I have never seen any of the Problem Child films and I have mixed feelings about learning that, in the 90s, The Beach Boys had gone from Pet Sounds to performing the theme song for this particular film. But none of that matters because we’re all here for Gilbert Gottfried, rest in peace.
Enjoy!
Having watched Cocktail earlier tonight with Lisa and the FridayNightFlix crew, Kokomo seemed like an obvious choice for today’s music video of the day. Kokomo started out as an unreleased song by John Phillips. When The Beach Boys were commissioned to provide a theme song for Cocktail, Phillips sent the song over. The Beach Boys, of course, put their own spin on the material and the end result was a surprise hit for the band.
The video was shot at the Grand Floridian Resort at Walt Disney World in Florida, with the band performing in front of an audience that included several cheerleaders from the University of Nevada. This is the only Beach Boys video to not feature Brian Wilson. It does, however, feature actor John Stamos playing the conga. (Stamos, apparently, is a long time friend of the band.)
While I couldn’t find a credited director for this video, it does contain several scenes from Cocktail, which was directed by Roger Donaldson.
Incidentally, at the time this song was recorded, there were no resorts called Kokomo. After the song became a hit, however, several island resorts borrowed the name.
Enjoy!
Does this video have a good message or not?
It starts with a sexy beach babe making out with a skinny guy who is wearing glasses so that’s good.
But then the girl leaves with a bunch of stereotypical jocks and her boyfriend isn’t allowed to come because he has bad eyesight. That’s bad.
Then the spirit of Big Kahuna shows up and the video takes a Cinderella turn when the Big Kahuna uses his kahuna powers to turn the nerd into a jock. Is that good or not? It depends on whether or not our hero learns a lesson about being himself at the end of the video.
Our hero then drops in on the beach party. where he discovers his girl sitting next to the main jock. So, he reacts by flirting with all the other girls at the party. That’s doubly bad.
Then the Big Kahuna shows up and turns the our hero back into his nerdy self. All of the other girls run away but not his girlfriend because, it turns out, she loves him just the way he is. That’s so good that it makes up for all the bad stuff that happened before.
But then the Big Kahuna punishes the shallow jocks by turning them into nerds, which would seem to indicate that, in this video’s moral universe, being nerdy is some sort of karmic retribution. That’s bad. But then everyone’s much happier after they’ve all turned nerdy so maybe that’s actually a good thing.
Having sent several mixes messages, the Big Kahuna throws away his magic shell and heads back to the ocean. At least true love wins in the end.
Enjoy!
Apparently, the most difficult thing in the world is to try to find a good music video for Thanksgiving!
Seriously.
First off, there really aren’t that many Thanksgiving songs and those that do exist don’t have music videos. If there had been an official music video for Arlo Guthrie’s Alice’s Restaurant (which Gary wrote about yesterday), I would have shared it. But, as far as I can tell, there isn’t.
I nearly went with Alanis Morrisette’s Thank U but then I realized how much that song annoys me so I decided not to. If Natalie Merchant’s song, Kind and Generous, had been called Thank You, I would have used it but, unfortunately, it’s not.
I eventually went with God Only Knows because it’s the type of song that can bring tears to your eyes and I recently rewatched Boogie Nights and I love how the song is used in the film. And, to be honest, it’s a song that captures the feeling of Thanksgiving, even if it’s not really a Thanksgiving song.
So, I used it. I can’t really tell you much about this video, other than music videos in the 60s and 70s were considerably more straight-forward and less flashy than what we’re used to today. It’s a simple video but it works for the song, I think.
Enjoy and happy Thanksgiving!
One year before we had Golden Earring playing on a boat and mud wrestling, we had The Beach Boys doing a little silent comedy–mostly fighting over a raft in a pool.
What else can I say without trying to talk about it in a larger context?
It’s the video they recreated for Love & Mercy (2014).
It’s in 480p. You can watch the video for Good Vibrations in 1080p because it was posted in 2016, but this one was put up in 2009. It didn’t receive that kind of treatment.
It’s that same kind of turn-the-band-into-silent-comedians type video, and was filmed at Brian’s house.
I didn’t mention it when I did Sound Of The Screaming Day by Golden Earring, so I will here. Since both are treated like short comedic films with the song playing, there isn’t any lip-syncing. We did get Barry Hay mimicking the flute during that part of the song. In this, there’s none of that. Just something interesting to keep in mind whenever you read about musicians getting harassed for not lip-syncing from the 1980s onward.
This video almost meets all the elements I listed when talking about Elected by Alice Cooper:
It has the band, it is live-action, it uses real sets rather than just a backdrop, it has a storyline, it has no lip-syncing, and it has no re-creation of a performance.
The only thing it is kind of missing is a storyline. But even that’s something you could argue is present in this video.
Surprisingly, IMDb has an entry for this that not only lists the director, but also who worked the camera.
The video was directed by their publicist, Derek Taylor. I wouldn’t be surprised if he did other videos as well. He apparently is also in the video.
Dennis Wilson is credited as having worked the camera.
I wish I had more information other than that there appears to be another promo film for this song. I probably won’t do it though since I have no idea of the provenance other than that it looks like it was made for Swedish television.
Enjoy!
Five years before Woodstock, there was T.A.M.I. Show.
In 1964, a concert was held over two days at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. Free tickets were distributed to local high school students and the best footage from the two shows was edited into one movie. Distributed by American International Pictures, T.A.M.I. Show was one of the first concert films.
T.A.M.I. stood for Teenage Awards Music International but no awards were given out during those two days. Instead, 12 of the most popular music acts of 1964 performed on one stage. The Beatles may not have been there but almost every other hitmaker of the year showed up.
Among the highlights of T.A.M.I. Show was the performance of James Brown and The Famous Flames, which many consider to be one of the best musical performances ever captured on film.
James Brown’s performance was followed by The Rolling Stones. Though Keith Richards once claimed that trying to follow James Brown was the biggest mistake of their careers, T.A.M.I. Show was the first time that many American teenagers actually saw the Stones perform.
Also performing: The Supremes, at the height of their popularity.
The Beach Boys’ performance has become semi-legendary because, as a result of copyright issues, it was edited out of prints of T.A.M.I. Show following the initial theatrical run.
For years, T.A.M.I. Show was unavailable for home viewing but finally, in 2010, Shout Factory released this landmark of movie and music history on DVD and they even included the long censored footage of the Beach Boys. For music lovers, T.A.M.I. Show is a must-see record of the rock scene in between the start of the British invasion and the rise of the counterculture.
Through the Shattered Lens 