Don’t you wish that your school was cool and edgy? Maybe that for once, the school play could be something not from the Nobody Wants These Movies DVD bin at Wal-Mart. My high school was plagued with singing cowboys and cute country sweethearts locked together in songs of love and the country. It was disgusting. Is there really nothing better for students to sing about spinach and “termayters?” I don’t care if it won Academy Awards, Oklahoma! is the lamest thing to have ever lamed in the history of lame. The video below, on the other hand, is fudging awesome.
Behold as these children star in the elementary school production of Scarface.
Fudge yeah. Although I may have chosen Fun Dip as a substitute for cocaine instead of popcorn, it still works. Watching baby Tony Montana seizure at the end is a delight and hearing “fudge” coming from these little kids is equally entertaining. I may or may not volunteer to babysit my nieces and nephews just so I can re-enact it.
And no, it’s not real. Put down your manicured nails and get out of your vans, PTA moms. It’s fake. This is an elaborate production filmed about a month ago by Marc Klasfed, a music video director who’s worked with Jay-Z, mouse-face Avril Lavigne and the always-amusing Foo Fighters. According to the LA Times, Klasfed used professional child actors in a rented theater in Koreatown, California. The audience consisted of family, friends and random extras.
The TV behemoth that is American Idol has given the nation an outlet to laugh at the socially awkward in the form of bizarre auditions. While most of them get dressed down by resident blowhard Simon Cowell, “General” Larry Platt was received with incredulity more than anything else. There’s a determination, a glassy-eyed sense of purpose in some of the contestants whose awful auditions the Idol producers weave into ratings gold. They “know” they have talent and America and by extension, American Idol, is just late to the party in noticing it.
With Platt, there’s more of a relaxed feel to it. He’s got nothing to prove. After all, the man is not a real General, the name was bestowed upon him when he work with the civil rights movement side by side with leaders like MLK and Rev. Hosea Williams. He’s a community activist as shown in his advice to those kids with the gold teeth and the sagging pants to pull ‘em up and/or get off his lawn.
A taste:
Pants on the ground
Lookin’ like a fool
With your pants on the Ground
With the gold in your mouth
Hat turned sideways
Pants hit the ground
From there the song was replicated and disseminated, discussed by news anchors on shows that crave ratings like oxygen and its meaning discussed in the cushy chambers of monocle-wearing sociologists, probably with Richard Dawkins somewhere in there too. It was impossible, dare I say “unpossible” to get away from it. That is, unless you don’t have TV or Internet, then ignorance is bliss for the most part.
Soon Jimmy Fallon was singing it on his talk show. Then the women on “The View” invited Platt on their show. Then Brett Favre, in a bit of strangely inspired team-building, rallied his teammates on the Minnesota Vikings after a win against the Dallas Cowboys in the playoffs. Even a Canadian politician used the song to criticize Proggressive Conservative David Alward. Thus the cultural snowball of a meme like “Pants on the Ground” has rolled for a complete news cycle, slowly losing speed until it comes to a full stop.
So where do all these shooting stars go after achieving a feat like that? Back to relative obscurity in a society afflicted with information-overload. When Andy Warhol said everyone will have their 15 minutes of fame, he probably didn’t expect that we could always go back to that moment of fame and relive it any time we had a few minutes to kill at work or in class. Cue the “earworm song” that you hum every so often.
In the case of the nation’s love affair with “General” Larry Platt, we’ll always have YouTube.
Have you ever come across something so absurd, so weird and so creepy that it ultimately invaded your thoughts for the rest of the day and became infinitely awesome? If so, then let me know about it so that I can get this out of my head. Introducing one of the latest in the internet phenomenon popularity: Trololololololololololo
Warning: this beautifully not-sung musical number will either horrify you or trap you in its clutches. Most people will either close the video immediately and sigh in distaste or close the video immediately, sigh in distaste and ultimately let curiosity take over and take the plunge.
The now-legendary man lip-singing is named Edward Anatolevich Hill, a Russian singer who may or may not be the Russian version of David Bowie. The song Hill is “singing” is called “I Am So Happy to Finally Be Back Home,” a song meant to be sung exactly like this in 1970′s Russia. Apparently, the song was written by famous Russian composer Arkadii Ostrovskii, who wrote the song in the style of vokaliz. Vokaliz appears to be the art of singing without words, so basically anything unintelligible counts–A better example of vokaliz isn’t as obvious about it pantomime.
The epic level of creepiness is what makes this video so appealing. Hill’s uncanny and stiff posture makes the entire performance awkward and weird. It’s like you’re watching the really quiet kid in class finally come out of his shell and perform in the talent show and instead of the traditional ugly-duckling-turns-talented-swan scenario, the duck stays ugly. So ugly it’s fascinating and so memorable that it’s feels like a privilege to be a witness.
I’ve taken the liberty of posting the lyrics for those of you interested in showing off this beauty at karaoke night.
“I Am So Happy to Finally Be Back Home” by Arkadii Ostrovskii as interpreted by Edward Hill
A much more informative article about the origin of the Trololololololololololo video can be found at Justin E.H. Smith’s blog here.
Jimmy Kimmel on his show revealed the secret “Trololololololololololo” past of Christoph Waltz, the actor who recently won Best Supporting Actor for his role as the Jew-hunter Col. Hans Landa in Inglourious Basterds. Apparently at one point in his career, Waltz performed the German equivalent entitled “Der Humpkin”.
Yes, it appears to be a parody. But it’s so endearing.
(UPDATE) Some crafty YouTubers have posted some good responses.
gccagle
distortionrock
