Cee Lo Green - “Forget You”

Note: This is the explicit version. I used the radio-friendly alternate title for the song since more people actually know it by that name. But really, the graphic language is what makes this video so funny…

We start out in front of a 50’s-style diner with a trio of female backup singers standing out front, wearing matching green dresses and performing synchronized hand movements that you normally only see in a swimming competition. Then they start grinning and sashaying toward the entrance to the diner, enticing us with sexy come-hither gestures, which is really impressive considering they can barely move in their skin-tight outfits.

Cut to the interior, where little Cee Lo has arrived with his parents, and he starts belting out the song. Momma is clearly not impressed with his choice of lyrics, but everybody else in the diner is bopping and shimmying to the music, smiles everywhere. The camera focuses on one jubilant little girl, waving her hands to the beat. Then words flash across the screen that she’s “The Heartbreaker”. Uh oh. Wait. She’s only 10 years old. How bad can she be?

Well, we soon learn, but first we have to watch the backup singers do more hand-choreography while their asses are plunked on the diner counter. Little Cee Lo is studying Little Heartbreaker from across the room. She seems to be receptive to his glances, so he hops up and does a cute little routine with the backup dancers where he explains that he can’t afford fancy cars but he has tons of love to share.

Little Heartbreaker, upon learning the financial details, decides that she wants nothing to do with poor dancing boys and shoves her nose in the air, then turns her attention to another little boy who has the dough for some serious wheels. As the superficial lovebirds flounce out of the diner, Cee Lo and the color-coordinated backup girls flip them off musically.

Interlude with present-day Cee Lo singing to all the haters about what they can physically do to themselves.

Cut to “The High School Years”, with teenage Cee Lo now working at the diner, and apparently given full license to burst into song whenever he wants. Of course, everybody in the diner is having the best time of their lives listening to him, swaying to the beat and grinning from ear to ear. Oh look, there’s Little Miss Heartbreaker at one of the tables, all growed up with a fetching over-sized bow in her hair.

Teenage Cee Lo snatches up a handy bouquet of flowers that just happened to be lying in the order-up window, and he races to present them to Little Miss, apparently forgetting that she only likes boys who can afford their toys. First, though, Cee Lo has to dance his way down the counter, which turns out to be a bad move, because some little geeky boy with morality issues sneakily knocks over a basket of fries, right in the path of strutting and harmonizing Cee Lo.

Well, Cee Lo goes down and the flowers go up, landing in the lap of a nerdy little girl who instantly misconstrues intentions and she races to paw lovingly on her new boyfriend, Cee Lo. He is less than impressed with this development.

Another interlude with present-day Cee Lo, as he sings adult language and adds aggressive hand gestures to his delivery.

Now it’s “The College Years”, with Cee Lo still in that diner and wearing a horrid plaid jacket. It seems that he might be tutoring another young lady, but we’re quickly distracted by the backup girls insisting on performing another routine along that counter, this one involving the waving of money and the wearing of headbands.

Despite the fact that his companion is quite lovely, Cee Lo is still focused on The Heartbreaker, who is also in the diner. (Do these people never go anywhere else?) He motions over a waitress, and instructs her to deliver a hotdog to Heartbreak, complete with a heart on the plate, squirted out of a ketchup dispenser. (Really? THAT’S going to win her over? Maybe Ice Girl made the right decision back in the day.)

Anyway, all logic is tossed to the wind, and compliant waitress delivers the goods to Heartbreaker. She is less than enthused, snatching up her basket of french fries, marching over to Cee Lo, and plopping the whole mess on his pretty white shirt, ketchup everywhere. Then she haughtily marches back into the No-Cee-Lo Zone surrounding her table.

Cee Lo proceeds to have something of a breakdown, one that involves him hollering “WHY” repeatedly while he twirls around as various cartoon images fill the screen. (I know, I don’t get what that part was all about.) But apparently the twirling helped Cee Lo come to his senses, as we now cut to years later, and a title card appears announcing that Cee Lo is now “The Lady Killer”. Based on the imagery, we’ll have to assume that medication was involved in some way.

Fancy Duds Cee-Lo pulls up in front of a snazzy nightclub, in a fancy car that comes equipped with those backup singers in the rear seat. (They are still doing coordinated hand waves whilst wearing matching, fluffy outfits, so at least some things remain steady in life.) We see that Mean-Ass Heartbreaker Girl has been reduced to a custodial occupation, mopping the dance floor and looking tragically forlorn. (We won’t get into why she’s mopping while people are still dancing, it’s a minor detail, just go with it.)

We wind things down with Cee Lo belting out the last bit of the song to Karma-Is-A-Bitch Heartbreaker Girl, then he and the Synchronized Sisters motor out of the parking lot. They’re probably headed back to the diner. Because nobody ever seems to really leave that place…


Click Here to Watch the Video on YouTube.