This MTV staple from 80s contained just about everything a music video ever needed.
Please… release that dove from your hands, and watch:
The only things it lacked were easily found here (cough cough *dwarf* cough cough):
IN CONCLUSION: There was no need to keep making music videos after these two. (And no, I don’t consider the absence of Tom Petty to be a tremendous problem.)
52 responses so far ↓
1 Mr. Slick on Jan 13, 2009 at 10:26 pm
What?! No Meatloaf?!!!
2 brooke! on Jan 13, 2009 at 10:28 pm
If you play them both backwards and at the same time there’s a secret messege.
3 TJ Prostitute on Jan 13, 2009 at 10:33 pm
Uhhhh…..my non-80’s brain cannot understand ……..ninjas, Ghostbusters-era special FX and medieval trolls…..seriously though what the hell on so many levels. Here’s a scary thought: we are all wiped out in a horrible twist of fate and many centuries from now curious extraterrestrials find only a crappy VHS of total eclipse and safety dance that they interpret as the pinnacle of our creative endeavors…..
4 Tv Miller on Jan 13, 2009 at 10:36 pm
Ironic being that the key reasons I myself avoid chapel like spaces…ninjas, fencing, greasers, uncouth banquets, wrestling, football, windows that seem to focus the entirety of the sun and/or street lamps, hurricane force winds and Jason Schwimmer novelty headlamp eyeglasses.
And I am fairly certain that was Tom in the loin cloth kicking wind with his leg.
And…I always like to quickly watch Safety Dance after a screening of Willow just to tie up any loose ends in the plot.
5 Scooter on Jan 13, 2009 at 11:00 pm
you’re almost there, but I think you’re forgetting something from this:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xl3PYk_s4Kk
I just don’t know what exactly it is. Possibly the man being attacked by a hair dryer.
6 TJ Prostitute on Jan 13, 2009 at 11:06 pm
Hahaha, its like the director started shooting 25 different videos in a coke-induced fever and woke up the next day and was like: “Screw it! It all works!”
7 jason on Jan 13, 2009 at 11:19 pm
“The only things it lacked were easily found here:”
You obviously messed up, meaning to post Night Ranger’s “Don’t Tell Me You Love Me” video, and instead accidently posted what Kevin sees in his most feared nightmares… (synth music, Renaissance festival, dwarves, chicken headed people, bad dancing- have I left anything out Kevin?)
8 Nick Fechter on Jan 14, 2009 at 5:04 am
“It’s the 80’s! Do alot of coke and vote for Ronald Reagan!”
9 Ben on Jan 14, 2009 at 5:24 am
I’d still rank GWAR, the Cycle Sluts from Hell and Los Straitjackets higher. Videos never got any better than from those three.
10 Ninjew on Jan 14, 2009 at 6:37 am
Every time I heard “Turn around, Bright Eyes” I kept expecting Charlton Heston to make an appearance in the video. Would have made a GREAT end theme to the Planet of the Apes remake.
And if I choose NOT to dance, then I’m no friend of yours? It seems to me that you have a peculiar set of standard by which you select your friends. Using this way of thinking, Stephen Hawking could not be your friend. That sir, is not a wise move. Stephen Hawking has thought of more ways to dance than you’ll EVER experience, he just has no way to demonstrate them (other than using a particle accelerator – which could theoretically open a black hole – and THAT certainly wouldn’t be considered a “Safety Dance” now, would it?).
11 Kouban on Jan 14, 2009 at 6:59 am
There’s one last video needed to truly distill the essence of music videos: Breaking the Chains by Dokken.
12 puerileuwaite on Jan 14, 2009 at 7:21 am
Viewed from either side using cheesy X-Ray equipment, it’s difficult NOT to have a total eclipse of the heart. Geez, get a grip, Bonnie. And for someone with nothing to say, she didn’t shut up even once during the entire song.
Don’t even get me started on the historically inaccurate lack of hunting or gathering in the second video.
13 nICK. on Jan 14, 2009 at 8:18 am
I never knew that “Total Eclipse of the Heart” was written about a woman with a Mary Kay Letourneau complex and occult powers. Thank you for opening my eyes and letting the creepy otherworldly glow shine in, music video.
14 Smuttynose on Jan 14, 2009 at 8:18 am
HOW DARE YOU! The epitome of 80’s music videos was by Dexys Midnight Runners!!!!
C’mon, Corbett. Oh I swear (well he means) at this moment….
15 Bill Corbett on Jan 14, 2009 at 9:03 am
Stephen Hawking BETTER find a way to dance, or he’s dead to me. Sorry, I have very specific standards for my friends.
16 Laura on Jan 14, 2009 at 9:42 am
Hey! I did the Safety Dance in Naxxramas last night! It hurts if you stop dancing
.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSTDpk8-vzU
(Better to watch in HD. The safety dance is to run to a certain safe zone before this poisonous slime bursts from cracks in the floor. You aren’t in the safety zone? Instant death. Safety Dance!)
“HOW DARE YOU! The epitome of 80’s music videos was by Dexys Midnight Runners!!!!”
He speaks the truth….
17 Smuttynose on Jan 14, 2009 at 10:49 am
Too-ra too-ra lay, indeed. Thanks Laura.
18 penumbra on Jan 14, 2009 at 11:34 am
For you young thangs on Rifftrax… That was the Golden Age of Dungeons & Dragons and EVERYthing was suffused with fantasy and magic.
Oh how I miss it… and, by the way, Stephen Hawking can use his tongue-joystick thing to dance. That’s the awesome thing about the ’80’s- you don’t have to be any good at dancing to rock out.
19 chrismartindeed on Jan 14, 2009 at 1:29 pm
First video —
Could pass for one of Harry Potter’s wet dreams.
Second video—
Could be an outtake from the Special BlueRay Edition of Braveheart.
20 Nick Fechter on Jan 14, 2009 at 1:34 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TttYR-6Ql8c
21 chrismartindeed on Jan 14, 2009 at 1:36 pm
And what about ‘Sledgehammer’? Dancing headless chickens said so much about the Reagan era.
22 jason on Jan 14, 2009 at 1:38 pm
Oh come on, the Dexy’s Midnight Runners video was almost the same as the Men Without Hats one, except for without dwarves and costumes (but with overalls. And a fiddle. I’ll take dwarves and chickenheads over fiddles and overalls any day!).
23 chrismartindeed on Jan 14, 2009 at 1:40 pm
Creepy way to cast a spell. I played the audio over the office PA and the company controller transformed into a salamander.
24 Nick Fechter on Jan 14, 2009 at 2:38 pm
Really?
When I showed it to my friend he turned into Rosey O’Donald.
25 Remmie Barrow on Jan 14, 2009 at 2:56 pm
The 1980s were the best time for music vidios, bar none. Anything after that era can not compete, as far as I am concerned.
26 Casey on Jan 14, 2009 at 3:20 pm
Hate to disagree but I am convinced that Devo’s “Whip It” is the standard by which all other 80s videos must be compared.
Give the midgets whips… and then we will talk.
27 Tony on Jan 14, 2009 at 3:23 pm
Actually this should get partial Meatloaf credit since “Total Eclipse of the Heart” was written by Jim Steinman, the guy that wrote most of Meatloaf’s songs and specializes in overdone, melodramatic epic songs.
28 NanoRiffite on Jan 14, 2009 at 3:32 pm
“Total Eclipse of the Heart” was written by Jim Steinman, writer for the two big hit albums that Meatloaf did. So Bill has that covered with these choices.
29 NanoRiffite on Jan 14, 2009 at 3:52 pm
Okay, maybe we could skip the Tom Petty, but it seems to me that something from Stevie Nicks should show up.
Definitely agree that music videos rapidly died after a few years of creativity. MTV decided it wanted OBSCENE profits instead of merely large profits, and record companies got tired of spending money to make videos.
“And I can act like an imbecile”.
30 Kim on Jan 14, 2009 at 3:59 pm
Hmmm…part of me thinks “Damn, they don’t make ‘em like that anymore” and another part of me thinks “Gee, I’m really glad I grew up in the ’90’s.”
31 Barry on Jan 14, 2009 at 4:01 pm
Hello? Land of Confusion? It doesn’t get any more 80’s than a Ronald Reagan puppet in a Superman costume.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MzShg7yXik
32 Straw5 on Jan 14, 2009 at 5:23 pm
Anakin Skywalker was the lead singer of Men Without Hats?
I never knew!
33 Mr. Slick on Jan 14, 2009 at 5:46 pm
Chris is right… where’s the stop-motion- animated things?
34 Kouban on Jan 14, 2009 at 5:52 pm
A Reagan puppet performed by Chris Barrie, no less.
35 michael on Jan 14, 2009 at 8:01 pm
So Peter Jackson’s first attempt at making LOTR was to actually direct a MW/OH video?
**I’m impressed with all of the suggested entries of Best Representation of the 80’s Video. However, one cannot look at the 80’s canon without a special homage to Cyndi Lauper. She bop. He bop. We bop. I bop. You bop. They bop.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsDdEAhQemQ
36 michael on Jan 14, 2009 at 8:13 pm
Better version. Sorry. Everybody bops.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzpxRd44PpE
37 TJ Prostitute on Jan 14, 2009 at 9:31 pm
Yeah, this was always an amazing mega-dose of 80’s, not for those of weak constitution.
38 Scarlett on Jan 14, 2009 at 10:07 pm
The only things I could see missing was:
1. The horse that inexplicably appears with the inexplicable rolling fog, trotting through deserted streets, jungles, or anywhere that Duran Duran shows up.
2. The awesome power of the guitar solo, which can blow away any authority figure, robot, turn any homely nobody into the hot somebody that everybody wants to be with, and ultimately fix everything along with the total awesomeness of the band.
3. Keyboardist surrounded by dozens of keyboards to push the same two keys/Drummers with endless supplies of drumsticks that they just throw everywhere because they are so darn wacky like that..
39 Scarlett on Jan 14, 2009 at 10:17 pm
Oh, but watching that horde of Ultimate Warrior dancers pop out of nowhere as the Stepford Children join in did bring a tear to the eyes..along with laughter and alarm that I actually remembered a wrestler from the 80s..
But it does rather suck that we don’t have the same kind of pointless, mindlessly silly guilty pleasures unless we’re watching a VH-1 retrospectives on them.
40 Geena on Jan 14, 2009 at 11:28 pm
You say that as though they weren’t.
41 Geena on Jan 14, 2009 at 11:32 pm
Well, to be fair, Dexy’s Midnight Runners DID pioneer the “dressing like a homeless person” trend, a fashion later brought to full bloom by Nirvana and their ilk.
42 R.A. Roth on Jan 15, 2009 at 1:51 pm
“Slower, more bandy-legged!”
Randy
43 R.A. Roth on Jan 15, 2009 at 1:55 pm
Def Leppard’s vid for “Rock of Ages” features cheesy swordplay, stylized sets and makes less sense than a Ray Dennis Steckler film. But that was the music video norm in the pioneer days of MTV. In fact, the less sense your video made, the more popular it was. I’m talking to you, Buggles!
Randy
44 Wesley Stamper on Jan 15, 2009 at 3:09 pm
I prefer the minimalist masterpiece:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybjH7qRT37k
45 Meltha on Jan 15, 2009 at 3:45 pm
During the first one I actually made the mistake of saying aloud, “Well, it can’t possibly get more random.” Immediately following this, the ninjas showed up. Murphy’s Law is proven once again.
46 C.G. on Jan 15, 2009 at 8:10 pm
And then there was Herbie Hancock’s “Rockit”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7dAxvj2mlU
I do have to admit I thought this video was awesome when I was younger, but now that “what’s going on under the covers” bit is a bit too disturbing.
47 Fifty "percent" Kreiger on Jan 17, 2009 at 10:57 am
What in the world was going on in those b&w photos at the very end of “Safety Dance”? It’s almost traumatizing.
48 Brooke on Jan 18, 2009 at 6:33 am
Shame… It’s a lot easier to get better from being turned to a newt rather than salamander or an O’Donald.
49 Kelly on Jan 18, 2009 at 8:53 pm
I want to kiss you for bringing up this video. I was WAY too into Def Leppard in the late 80s. And that video is excellent.
50 Kelly on Jan 18, 2009 at 9:01 pm
Sorry, but this vid, although ostensibly more 90s, has literally EVERYTHING, and yes, including the abovementioned horses and guitar. And explosions. And swords. And dragons. And flying, flaming skeletons. And a crocodile. And a really bad mustache. And gonsarnit, just WATCH already!
51 Kelly on Jan 18, 2009 at 9:02 pm
They were DANCE-ninjas, too.
52 Gremlin on Jan 25, 2009 at 8:58 pm
I’m in awe. That was one of the finest, most over the top, epic pieces of crap I have ever witnessed. I can’t stop watching it. That song really starts to grow on you after the 20th viewing.
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