Dare to Be Stupid (song)
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| “Dare to Be Stupid” | |||||
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| Single by "Weird Al" Yankovic from the album Dare to Be Stupid |
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| Released | August 1986 | ||||
| Recorded | January 3, 1985 | ||||
| Genre | Comedy | ||||
| Length | 3:23 | ||||
| Writer(s) | "Weird Al" Yankovic | ||||
| "Weird Al" Yankovic singles chronology | |||||
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| Dare to Be Stupid track listing | |||||
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"Dare to Be Stupid" is an original song by "Weird Al" Yankovic. It is a musical pastiche (or "style parody") of the band Devo, and was featured in The Transformers: The Movie. It was later released as a double a-side along with "The Touch" by Stan Bush.
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[edit] Track listing
The following tracks appear on "The Touch/Dare to Be Stupid" single:
- "The Touch" by Stan Bush – 3:54
- "Dare to Be Stupid" – 3:23
[edit] Music video
The music video and song are, as Yankovic himself said, a "style parody" of Devo's works:[1]
- Yankovic and his band wear the yellow radiation suits from Devo's cover of The Rolling Stones' "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" video throughout. The man having a fit on a wallpapered wall and floor is also taken from the "Satisfaction" music video, but in Dare to Be Stupid it more resembles breakdancing.
- Segments of the video are reminiscent of several of Devo's videos:
- "Devo Corporate Anthem" – in one scene, the band is standing in the same pose as Devo.
- "Jocko Homo" – in another segment, the band wears nylon stockings over their heads.
- "Beautiful World" – There are also several scenes of black-and-white stock footage, directed by someone in front of a big machine. In addition, "Tell me, what did I say?" also resembles the line from this song.
- "Come Back Jonee" The Elderly guys in Cowboy suits are reminiscent of the elderly guys bowling in the "Come Back Jonee" video
- "The Day My Baby Gave Me a Surprise" – in this part the group is in front of very simple computer graphics.
- "Freedom of Choice" – The use of stop-motion animation and computer graphics is also reminiscent of this Devo video. The use of Roman togas also comes from "Freedom of Choice," and at one point, a man must choose between a banana and an accordion, reminiscent to Yankovic's song.
- "Whip It" – The guitarist is alone, wearing a cowboy outfit. (although the guitarist wearing a cowboy outfit was from the music video to the theme from the movie Doctor Detroit (which Devo performed), it is likely a coincidence, as the set was based of the "Whip It" video)
- The man with a pipe, smiling and watching television with a chainsaw near the beginning of the video is a very typical Devo-like image as well, juxtaposing violent, out of context or unexplained occurrences and objects with a 1950s-like "wholesome American" feel. This man is meant to be J.R "Bob" Dobbs, Head of the Church of the SubGenius. Some say it may also be a take off of "General Boy" from the "We're all Devo" Video.
- The video also includes a lot of bizarre imagery which, for the most part, is irrelevant to the lyrics, such as Yankovic's face emerging from a bowl of Alpha-Bits cereal (a nod to the similarly Devo-esque scene in the video from early 80's band- and friend of Devo's- Wall of Voodoo's "Mexican Radio" when lead singer Stan Ridgway's face emerges from a bowl of cooked pinto beans) . A breakdancer appears at two points in the video whose style bears striking resemblance to Spaz Attack, featured in the Satisfaction (I Can't Get No) video by Devo.
- The clay animation was done Mark Osborne, who also did the clay animation on the 1993 Yankovic video "Jurassic Park".[citation needed]
- The machine Yankovic controls during parts of the video is an interocitor from the film This Island Earth.
[edit] Notes
- The song is played in The Transformers: The Movie as the theme of the Junkions, a group of robots living on the planet of junk. Like the song, Junkion speech was littered with cultural and television references.
- Shortly after the song was released, Yankovic received a letter from Mark Mothersbaugh congratulating him on writing "the perfect Devo song". He has also said that it was "beautiful ... and I hate him for it, basically."
- In celebration of the release of the new Transformers movie, nerdcore rapper MC Chris did a cover of Dare to Be Stupid and released it on his MySpace for download.
- In the new Transformers: Animated, a Transformer named Wreck-Gar (played by Weird Al himself) is introduced and even exclaims the main line of the song: "I am Wreck-Gar! I dare to be stupid!"
[edit] See also
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