Because we love ‘em all. Here’s your 90’s Video of the Day:
Fatboy Slim - Praise You
Long before there was Napoleon Dynamite lovable cringe, there was this Spike Jonze masterpiece. The director actually bookends our week of featured videos with another one he probably never got a permit to film; Fatboy Slim with “Praise You.”
Creating a fictional Torrance Community Dance Group out of a group of hired actors, the commitment of the performers was something I so desperately wanted to be real. Let’s be frank, I’m sure somewhere in the world, innocence like this exists. Jonze himself is center stage in this video playing the role of Richard Koufey, and he sort of “auditioned,” for the role. He gave Fatboy Slim’s Norman Cook a video tape of a very enthusiastic man dancing to another song, “Rockafeller Skank.” Cook loved it so much, he suggested they find the man and have him dance for their next video. Cook had no idea the jazz-hands extraordinaire was actually Spike Jonze himself.
As Spike loves to do, this was done flash mob style and the crowd who were waiting to purchase tickets for a movie, congregated on its own. It was a one take video and all of the crowd reaction is genuine, (including the guy who shut off their music nearly blowing the whole thing), which makes this video experience all the more special.
The sample in the song comes from black rights activist Camille Yarbrough’s 1975 “Take Yo’ Praise.”
Hit me up with 90’s Videos you wanna see featured at abby@wxdx.com