Bad to the Bone

"Bad to the Bone" is a song by George Thorogood and the Destroyers released in 1982 on the album of the same name. While it was not a major hit on initial release, its video made recurrent appearances on the nascent MTV, which was created a year before. Licensing for films, television, and commercials has since made "Bad to the Bone" better recognized.

Structure and influences

The song's roots can be traced back to rock and roll musician Bo Diddley's song "I'm a Man", which uses a similar guitar riff and vocal rhythm, and has a similar overall structure, as well as Muddy Waters's "She Moves Me" and "Mannish Boy" and Johnny "Guitar" Watson's "Gangster of Love". The riff is also very similar to the one from Chuck Berry's song "No Money Down".

Music video

The video intercuts a live performance by Thorogood and his band with his playing a lengthy game of pool with Bo Diddley. Pool player Willie Mosconi is summoned from another room by a spectator, and he wagers a large sum of money on Diddley. As Thorogood appears to be winning, a group of children outside celebrate while Diddley gets a dirty look from Mosconi.

Thorogood smokes a fat cigar throughout the pool-playing sequence. The video ends with Thorogood making the 8 ball drop into a pocket by flicking a large quantity of cigar ash on the floor, apparently triggering the drop of the ball in the pocket.

Appearances in other media

The song has been used in filmmaking and television productions when a "bad guy" needs to be introduced or identified. The song was for instance used in the bar scene in Terminator 2: Judgment Day where the Terminator first is shown in his full leather outfit. "Bad to the Bone" can also be heard in the remake of The Parent Trap in the poker scene, as well as a few trailers, the opening credits to Major Payne, in the first scene and during the closing credits of Stephen King's Christine, as well as multiple episodes of the sitcom Married... with Children, in the Super Nintendo game Rock 'n Roll Racing, and in the film Talk Radio as the song that starts off the talk show. The song also served as the main theme to Problem Child. The song also appears in the movie Joe Dirt, albeit for a few seconds before winding down to a stop.

In 2004, "Bad to the Bone" also featured in the episode "Clothes Minded" of the Disney Channel Sitcom "That's So Raven", played while Raven, Alana, Loca and Muffy were walking down the school hallway, wearing new school uniform with black spectacles.

It was also featured in the episode "Endless Summer" of the series Renegade. Almost the entire record can be heard at the beginning of the episode "Nobody Lives Forever" on the TV series Miami Vice.

The song is used by Dennis Anderson's Grave Digger monster truck as entrance music, and plays during his portion of the freestyle round at Monster Jam events, and as an entrance theme for closing pitcher Takashi Saito of the Los Angeles Dodgers. It was also played during every at bat of former Seattle Mariners slugger Jay Buhner and former Atlanta Braves and San Diego Padres slugger Ryan Klesko.

In 2008, "Bad to the Bone" was used for a Wrangler Jeans TV commercial featuring Dale Earnhardt Jr. A similar commercial featuring Brett Favre was released later that year.

The song is also used as an entrance theme song in professional wrestling. Multiple wrestlers have used it as their theme song. Such as Kevin Wacholz, who used the song in the 1980s as "Mr. Magnificent" Kevin Kelly, while wrestling for the American Wrestling Association. American Mixed Martial Artist Phil Baroni used it as his entrance song at UFC 106. It was also used by the Bad Crew.

Alvin and the Chipmunks covered the song for the episode "Alvin's Oldest Fan" from their TV series.

A modified version of the song was used in a TV ad for the Buick Grand National

In advertisements for the TV show Lost, the song was used as the theme music for the character James "Sawyer" Ford.

On October 7, 2008, the song was released as downloadable content for the music video game series Rock Band.

An episode of Disney's TV show 101 Dalmatians: The Series has an episode named after the song.

One of the songs used in the D-TV AMV Video by Disney "Doggone Valentine" as a tribute to the rivalry between Pluto and Butch the Bulldog.

Talk show host Bill Cunningham uses the song as the opening intro to his afternoon talk show on WLW in Cincinnati, Ohio, and on his Sunday night radio show.

The movie Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore, there's a scene near the start of the movie that features part of this song.

"Bad to the Bone" was also used briefly in the 2010 Dreamworks Animation film, Megamind.

In The Amazing World of Gumball episode "The Refund", whenever Richard grows a mustache, the guitar of "Bad to the Bone" plays.