What's that blue thing doing here?

July 19, 2005 7:24 PM

Fingertips! They Might Be Giants get the Fanimutation treatment.
posted by Robot Johnny (30 comments total)

It's a lion!

Oh wait...
posted by unsupervised at 7:37 PM on July 19, 2005

Uh, wow. But not exactly in a good way.
posted by snsranch at 7:37 PM on July 19, 2005

Not enough Goatse or badgers, try again!
posted by Balisong at 7:40 PM on July 19, 2005

I have a feeling that in a few years this is what all television will look like.
posted by ColdChef at 7:52 PM on July 19, 2005 [1 favorite]

Wow, RJ, thanks for this. Uneven but kind of majestic, and truly in the spirit of the song.
posted by escabeche at 7:55 PM on July 19, 2005

nice! the unevenness is the charm of it. : >
posted by amberglow at 8:01 PM on July 19, 2005

Man, people always seem to know how to commemorate the worst bands...
posted by Mach3avelli at 8:18 PM on July 19, 2005

I, um.... what?

*hides from the_bone*
posted by Space Kitty at 8:28 PM on July 19, 2005

Brilliant.

I had not heard the "rocking" version of Darkened Corridors before. My CD has a much shorter and very subdued version at the end of Fingertips.

It is a great choice for a collaborative, silly effort such as this.
posted by Ynoxas at 8:42 PM on July 19, 2005

still not as good as The Flash Thing Done By That Kid Long Ago, but pretty good.
posted by ParisParamus at 9:05 PM on July 19, 2005

Something tells me the Johns would approve. Quite a pastiche! Man, I can't believe I saw TMBG like 15 years ago. WTF?! Don't let's start!
posted by shoepal at 9:19 PM on July 19, 2005

The "rock" ending is from a live version of the song.

PP: If you're referring to this, then "that kid" is one of several collaborators in this piece.
posted by O9scar at 10:07 PM on July 19, 2005

Yep. Brings back memories of a more innocent time, and a more innocent Metafilter--thanks!
posted by ParisParamus at 10:16 PM on July 19, 2005

I would just like to state, for the record, that TMBG are still capable of bringing the ROCK. That is all.
posted by dryad at 10:33 PM on July 19, 2005

Excellent. Fingertips was always a fave, and a good song to mess with unsuspecting people's heads.

And yeah, man everything's changed. It's good to have TMBG to remind us what things were like before, you know, the world changed and all.
posted by Jimbob at 10:39 PM on July 19, 2005

I like the way many, or all of the characters are silhouetted in the background towards the end--the attention to detail!
posted by ParisParamus at 10:42 PM on July 19, 2005

Needs more presidents.
posted by Space Coyote at 11:25 PM on July 19, 2005

Wow! I was skeptical, but that last segment really brought it all home!
posted by jennanemone at 11:58 PM on July 19, 2005

This was HORRIBLE.

Compare the pastiche of work to, say "Bloodmobile":

http://www.dave-logan.com/animation/bloodmobile/

If someone does a lot of crap, and I mean, a lot of crap, there's some argument that, at the end of it, if enough crap has been done, then eventually the pure mass of crap graduates to another level, becoming in some way good. Sometimes, I buy in.

Here, about 20 people worked together and created a song's worth of crap. And they used all sorts of obvious inside jokes, stolen copyrighted material, and in most cases a bunch of pushing around of objects.

C Minus.
posted by jscott at 1:28 AM on July 20, 2005

Heh. Thanks, Robot Johnny.
posted by Tlogmer at 1:32 AM on July 20, 2005

In case anyone's wondering. Dave Logan did that animation himself, not on spec, not paid by TMBG, and using a somewhat obscure song they recorded for a science exhibit. So I'm not comparing apples and commercial oranges. Like the others, he's just a guy.

But a talented guy who took a song to a whole other level.
posted by jscott at 1:32 AM on July 20, 2005

What the 'net needs is a mechanism for sites to give back your bandwidth if you're not satisfied.

I liked the original songlets from Apollo 18. I liked the original fanimutations like "Hyakugojyuuichi". I thought this was crap.

When people say things like "took a song to a whole other level", it's generally implied that the direction is up, not down...
posted by Pinback at 2:53 AM on July 20, 2005

Lets talk about how 'Real Smooth Moves' is the best band name ever.

The old Supreme Giants boys could take a cue from that one.

Keep on olde tyme bikin', tentacle skull!
posted by PeterMcDermott at 3:23 AM on July 20, 2005

I liked it better when They got the Strong Sad and The Cheat treatment.

TMBG is playing a free concert this Saturday at Penn's Landing in Philly.
posted by mbd1mbd1 at 6:28 AM on July 20, 2005

Pinback, way to misread which video I was talking about.
posted by jscott at 6:42 AM on July 20, 2005

There were some great moments in there, granted, but overall... feh.

And that's a surprising feh, considering that I personally love the music. Why are my TMBG fan impuses not overwhelming my disdain for the low production values and over-reliance on pop culture references?

Probably because, as jscott said, Bloodmobile did it better.
posted by JHarris at 11:40 AM on July 20, 2005

Hey, I played it again to check on something, and some of the scenes are slightly different. There's apparently a little randomness in it, interesting.

Yeah, "interesting," that's the word for it. Still kinda embarassing to watch.
posted by JHarris at 11:45 AM on July 20, 2005

I thought it was kinda neat, but it's pretty uneven. There's a few good ones, though -- "Come On And Wreck My Car" being pretty awesome.

Unfortunately, it seems that a lot of them just copied the tropes of the original Animutations, but not really the skill or whatever of them, which is too bad. It's one of those things where, yes, OK, the appearance of Colin Mochrie (for example) in the originals was pretty funny just because it was random; HOWEVER, this does not mean that Colin Mochrie is always funny and that putting him in is not an Expressroute To Comedy. Oh well.
posted by Rev. Syung Myung Me at 1:37 PM on July 20, 2005

don't know who said this originally, but

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.
posted by sdrawkcab at 6:11 PM on July 20, 2005

Compare the pastiche of work to, say "Bloodmobile":

http://www.dave-logan.com/animation/bloodmobile/

I enjoyed that, thank you for the link. Top quality work.

And I think some of you are thinking way too hard about the Fingertips piece. I still think it's a brilliant idea. It was never intended to be "slick". If it had been slick, it would actually be something else.

And "Wreck My Car", while being the best of the Fingertips compilation songlets, is also the best of this animation. Fitting.

Also, I nearly reverse aspirated Lemonade Gatorade when "The Day That Love Came to Play" hit. Wonderful.

I was badly disappointed in "I Don't Understand You" though. So much potential, squandered.

I would like to see more by the person who did the "All Alone" segment. I really like that style. Huh. Turns out it was the "The Flash Thing Done By That Kid Long Ago" Paris referenced.
posted by Ynoxas at 9:02 PM on July 20, 2005 [1 favorite]