I remember first hearing the premiere of “Sabotage” by the Beastie Boys on the radio in high school late on a Sunday night and LOVING IT. And then, a short time later, the video came out, and it was a game-changer. Suddenly, the Beasties were back on top and firmly in the public consciousness like they hadn’t been in years.
The Sabotage video was directed by Spike Jonze and was a throwback to 1970s-style cop TV shows such as Starsky and Hutch and Baretta. It was a brilliant idea and executed perfectly. To be honest, music videos had become a little boring by the time the Sabotage video came out in 1994, and the Beastie Boys injected some fun and humor back into MTV, which seemed to be all doom and gloom with the explosion of grunge. Here’s a refresher.
I think people can argue that the Sabotage video set the stage for such later classic videos as Weezer’s Buddy Holly.
The Sesame street video was made by Mylo the Cat (aka Adam Schleichkorn) using footage from the 1985 Sesame Street film Follow That Bird. He’s previously gained fame for video mashups such as Barney the Dinosaur doing The Notorious B.I.G’s Get Money.
Is it silly? Yes. Is it goofy? Absolutely.
The mashup works well for these videos because, like the original video, there’s a lot of running around and people getting chased, this time it just happens to be Big Bird.
I think this is one of the better mashup videos I’ve ever seen, to be honest. Here’s the entire video for you to enjoy.
Oh, and, RIP MCA.
