Happy Remix

7/30/2019 Happy Remix

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Stephen LaGrange

11/7/12

English 357

Happy Remix

The remix video that I choose to analyze is a music video of the song “Buddy Holly” by

the band Weezer. The music video for the song was released in 1994 and was directed by Spike

Jonze who is a successful director, producer, screenwriter, and actor. Some of his most notable

directing work can be seen in the movies such as “Being John Malkovich” and “Where the Wild

Things Are”. Jonze has also directed music videos for other bands such as The Beastie Boys,

Bjork, and Arcade Fire however this video is one of the first he directed.

The music video portrays Weezer performing a live show at the original Arnold’s Drive in

Diner from the hugely popular 1970’s T.V. show “Happy Days”. The video combines

contemporary footage of the band performing in the diner with classics clips from the actual

show. The video is very believable because of the implementation of the original cast members

into the contemporary footage. The biggest cameo from the video is from Al Molinaro the

owner of Al’s dinner. Al is the one who introduces the band at the beginning of the video and

makes you think right away that this is an old

episode of Happy Days. The rest of the video is

edited in the same way to create the illusion that

Weezer actually performed on the show. The

video was met with great popularity and went on

to win 4 awards at the MTV Music Video Awards.



Formal Analysis

Obviously Weezer did not make an appearance on the show Happy Days, but the

producers in this video did almost everything in their power to make it look that way. The

closure type that is used in this video is subject to subject. Scott McCloud the author of

“Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art” would define subject to subject as “transitions that

take us from subject to subject while staying within a scene or idea” (pg. 71). The video stays

within the scene of the band performing in Arnold’s dinner, but then takes us from subject to

subject when it shows shots of the different characters. Some of the best examples of this are

when the members of the band interact with characters from the actual show.

(2:00)

(2:38)



Mcloud also says that a degree of reader involvement is necessary to render the transitions

meaningful. This is definitely true for this video, but it is these transitions between the

contemporary band and the classic characters that really make the video seem much more

believable and entertaining to watch.

The video is very entertaining, but is there any kind of deeper meaning that the words

and pictures combine to tell us? I did some research on the lyrics from the song “Buddy Holly”

to see if there is any kind of connection. This song (like most if the Weezer songs) was written

by Weezer front man Rivers Cuomo and was written based off his life experiences. To sum it up

quick the song is based on Rivers experiences of discrimination while dating an Asian girl in

America. The most obvious lyrics that say they are being discriminated against are in the first

verse of the song.

What's with these homies, dissin' my girl

Why do they gotta front

What did we ever do to these guys

That made them so violent

Other lyrics come later in the song that explain that his girl is Asian with her eyes being slit and

her tounge being twisted or in other words with an accent. This explains why they are being

discriminated and why she needs protection from the discrimination.

Don't you ever fear, I'm always there

I know that you need help

Your tongue is twisted, your eyes are slit

You need a guardian



Based on these lyrics and the overall tone of the song it’s hard for me to really see any huge

connections between the song and the video. The video is clips of everyone having a good time

enjoying the live music that is being performed. There is nothing about the discrimination of a

mixed race couple rolled in anywhere within the video. Because the video and the song for the

most part portray two separate ideas I have to classify it as a parallel word picture combination.

McCloud defines parallel combinations as words and pictures that seem to follow very different

courses without intersecting. Even though the actual words of the song do not follow the same

path as the video that does not necessarily mean that the song itself does not go along with the

video.

If I had to place this video on Scott McCloud’s triangle it would be in the far left corner

in the realistic realm. This video pretty much exclusively uses realistic images to create the

remix. The only part that could be considered iconic is the use of the Happy Days logo during

the intermission portion of the video. The only thing that is really iconic about this shot is the

words because even the background shot of the record player is in the realm of realism. Even

though the show was based on the lives of fictional characters they are still considered in the

realm of realism because they were

played by real people. Almost everything

about this video is real and that is the

way that the producers wanted it to be,

they wanted it to be as believable as

possible.

(2:20)



The idiom of the video is mostly in the realm of experimental tradition. It is somewhat

unique compared to other remixes because instead of simply blending two similar things

together like an old song with a new song it blends together a contemporary song with footage

from a classic T.V. show which is then blended together with contemporary footage that is

made to look like the classic T.V. show. It’s almost more complicated to talk about what is going

on in the video then it is to just watch it. Even with the mix of all of these things together the

video still follows the same recipe for a traditional remix and that is taking something that is

old, combining it with something that is contemporary to create something that is new and

different from anything else.

As far as samples go this remix really only takes samples from one subject and that is

from the classic T.V. show Happy Days. It is pretty clear that the band had permission to use

samples from the show because otherwise they would probably not be able to make the video

in the first place. The really interesting thing about the samples that they used is the extent

they went to make the samples appear to look like they were part of an original episode of the

show. Everything from the clothes, the appearance of the actors, and even the stage that the

band is performing on meshed together in a way to make the video true to a real episode of the

show. The devil is in the details and many details were used to make this remix as believable as

possible.

The transitions that occur in the video were also used to make the video very believable.

They are done so well it is almost hard to notice them when you watch the video in real time.

There are a lot of continuations from the original clips that transition into the contemporary

clips. They do a really good job of masking these clips into the video without the viewer



knowing that it is happing. A lot of this is due to some of the fast transitions that occur. They

are almost so fast you can’t tell the difference and so much is going on you really don’t seem to

mind that it is happening. Probably the most noticeable clips are when the Fonze appears to be

dancing along with the music. It is clear that the dancing is a clip from an episode of the show,

but a quick transition to a new clip with the subjects back turned with the band in the

background makes it seems like it is happening together. This technique of using an original clip

and then going to a quick transition of the back of the subjects head is used several times

during the video and ends up being very effective.

(3:05)

(2:52)

(1:27)



Content Analysis

It is fairly clear that the main purpose of this remix is to entertain and I believe that it is

very successful in doing so. It is really hard not to like this video because it is entertaining on so

many levels. I am assuming this was not done by mistake considering that the song Buddy Holly

is the first track on Weezer’s first studio album “The Blue Album”. I’m assuming they wanted to

do a video that would gain a lot of attention to help promote their first album. Somewhere

along the line they must have decided that a remix with an already popular T.V. show would be

a good way to go. The quality of the video really shows that the creators new what they were

doing. A video like this does not come together by accident, they knew exactly what they had to

work with and they knew what scenes they had to recreate to make it seem like it was a real

episode of Happy Days. It is probably also save to assume they had some kind of budget to

make this video otherwise it would probably not be nearly as successful. Whatever the

reasoning is behind the video I think it is very successful form of entertainment and really

stands out as a unique video remix.

Evaluate

As much as I like this video and the song I do believe the video could be more successful

if the song and the video somehow went together better to explain the whole story behind the

lyrics. That is really the only thing that this video is missing that could really make it any better. I

can see how that just might not have been feasible with using all of the old footage from the

show but it would have been very interesting if they could have somehow pulled that off.



Sources

McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. New York: HarperPerennial, 1994.

Print

"Buddy Holly (song)." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 14 Nov. 2012. Web. 13 Nov. 2012.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddy_Holly_(song)>.

"Weezer - Buddy Holly." YouTube. YouTube, 16 June 2009. Web. 13 Nov. 2012.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kemivUKb4f4>.

Happy Remix

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