Something Strange in Your Neighborhood

Entry Date: 07.07.07
(How I adore symmetry)
Remember what a big hit that "Ghostbusters" song was back in the mid-80s? Didn't matter that the musical hook was a blatant rip-off of a Huey-Lewis-n'-the-News song. In that sense, Ray Parker Jr. was a pioneer for artists like Vanilla Ice and Sean Puffy Combs.

I remember loving the music video as a kid... but oh how it's aged:

Check out the random celebrity cameos. People who weren't even in the movie. Irene Cara! Chevy Chase! Melissa Gilbert! George Wendt! People whose star-power had a bit more wattage back in the mid-80s... but for kids today, they're probably a Who's Who of Who the Fuck is That?!?

But back in the day, it was Hollywood (or at least Ivan Reitman's friends) all coming out to support a great big fun movie. The kind they don't really make anymore.

They don't even make music videos like this anymore. The closest in recent years might be Will Smith's Wild Wild West—where the name of the movie is actually the name (and chorus) of the song. There's no (official) "Chronicles of Narnia" Song. We don't have a pop song called "Night at the Museum" sung by Alien Ant Farm. There may be songs thematically attached to movies like "Lord of the Rings", but rarely are they as LITERAL as they used to be. And certainly, it's hard to apply the theme song for "Ghostbusters" to anything except for... well, bustin' ghosts.

And then there's the great Ray Parker Jr. Aside from the Huey Lewis lawsuit, it must be an even greater indignity for him that he's still forced to lip-synch to this fucking song in 2005.

I feel sorry for his mother.