Jurassic Park (song)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| “Jurassic Park” | |||||
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| Single by "Weird Al" Yankovic from the album Alapalooza |
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| B-side | "Franks 2000" TV" | ||||
| Released | October 1993 | ||||
| Format | CD, cassette | ||||
| Recorded | July 16, 1993 | ||||
| Genre | Comedy | ||||
| Length | 3:53 | ||||
| Label | Scotti Brothers | ||||
| Producer | "Weird Al" Yankovic | ||||
| "Weird Al" Yankovic singles chronology | |||||
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| Alapalooza track listing | |||||
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Jurassic Park is a song by "Weird Al" Yankovic. It is a parody of "MacArthur Park" by Jimmy Webb (as performed by Richard Harris), and is written as a humorous take on the film of the same name.
"Weird Al" would later be a guest riffer on Rifftrax, discussing the movie Jurassic Park.[1]
Contents |
[edit] Track listing
The following tracks are on the single:
- "Jurassic Park" – 3:53
- "Frank's 2000" TV" – 4:04
The promo single[2] only contains "Jurassic Park".
[edit] Lyrics and Composition
Part of the humor of the song lies in the contrast between the catastrophic events of the movie, with much loss of human life, and the banality of the singer's complaints, i.e., "This has been one lousy day," and "What a crummy weekend this has been."
Other humor hinges on how lines from the parody closely mimic the lyrics of the original song:
- Original: MacArthur Park is melting in the dark
- Parody: Jurassic Park is frightening in the dark
- Original: All the sweet, green icing flowing down
- Parody: All the dinosaurs are running wild
- Original: Someone left the cake out in the rain
- Parody: Someone shut the fence off in the rain
Part of the song is evidently told from the viewpoint of Ian Malcolm, as in one point he says "...but this proves my chaos theory...," although the clay figure of Al in the music video has a name badge that reads "Weird Al."
The parody only features parts of the song, the verses, choruses, the instrumental (shortened), and the ending. The middle section, "There will be another song for me..." is missing.
[edit] Writing and Developement
Yankovic, when asked how he came up with the idea for the song, stated "I was driving a rent-a-car through Florida when the song "Lola" came on the radio, and it got me thinking about how much fun I had doing "Yoda," where I took a then-current topic and combined it with a classic rock tune. Then I flashed on "Jurassic Park" which had just come out, and was already well on its way to becoming the biggest hit in box office history. I thought of various songs that I could combine that with, and when I hit on "MacArthur Park." It felt like a natural. I got permission from Jimmy Webb (composer of "MacArthur Park"), from Michael Crichton (author of the novel on which the movie is based) and of course from Steven Spielberg, whose blessing made it possible for us to cut through miles of legal red tape."[3]
[edit] Music video
The music video is done mostly with claymation in the style of Will Vinton's Dinosaurs!, parodying scenes from, as well as the general plot of the 1993 movie and was approved by the film's director, Steven Spielberg. The animation was done by Mark Osbourne, who also did the claymation in the Dare To Be Stupid music video.[4]
Parodied concepts include:
- At the beginning of the music video, a miner discovers a fossilized mosquito, which appears silhouetted against the light. The light shifts and reveals the mosquito with a bent nose and abnormally large eyes.
- One of the robotic arms that handles the cloned dinosaur eggs is coloring an egg to look like colorful Easter eggs. There is also a dartboard instead of a chart in that room, and a sack of "Dino Chow" is visible in the background.
- When the scientist, who appears to be a caricature of Doctor Jack Kevorkian, looks through a microscope at the fossilized mosquito, he sees the DNA character from the introductory film at Jurassic Park taking a shower. The DNA shrieks and covers herself with the shower curtain.
- "Weird Al" is first seen in Jurassic Park's kitchen attempting to hold a door shut on a velociraptor. The velociraptor gives up the brute force, pulls out a key ring, and sifts through it to find the key instead - a reference to the scene in Jurassic Park when a velociraptor learns to use the door handle.
- In a crowd of loose dinosaurs, one of them is a chicken. Another crowd has a ballerina brontosaurus and another is holding a beer and has a lampshade on his head.
- A claw harmlessly touches the wire after Dennis Nedry pulls the switch to cut the power.
- A brontosaurus accidentally steps on someone. It turns up its feet to see a flattened person on the sole of its foot, and seems disgusted by it, as a human might after stepping on a bug.
- "Weird Al" presses a (/) stamp down on a Jurassic Park logo and then lifts up his shirt to reveal that he has been disemboweled.
- The chaos theory is shown on a chalkboard as a large equation, which turns into a spinning globe, a reference to the series' Dr. Ian Malcolm character.
- When the lights go out, a bunch of angry eyes appear around Yankovic; he lights a match, showing that he is surrounded by angry dinosaurs, who subsequently put the match out.
- In the movie, the Tyrannosaurus ate lawyer Donald Gennaro, after destroying the bathroom he was in and eating him off the toilet he was huddled on. In the music video, Donald Gennaro is going to the bathroom in an outdoor toilet, while reading a newspaper, when the T-Rex eats him. The T-Rex wipes off the extra blood on his face with a napkin, sips some tea, and flosses as Weird Al lyrically comments, "Well, I suppose that proves... they're really not all bad". Whether that statement was directed at the dinosaur or the lawyer is debatable. One mistake is the T-Rex has three claws on each arm instead of two (even though later research has revealed evidence that T-Rexes actually had three fingers.)
- As the song sings "Someone let T. Rex out of his pen," a tyrannosaurus in a wrestling outfit jumps off the fence, with a visible WWF logo on the top of the fence. WWF is the predecessor to World Wrestling Entertainment. The camera pulls out to reveal that he is jumping on another wrestling dinosaur.
- The main gate of Jurassic Park is shown several times. The second time, it is raining and one of the torches is out, so one of the animators sticks his arm into the frame and relights it with a lighter. The third time, a "Dinogizer" dinosaur with a drum and pink rabbit-ears, a spoof of the Energizer bunny, passes in front.
- Barney is dancing to the song, but a T. Rex bites his head off. Later in the song, a brontosaurus gives the same T-rex the Heimlich maneuver, and it coughs up Barney's head.
- An Arnold Schwarzenegger-lookalike hunter jumps into one of the dinosaur crowds, but a large dinosaur cuts him to pieces with a single swipe of its claws. Most likely a reference to when Jurassic Park game warden, Robert Muldoon, is killed by a velociraptor. It may also mock how the film Last Action Hero (which starred Schwarzenegger) bombed in the box office because it was released a week after Jurassic Park.
- A Tyrannosaurus with a fork, knife, and bib gangs up on Yankovic, then throws his utensils aside and swallows him. Before eating Yankovic, the Tyrannosaurus moves his head from side to side slowly, which could be a reference to the Dilophosaurus moving its head either side of a tree.
- While "Weird Al" is falling down the T. Rex's gullet, the instrumental portion of the song takes place, and he sees cel animation shots of dinosaurs dancing on colorful or spiraling backgrounds. This includes a T-Rex dancing in the styles of:
- The Jurassic Park logo
- Colorful wheels
- Yellow Submarine
- Cafe style
- Cubist
- There are also:
- Two dinosaurs boogeying in cages
- Dinosaurs being morphed
- Two dinosaurs fighting over a human
- A dinosaur resembling Dino from The Flintstones
- When "Weird Al" lands in the stomach of the dinosaur, he is surprised to see a souvenir stand there, where a vendor offers him an "I was eaten alive at Jurassic Park" T-shirt.
- A T. Rex turns on the people filming. The "director", who resembles Steven Spielberg, raises a sign that says "Cut!" before evacuating the set. Two people can be seen behind the "director". Their eyes "popped" and ran away before the director did.
- A Ceratosaurus in a chef hat salts one of his victims and eats him.
- At the last chorus, "Weird Al" is singing on a stage in front of three dancing dinosaurs with top hats and canes. Other dinosaurs are on the side playing trumpets and other brass instruments.
- Yankovic rides the helicopter at the end of the video. On land, two velociraptors are crying and waving goodbye, one holding a sign that reads "Don't Forget to Write." As the helicopter flies what appears to be far away in the distance, a T. Rex appears, eats it, then looks at the camera and burps. The T. Rex winks as the scene irises to black.
[edit] References
- ^ "Jurassic Park Rifftrax". Rifftrax (2007-01-09). Retrieved on 2007-02-07.
- ^ Rare Items. Al Yankovic (2007-01-09). Retrieved on 2007-02-07.
- ^ Permanent Record Booklet: "Jurassic Park". Al Yankovic (2007-01-09). Retrieved on 2007-02-07.
- ^ Permanent Record Booklet: "Jurassic Park Video". Al Yankovic (2007-01-09). Retrieved on 2007-02-07.
