Monday, June 30, 2014

Music Video Monday: Lay It Down


I don't know what to make of this video.

For one thing, it has a clown in it, and clowns are made of fear and evil and children's nightmares. But the clown is only the second creepiest thing in the video.

The creepiest part is the implication that the bulk of the video is a little kid's birthday wish.

Okay, I admit that's not such a strange premise on the surface. I could see a nine-ish-year-old kid wishing to play in a rock band when he grows up. Kids love the idea of messing around with noisy musical instruments, and "rock star" is cultural shorthand for "super awesome person." The only problem is that the video shows not terribly much of this:


And an awful lot of Ratt frontman Stephen Pearcy sensuously wooing a sexy blonde lady while wearing a shirt he stole from Fabio's closet:


Okay, it's implied that the kid has a crush on the little girl in the opening sequence and the two grown-ups in the main body of the video are his fantasy images of him and her, but what the hell kind of prepubescent boy thinks like that? He must be a really early bloomer who hasn't gotten the birds-and-bees talk from mom and dad yet, so he thumbed through some of mom's spicier romance novels* to find out what this "sex" thing that adults like so much is all about. All I know is that a kid who probably can't even count his age in the double digits yet shouldn't be making this face while he's thinking about a grown woman:


Oh geez. When I went back to get that screenshot, I picked up for the first time on what the kid's name is. Stephen. And he has dark hair, and a roughly similar facial structure, and...

You know, maybe it's best not to ask what Stephen Pearcy wished for for his ninth birthday. 

*Dad must have either hidden his Playboys really well or convinced his son that they were some sort of trade magazine for those nude artists' models.

4 comments:

  1. I have heard the name of the kid who played "Lil Steven" in that video but I have wondered who played the little girl talking to "Little Steven" in that opening scene. I would like to know where is she now!

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    1. Yeah, the kid got ripped off! I don't see her credited on IMDB or any other website I've found. There's probably some mom out there with quite a story to tell the kids! "Mommy, is that YOU?" LOL

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  2. The clown is not credited either

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  3. That was Randy Runyon as Chucko the Clown, who took over the role when his father retired. Chucko was as famous a children's show host as Engineer Bill, Bozo the Clown and Hobo Kelly.

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