Earlier I posted "Baseball Boogie" where the 1986 Dodgers danced in pastel colors and tight white pants on their way to an 89 loss season.
The 1980s, the era of baseball that I grew up in, was a strange era indeed.
And thanks to my dear friend and frequent collaborator, Patrick Gallo, I have discovered the latest in the disturbing trend of sports videos featuring 1980s sports stars.
This is Think Big! and it makes The Super Bowl Shuffle look like The Godfather by comparison.
Let's take a closer look at this monstrosity and maybe it will explain how an outrageously talented team like the 1987 Mets couldn't make it back to the World Series.
Thoughts about Part 1:
- Why is the opening sequence so silent and titles over black? Were they trying to emulate the opening titles of Citizen Kane?
- Shelton Leigh Palmer... you've done better.
- I love how ominous the stats for Gary Carter, Mookie Wilson and Roger McDowell scroll across the screen. I think this is how 2010 opened.
- The actor playing the scientist I guess was told to over compensate for Mookie Wilson, Gary Carter and Roger McDowell's lack of acting ability. Eddie Deezen would tell this guy to "Bring it back."
- Why is there a computer on the on deck circle?
- That whole opening scene was a build up for an air guitar sequence? And why air guitaring with baseball bats?
- I bet they shot about 30 minutes of improvisation with dancing and air guitaring with baseball bats. That poor poor editor.
- The lyric "Working Together Is That Name Of The Game" is wonderful for the 1987 team whose off the field strife kept them from winning the division and allowing an inferior and injured Cardinals team to sneak into the playoffs and World Series.
- Who the hell are these kids playing Monopoly? Am I watching a different horribly produced 1980s video?
- Holy Crap! Does that kid have a Watchmen pin on? Check out 2:45. He has the blood stained smiley face pin. I guess this kid enjoys taunting his sister at Monopoly, following the Mets and reading the works of Alan Moore.
- "What are you? Jesse James?" Really Shelton Leigh Palmer? That's the best line you could come with?
- The cocky black kid and the fat potentially Jewish kid call up to taunt our heroes. I guess they are our heroes. All I know about them is they are obnoxious kids who taunt each other playing Monopoly. A Clockwork Orange had more likable characters.
- 3:36! What the? You can't just cut to a cartoon robot baseball player and cut away! Seriously, I thought I had a stroke for a moment.
- I think the two computer baseball obsessed kids now work in the Oakland A's front office.
- What kids had modems in their room in 1987? By the way, the phone on the modem is still the internet hook up of choice at Kinkos.
- What the hell is happening? Why don't the two obnoxious Monopoly playing kids just make players who are 100% like the obnoxious computer geeks?
- Is the "We're Perfect" song available on iTunes?
- Isn't the whole "Megabats" team, all artificially pumped up, a wonderful metaphor for what baseball was about to turn into during the 1990s with 'roids? Maybe those two kids DO work in the A's front office!!!
- It's strange that they have Mookie Wilson, Gary Carter and Roger McDowell's picture by their computer as if they are family members.
- So let me get this straight... they can pick any player from any era EVER and they pick the Mets platoon centerfielder, the Mets set up man and Gary Carter?
- I am sure the original script had Doc Gooden, Darryl Strawberry and Keith Hernandez. Doc and Darryl were probably out looking for cocaine and if Hernandez wasn't joining them, he was hitting on Elaine Benes.
- OK, we are back to Shea Stadium. Mookie's delivery of the line "I'm not going to the minors, the food is terrible" is by far the best moment of this video. I have a feeling there won't be a second best moment.
- Who exactly is this video made for? No adult would enjoy this and it is paced slower than a Jim Jarmusch film.
- Why the fish eye lens and the Flash Gordon sound effects when Mookie, Gary and McDowell show up?
- OK, are they the scientists kids? Was he 12 when he had them? We are 7:04 into this video and I still don't understand the premise.
- How could they be losing with great players? Well, maybe they should watch the 1987 Mets to find out!
- "Who is pitching Pee Wee Herman?" Gary Carter's Pee Wee Herman laugh should make every single Mets fan die a little inside.
- Oh Christ do we NEED to see the "We're perfect" montage again? I guess it is better with the insanely awkward reaction shots.
- The obnoxious Watchmen fan called the overacting scientist "Dad." OK, at 8:00 we've established the relationship. That nerd got laid at a VERY early age.
- Shouldn't the Mets be encouraging them to go outside instead of playing computer games all day? We'll never know because we have to sit through our second air guitar montage.
- Oh God, the Scientist dad is singing into a rubber crocodile. David Lynch would call this video "f---ed up."
Thoughts about Part 2:
- Gary Carter's line "Think about what you are not doing what you could be doing" is profound. For Gary I would say "You are not doing something dignified." I love that he is basically reading off of a cue card. At least I hope he is.
- Uh oh... they are talking about "No matter how bleak things are, there is always hope." And Gary Carter, the guy who started the Game 6 10th inning rally is standing next to Mookie Wilson who hit the you know what through the legs of you know who. I have a feeling the next clip will be tough for this Red Sox fan to watch.
- *phew* It's just an indulgent story about Gary Carter in highschool.
- Um... kids, why not take swings at the... you know... plate? And are we supposed to think that Gary Carter is singing?
- Mookie, thanks for the motivational speech, but they DO know that we are talking about a computer game, right? By the way, Mookie's clean living lesson could have been learned in that clubhouse.
- Wait a second! Are we in the woods with Mookie Wilson? Is that the house from Cabin Fever? WHAT THE F---?
- Who are these bullies sitting in the empty Shea Stadium with the Watchmen fan and his obnoxious sister?
- Who are the cute ethnically ambiguous girls with Mookie Wilson during a rain delay?
- The kids say no to the dealers who usually have such loyal customers in Mets uniforms.
- That flash cut to the bat near Mookie's crotch was a little intense for a video aimed at kids. (I'm guessing this is aimed at kids... or maybe stoned Met fans.)
- Now the Mets players have taken the scientists glasses away while he stumbles around. How is that different from the bullies behavior?
- Now we are playing football? Salvador Dali only wishes he got to this level of surrealism.
- I am guessing the kids computer team is still getting its butt kicked by the Megabats. (Remember them? Remember the plot?)
- The score is only 4-0? They were making it out like it was a blow out.
- Keep in mind that "You've got to work as a team" speech by McDowell was the best take the editor had to work with. He couldn't stumble through those lines any worse if he was saying it Dutch and reading the lines in Braille.
- What is that modern art hanging on the wall? Also I am guessing their mothers ashes are in one of those urns.
- Roger McDowell basically reenacts Bugs Bunny against the Gashouse Gorillas.
- Hey Roger... if you are really that tired, do you know what would help? GREENIES!
- OK, now we are in the kitchen making a stack of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with Roger McDowell. That is a sentence I thought I was going to go my whole life without typing.
- After wandering around the breakfast nook in fast motion and learning "Putting on the Ritz" with baseball bats, Roger McDowell teaches the kids how to throw a spit ball. Well, that's ONE way to beat the Megabats!
- We see "teamwork" illustrated by passing a hot dog down your row. What part of "Not the same amount of change arriving to the vendor" is part of teamwork?
- There is a lot of crowding around and sitting on laps in that dugout. At least their way too young father is there to supervise.
Thoughts about Part 3:
- "How are we going to get the guys in the computer to understand it?" Kid, I've been wondering that 4 music video sequences ago!
- Mookie has an idea. If he says the sentence "Did any of you kids see TRON?" I will crap my pants.
- The kid's speech of "The computer doesn't know that stuff" basically sounds like everything Joe Morgan would say if the letters O, P and S are brought up.
- Basically we've had to sit through two whole parts to find out there was an intangible menu? I wonder if that was actually a Speak and Spell that they used to say the computers lines. Shouldn't teamwork be programmed for the other 23 players?
- Pete Rose discipline... 100%. Well he certainly was disciplined 100%.
- The other kids yell "What's going on here?" Kids, I have no clue.
- Ty Cobb... Racism... 100%.
- Wait they are having McDowell bat? Don't they have Joe DiMaggio on the bench to pinch hit? Terrible Managing Decision... 100%!
- So wait, Gary Carter is batting after McDowell? Is Carter the lead off hitter? OK, I am thinking about this too much.
- Why do I have the feeling they wanted to have the whole game be a cartoon and they realized how much time that would take... meaning we are stuck with a bunch of awkward cutaways of Gary Carter high fiving Mookie Wilson.
- Cut to a Home Invasion!
- "I'd like you to meet some of the members of our team... here are the remains of Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig..."
- Of all the clips to show during the end credits, they show the motivational speeches? There had better be some Smokey and the Bandit-esque bloopers during the credit crawl! (My cinema studies professors at NYU would be so proud I used the term Smokey and the Bandit-esque.)
- This end credit montage sounds like "Mets therapy." I almost expect to hear an off screen doctor ask "And how did that make you feel, Mookie?"
Lord help you if you watched all three...
If there any other spirit crushingly horrible videos starring 1980s baseball players, please send them to info@sullybaseball.com
And remember...
THINK BIG!
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