U Can't Touch This
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| "U Can't Touch This" | ||
|---|---|---|
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| Single by MC Hammer, Rick James, Alonzo Miller | ||
| from the album Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em | ||
| Released | January 1990 in Philadelphia | |
| Recorded | 1989 | |
| Genre | Rap | |
| Length | 4 min, 17 s | |
| Label | Capitol Records (US) | |
| Chart positions | ||
"U Can't Touch This" was American rapper MC Hammer's most successful single. It propelled sales of its album, Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em which became "the biggest-selling rap album of all time at ten million copies." The song heavily samples Rick James's "Super Freak"; Rick James is credited as a co-author. The lyrics, written entirely by Hammer, are in the boastful self-promotional style common in old school hip hop. They describe the rapper as having "toured around the world, from London to the San Francisco Bay" and as being "magic on the mic," which Hammer says combines with Rick James's "beat that you can't touch" to create the perfect rap song. While some critics, especially in the gangsta rap community, disliked the song, enough people approved of it to secure the Grammys for Best R&B Song and Best Rap Solo Performance, a brand new category at the time, for MC Hammer.
This song was parodied by "Weird Al" Yankovic as "I Can't Watch This," and can be found on his album Off the Deep End.
Contents |
[edit] Song's occurrences in the media
[edit] Commercials
- Anti-bacterial hand cream Purell.
- Insurance firm Nationwide in a commercial. Hammer himself also starred in the commercial, which spoofs his bankruptcy.
- Connecticut Light and Power's television and radio ads, where "U can't touch this!" is used whenever power lines are mentioned (visually or verbally).
- Diet Pepsi/Pepsi One commercial, "I wanna kick it old school."
- Toyota commercial.
- Hand sanitizer commercial for Lysol (U Can't Touch Germs!)
- Lay's chips
- Acura 3.2 TL commercial
- Citibank TV commercial for credit account. Aired in Norway 2006
- Renault French TV commercial for Renault engines
[edit] Movies
- Class Act (1992)
- Hot Shots!
- Don't Be A Menace To South Central While Drinking Your Juice In The Hood (1996) One of the main characters, Crazy Legs, is asked if he has a dream. He thinks about the question for a second then the film dissolves into a dream sequence that features the crippled Crazy Legs performing a long, choreographed dance sequence wearing parachute pants to an instrumental version of "U Can't Touch This."
- The Right Connections (1997) (TV)
- The Master of Disguise (2002)
- Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (2003)
- Shark Tale (2004)
- White Chicks
- Bubble Boy
- Kung Pow: Enter the Fist
- Eurotrip In Bratislava, the old guy says "Stop, Hammertime!"
- American Dreamz (2006)
[edit] Television episodes
- The Cosby Show
- The Simpsons, as "I Didn't Do It". When Bart is in the studio recording this single (in the episode "Bart Gets Famous"), Hammer is outside the booth. In the Treehouse of Horror IX segment "Hell Toupee", Homer (with executed criminal Snake's hair transplanted to his scalp) says "It's hammer time" when getting ready to bludgeon Bart. In the Behind the Laughter episode, Homer buys MC Hammer's house, knocks off an M and beats the A into a O on the gates creating "Homer Time". Bart then comments he found some of Hammer's pants and while wearing them dances Hammer's famous moves.
- Sesame Street, parody You Shouldn't Touch This was used to warn children about touching things like electric fences and raw sewage.
- Family Matters
- Fresh Prince of Bel Air
- Perfect Strangers, performed by the main characters
- Greg the Bunny, the song is heard throughout the episode "The Singing Mailman", Dottie claimed that in college she made a tape of her stripping to "U Can't Touch This" for a dental school student she was dating, who was an M.C. Hammer fan.
- In Living Color, Tommy Davidson portrays M.C. Hammer in a parody titled "Can't Touch This"
- Bo' Selecta!, Avid Merrion performs a dance routine in front of Atomic Kitten
- Dancing With The Stars; Emmitt Smith and Cheryl Burke danced to this song in the Finale of the Third Season.
- Family Guy: "E. Peterbus Unum"; Peter Griffin becomes president of Petoria, and sings "Can't Touch Me!"; a song talking about how he has diplomatic immunity and abuses it to his own ends. He also mentions MC Hammer when he sings "I got diplomatic immunity/so Hammer, you can't sue".
[edit] Other
- Video game of the movie Shark Tale
- Performed live at the MTV Video Music Awards 2005
- Rewritten version used in the Tumble Time Tigger plush toy
- In World of Warcraft as Orc Dance (male).
- In Guild Wars Nightfall as a Paragon skill.
- "Weird Al" Yankovic made a parody of the song called "I Can't Watch This".
[edit] Uses of the word "hammertime!"
The word "hammertime" from the song ("Stop! (one-beat pause) Hammertime!") has appeared in numerous other contexts:
[edit] Streetculture
- Graffiti has appeared on stop signs around the world with the word "hammertime" underneath the "STOP".
[edit] Sports
- The Detroit Pistons basketball team used "hammertime" as their slogan at one time.
- Skateboarders use the term to refer to a particularly courageous and extreme manoeuvre, also called "throwing down a hammer".
[edit] Video games
- In the Half-Life mod, The Specialists there is a level called "Hammertime". The song plays from a radio in the level.
- In the MMORPG Kingdom of Loathing, one of the adventures involves a man coming up to the player carrying a hammer and saying, "Hey, man, it's hammer time!"
- In the video game Super Mario RPG, the Hammer Bros. boss uses an attack called Hammer Time.
- In the video game Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos and its expansion The Frozen Throne, Dwarf Griffon Riders, an Alliance unit, speak the phrase "It's hammer time!" upon completion of their training at the Gryphon Aviary building. The Paladin will also say this if clicked on repeatedly.
- In the video game Beyond Good and Evil, attacking a foe may prompt your partner to cry "Hammertime!"
[edit] Magazines
- "Hammertime" often appears as a humorous caption to magazine articles.
[edit] TV
- In an episode of Kenan and Kel, Kenan says to Kel "C'mon, It's Hammer time!" and Kel replies "Kenan? Kenan? It hasn't been Hammertime for five years!"
- In the Seinfeld episode "The Baby Shower", Kramer convinces Jerry to steal cable TV by saying "Man, it's the nineties... It's Hammer time!"
- In the South Park episode Simpsons Already Did It, while the boys search the lab for their "sea-men", Tweek guards the door with the code word being "Hammertime". However he forgets this, and starts singing the song to remember before screaming "Hammertime!"
- The phrase "And now, it's Hammer time!" was used by the title character in the satirical police sitcom Sledge Hammer! a full three years before "U Can't Touch This" was released (in the episode "State of Sledge," which aired January 10, 1987).
- In an episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Carlton attempts to gain Will's acceptence by offering a high-five and saying "Peace my brother, it's hammer time.".
- In a David Letterman show, "It's hammer time !" is depicted as a possible thought of the president George W. Bush while a picture, showing him unable to correctly hanger a hammer, was taken. [1]
- In The Simpsons, the episode "Behind the Laughter" shows Homer purchasing M.C. Hammer's house, with "Hammertime" on the front gate. Homer then removes an "m" and bends the "a" so it spells "Homertime".
[edit] Music
- Comedian Jimmy Fallon's The Bathroom Wall album features a song called "Hammertime" that cobbles together lyrics from several unrelated songs.
- In the Eminem song "Just Lose It" the line "Stop!... Pajama time!" is used (Eminem also parodies MC Hammer's dancing style in the song's music video).
[edit] Internet
- The Angry Rooster website created a plugin to the web browser Firefox that causes the computer to respond "Stop, Hammertime!" whenever the "Stop" button is pressed [2].
