1992: Bad taste abounds...

During the second quarter of the Pats-Colts game (during which I pretty much figured the game was over) I switched over to VH-1 Classic to check out the show Class of 92. The idea behind the show is that take a year and play a whole bunch of videos from that year. Pretty simple and 1992 is a great year to do. But in watching it for a bit I have two things to say.

First of all, will please get it through their heads that Smells Like Teen Spirit was released in 1991 and not 1992. I swear, every time people talk about Nirvana they mention the wrong year. Nevermind was released in 91 and I clearly remember watching this video a billion times during the first semester of my freshman year. How am I supposed to take a show seriously when they can’t even get the year right?

Secondly, they showed pretty much the full version of Michael Jackson’s “Black or White” and I have to say with fifteen years of perspective this might be the most unintentionally funny video ever created. Here’s the story line. We start with Maccauley Culkin rocking out in his bedroom until his dad (good old Norm (also known as George Wendt)) tells him to turn the racket down. Culkin responds by rolling the largest speakers ever into the living room, menacingly (or at least as menacing as he could) puts on a glove, and plays a power chord sending Norm’s recliner rocketing through the ceiling of the house.

And that just takes us to the beginning of the song.

So Norm’s recliner lands somewhere with a lot of natives as Michael joins us for what can only be described as “Michael Jackson dances badly with people from around the world.” Here’s Michael with indigenous people. Now he’s with a bunch of cowboys and Indians. Oh look, he’s segued into a Bollywood production. Hey even made his way to Russia to dance with all of those guys with the funny hats. And that leads us to the Maccauley Culkin rap interlude.

Remember this? Where Culkin and a whole bunch of kids stand on stairs and try to look street and badly lip synch to a rap. You can tell that they were directed to look tough but instead it looks like a few of the kids from Sesame Street started to wear Raiders jackets. And given all that we know about Michael now this scene looks even weirder.

Get a little more dancing by Michael, this time on the Statue of Liberty leading us to the grand finale. The faces morphing scene. Which features Tyra Banks, of all people. The bizarreness ends there (except in the extended version where Michael dances on a car and breaks windows.) Trust me, having not seen this for a decade at least I am stunned to find that at any point of time people went, “Wow, this is so cool.”

Speaking of cool, I have to share one Celebrity Big Brother story. A few of you may have heard about this. Celebrity Big Brother is airing in England and there is this huge controversy about racist comments made towards this Bollywood star who is competing. This is major news in England and the prime minister even had to make a comment as it is raising a lot of questions about what type of country has England become. I’m not going to get into that here. Instead, I’m going to focus on what I figure is the much better story.

One of the people on the show is Dirk Benedict, one of my childhood heroes. Why was he a hero of mine? Who else was on Battlestar Galactica (as the cool Starbuck) and the A-Team (as the even cooler Face)? His entrance to Big Brother has to go down as the best thing ever to happen on television. He pulls up to the house in the A-Team van, theme music playing in the background, and steps into the house. He walks in and one of the fellow competitors greets him with the following, “Hey, you’re Dirk fucking Benedict.” His reply?

“I seldom use my middle name.”

Dirk Benedict: too awesome for words.