it.
The awesome thing is the 50s bobby sock-style some of the gals wear.
4 comments:
1. I interpret "your eyes are slit" as her glaring at somebody in anger. She did just get dissed and the couple is about to get into a fight, after all. It doesn't mean he's calling her Asian, you racist (;op).
2. Yeah, boyfriend and girlfriend are probably about to lose that fight.
3. He isn't saying doesn't care that they're probably about to get pounded so much as he's repeating the chorus that he doesn't care what people say about him and his girlfriend. She clearly DOES care, though, so he's gotta fight for her honor or some shit like that.
4. Music videos don't have to be literal interpretations of the song lyrics. You don't need to freak out whenever they don't match perfectly.
5. The awesome thing is the Happy Days reenactment. They did a really good job, especially for the time.
6. You might want to take some Dramamine in preparation for your new video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcBOi2k7QhQ
I know I shouldn't read everything literally. I was trying to figure out the song and I poked around the Internet and found out how popular this song was. I felt like I was missing something because I couldn't figure it out AND I wasn't enjoying it as much as yesterday's or today's song. In the end I could only confess that I didn't get it.
Part of the reason it's popular is that it's a catchy tune, but also take into account the time when this video came out. That was some pretty impressive merging of old and new footage for the day. People really hadn't seen that kind of thing before. And on top of that, people always like to feel nostalgic.
I have this song on my mp3 player. Every time I hear it I think of Stuart and his girlfriend at one of my RPs.
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