Video Spotlight: Celebrity Deathmatch

This is a month of spotlighting MTV sketches from our high school days.  Today, we spotlight Bruce's appearance on Celebrity Deathmatch, battling the late, great James Gandolfini.

In the late 90s and early 00s, every channel was coming up with bizarre animated shows aimed at younger, hipper audiences.  Currently, there are only three channels that spotlight mature animated programs - FOX, Adult Swim, and Comedy Central (with the notable exception of Archer on FX).  But, a little over a decade ago, you'd find adult cartoons on nearly every channel, such as God, The Devil, and Bob on NBC, Dilbert on UPN, Clerks on ABC, and The Oblongs on the WB.  Many of these shows failed almost immediately, and the over-saturation of animated shows contributed to shows like Futurama and Family Guy being overlooked in their original runs (only to be revived later after success in syndication).  However, one show that found a specific niche was MTV's Celebrity Deathmatch.

Celebrity Deathmatch, much like South Park (which debuted just a few months earlier), helped usher in a new trendy of "edge-y" cartoons.  Celebrity Deathmatch had a simple concept - take celebrities people know and love, and make them be as brutal and creatively violent as possible.  This worked well at the time, and definitely struck a humorous chord with my high school self.  However, the rise of the internet has completely taken away the bite that Celebrity Deathmatch had - we have all seen better celebrity impersonations and we've seen more gruesome violence.  If your comedy is based solely on pushing the envelope for what is acceptable at the time, it is inevitable that it will be dated.

But, let's just focus on the clip at hand.  I have to say, having Springsteen battle Gandolfini (with Steve Van Zandt as the referee!) is an inspired choice - it would have been so much easier to use Bon Jovi, his "natural" rival.  Sure, it may have one of the worst Springsteen impersonations I've heard (he sounds Southern), and, while I love a good pun, there's just way too many Springsteen song references that make me groan.  However, I love the attention to detail the animators put in the designs of the Springsteen toilet and Gandolfini urinal (not a sentence I thought I'd type when I started this blog).  Eventually, the fight finishes the only way it should - with unabashed toilet humor.  Unlike edgy humor, farts will never get old.

Video Spotlight: MTV Fanatic

This MTV awards show sketch hasn’t aged as well as it had in my memory. In fact, most of it is pretty weak. It’s no secret that we love Ben Stiller’s impression of Springsteen – after all, we named the blog after sketches from The Ben Stiller Show. Even so, this is not Stiller’s finest rendition. He nails the recording studio surprise and the anticipation in the limo but his voice is inconsistent and his interaction with Puff Daddy doesn’t deliver on the set-up.

I blame a lot of this on Puff Daddy. It was 1998 and at the height of his popularity, he was very much of the “too cool for this” mindset. Aside from selling the surprise introduction moment, he seems almost unwilling to participate in the sketch. I know this was part of the image but it makes the sketch fall flat. And for a Springsteen fan it becomes particularly painful as it quickly declines from sending up the absurdity of the situation into “look at this old-timer buffoon.” Contrast the way this sketch plays out with Ben Stiller’s Mission: Impossible spoof where Tom Cruise is game to play along.

That being said, the video has two moments that I love:

1) Jack Black perfectly emulating the 90s era MTV host
2) “Why are you so awesome?”

Springsteen Video of the Week - The Rising at MTV's Video Music Awards

As mentioned a couple weeks ago on this blog, this video received much replay on MTV back in the days when they still dedicated some time to play music videos.  Well, a little bit of time.  OK, let's face it, they haven't played music videos for most of the last decade.  I don't recall seeing the video that much, but I do remember seeing this performance live before the start of the 2002 VMAs.  Unfortunately, Bruce's performance ended up being overshadowed by such notable brouhahas as Triump the Insult Comic Dog getting into an altercation with Eminiem and the "return" of Guns 'N Roses.  While Jimmy Fallon on MTV asking viewers to put a tape in their VCRs screams 2002, Bruce's performance remains timeless.  

Springsteen Video of the Week - Girls in their Summer Clothes Music Video

Remember watching MTV and VH1 for hours on end waiting for the three minutes of bliss when you could see the music video you loved? The iTunes generation and beyond may never appreciate this pastime. And I can’t blame them. Hours of watching TRL and Morning Buzz could be maddening. You might come across a song you’ve never heard before but in return you’d have the lyrics to “The Thong Song” seared into your memory for all eternity.

The downside of living in an era of instant gratification and music video channels that refuse to play music videos is that we don’t experience the visual impact of pop music anymore. With the release of the “Rocky Ground” music video the other week, I realized that I couldn’t recall that many Bruce Springsteen music videos that vividly. Of course there are the iconic “Dancing in the Dark” and “I’m on Fire” videos but neither were in heavy rotation when I was doing the majority of my music video watching. The only music video I remember seeing on heavy rotation was “The Rising” – and that was a concert video from the MTV Music Video Awards. There was also the “Secret Garden” music video which I saw a few times but more prevalent than that video was the radio version of the song that Z100 used to play with dialogue from Jerry Maguire interspersed through the instrumental sections.

Should an artist with Bruce’s popularity even bother making music videos anymore? Is anyone discovering his music through this format? I’m not certain, but sparked by “Rocky Ground” I started looking through his VEVO channel on YouTube and found this beautiful video for “Girls in their Summer Clothes.” This video could have easily been a parade of bikini-clad supermodels to appeal to teenage boys but instead it’s something much more emotional and lyrical, with girls young and old accompanied by heartfelt imagery. While most fans would have been aware of this song already, seeing the visuals does add another layer for interpretation. In this case, it reiterates the melancholy of the lyrics and suggests that ‘summer clothes’ could be more of an emotional state than a physical appearance.