We start out with two guys dressed in clown-felon outfits doing some type of break-dancing routine on top of an ugly yellow car. They seem really invested in their activities, but since I’ve never seen such a thing before I don’t know if they’re really good or if they suck. I do know that I don’t want to see any more of that mess. Gave it a try, gotta run.
Luckily, the music of the song soon starts up, and we ditch the bouncing jail-people to go watch lots of high-school folks dressed in that 80’s style where the whole point seemed to be about outrage of some kind. (Super-pointy hair, razor-blade earrings, tattoos of goats, that sort of thing.) Everyone seems to be headed into a building which could be anything from a skating rink to a bowling alley to a local branch of the state mental institution. It’s a brick building, that’s all that is certain.
Before we can properly figure things out, here comes Mark McGrath, riding a motorcycle and sporting a mullet that is apparently taking its own steroids. Because he’s really cool, Mark just drives right into the lobby of the building, which causes the females to become horny and the males to either high-five or secretly want him. There are just a lot of things about this video that aren’t really clear, but we’ll be polite about it for now.
To make matters even more mystifying, we start seeing Mark and the band playing on a gaudy stage where gold draperies and balloons are involved. Right away we learn that Mark feels his performance requires considerable waving of his arms and rhythmic hand gestures, which is a little annoying, but he does have the best hair so far in the video, so there is that.
Cut back to mullet Mark, who shoves aside some youngsters so he can take over a pinball machine and basically have sex with it while he plays. The little boys, of course, are totally enraptured with Mark’s prowess and can’t wait until they are old enough to reach the coin slot. I guess one of the pinballs hits a special dinger thing, because we suddenly start seeing jump cuts of an odd little man doing roller-dancing all by himself in the middle of the wooden skating rink. This is probably not good.
Then we get to watch a long row of women who should have graduated from high school years ago but didn’t, as they watch Mark singing, fully intent on having his baby during intermission. (There’s also some mess with a poor girl having to deal with serious braces headgear, that horrible, painful contraption that youngsters today have no knowledge of, and can therefore sleep at night.)
Then some fool lights up the “All Skate!” sign, and everybody immediately thunders out onto the floor. Right away, we have two of those show-off couples performing intense twirling moves where the woman is airborne and the man is earning flamboyance badges that will help his later career on Broadway. (The rest of the skaters just seem to be standing around and waiting until the next time they can feather their hair, so I’m not sure they really understand the concept of skating.)
Doesn’t matter, because we cut to two girls wearing Catholic school-uniform skirts and “accidentally” unbuttoned white shirts. (Just to help us understand that they are most likely total sluts.) But before we can watch them trollop about, we have some jump cuts of large afros, Mark performing more singing stances that he’s been practicing far too much, and more people confused about what to do at a skating rink.
Then we have a long montage of the people who do know how to skate, but this is counter-balanced by other people being total victims of the fashion rages back in that day. We thought we were beyond cool then, but viewing all that mess now confirms that we clearly lost our minds as a people, and there have been repercussions to this day.
Anyway, the Slut Twins put the moves on one of the band members who is playing a pizza boy, a disappointing sequence that helps us realize why the concept of “editing” had to be invented. Then we’re back to another long montage of people pretending to skate even though they don’t know how, people pretending like their outfits haven’t been outlawed in several progressive states, and the band pretending like they aren’t seriously mugging for the cameras.
Speaking of cameras, someone decides it would be really special to set one of them on the ground and let people skate, dance or hump their way toward the lens. (Mark seems to be the most excited about that last part, thrusting his crotch with practiced and eye-opening abandon right in Mr. DeMille’s face.) There’s a side-story about two mean roller derby girls having a misunderstanding of some kind, but they aren’t thrusting anything so it’s not quite as fun.
The music suddenly stops, which results in everybody standing around because no one knows what to do if there isn’t a soundtrack accompanying them. This goes on for a bit, then Mark bangs out of the backdoor of the rink, strumming a red-white-and-blue guitar and picking up the song. He sings for a while, strolling amongst some street people playing dice. This turns out to be no fun at all, so we quickly cut back to the conga line of pelvises and blue eye-shadow.
And that’s where we basically stay through the end of the video, with everybody shoving everything they can at the camera, laughing and whooping it up and continuing to wear offensive couture. Then Mullet Mark hops on his bike and heads out, which apparently signals the end of the party, since people start leaving and making up stories to tell their parents about why they smell like tequila and old bleach.
Ah, memories. But I never had a mullet. It’s very important that people understand that about me. ;)
Click Here to Watch the Video on YouTube.
