Thoughtful post chucked for a pointer to David Hasselhoff "Jump in my car" anti-war music video criticizing America's promises to give you a hand up to democratic capitalism (serious!)

Forget the thoughtful post on something or other that I wrote earlier and tossed. Forget the posts I continue to write on the films of Fellini and Antonioni but end up not posting. Forget the posting I didn’t make of my recent “Trueman” dream (truly weird, had when I was sick last week). Forget the posts in which I write on what’s going on in Iraq and end up tossing. Forget the Hanford Declassified postings and Views From the Road. Forget it all.

Ah, but the music videos of David Hasselhoff. Ah, but…

I don’t believe I will ever successfully wrap my brain around the mindset that brings these videos to us. They are so endlessly perplexingly bad as to be the intentional fruit of some truly demented souls and are deserving of analysis other than the usual “what in the hell?” and “he’s continuing to try to bank on his earlier successes”. I’m not the one to do that analysis but here’s a loose scene by scene breakdown of the craziness.

In this video we have the aging television idol playing the aging television idol attempting to pick up some women so that he may supposedly drive them home. The young women say no, that they know his game, and the bemused codger protests, sliming them with codgerly charms until they give in a little, saying “I don’t know”…

At which point the video goes nuts in the only way a Hasselhoff video can ( or in the way only a Hasselhoff video can). America’s stars and stripes race across the screen while Hasselhoff dances in his aging television idol loving his old codgerdom kind of way. Go from the US of A to a bad surreal background of the Knightly car on Australia’s Stuart Highway, the great red rock, Uluru, behind, Darwin only 1502 miles distant and Hasselhoff is now acting like he’s running down the highway. I guess a nod to the Australian Ted Mulry Gang which had a hit with this song back in 1975. Then here we are Hasselhoff has run all the way to Baywatch Beach where he smugly contemplates the sky. Go to bee’s eye many Knight Riderly Hasselhoffs twirling. He winks. Now, “Don’t Hassel the Hoff” stands in front of an image of Hoffey candy apples and a “Hot Cup of Hoffee” and now to blue and white bars kaleidoscoping the background radiating out from behind the leather-jacketed Hoff who is still doing his shrug shoulder dance in front of what seems the old Japanese rising sun flag trying an American color scheme or it’s the American flag trying the old Japanese design, seriously, which is the only thing I can reason since we did start out with the American flag and this must be a variation on it. Now to the Knightly car again on a red background, back to Baywatch and Hoff taking off his sunglasses in horrified astonishment like he’s seen I dunno what but it can’t be anything involving Pamela Anderson as nothing she could do would surprise anyone, then to Hoff playing air guitar in front of the blue and white kaleidascope bars and back now to Hasselhoff pretending to run with great urgency across the Baywatch beach in his lifeguard savior role and then Hoff against a Knightly flaming background striking the kind of “Don’t fuck with me” pose that Ronald Reagen never had to go for because he knew the one with the power to convict was the dude who had you skipping with a smile to shovel someone else’s horse shit.

Ok, go now to the second verse and Hoff has zeroed in on the sick buffalo and is separating it from the pack. Having recognized his face from the candy apples, sick bufalo agreeably parts with her herd, imagining she’s just caught some heir to a caramel fortune. Once in the car she tells him it’s a long way to her place. The codger is not that interested in getting himself a piece anymore that this doesn’t rouse some realistic consternation. He asks if she’s joking then when he finds she’s not there’s a truly bizarre shot of Hoff. The blue and white kaleidaocope has gone red and black and curvy and Hoff gazes blankly at us, mouth moving in a strange kind of puppetanimation (but not) as he voices that there’s only one thing to say, then he’s got red devil horns and fire comes bursting out from behind him as he tells the woman to get out of his car. Back to Hoff in his car with the girl, really aggravated, seems his plans didn’t exceed a couple of miles and a stop for a six pack. He announces that no matter what he’d said earlier, he’s not a nice guy after all. As the green hulk he yells at the disbelieving woman from a television screen to get out of his car. He does a high kick simulating his giving her the boot. Stops the car, presses a button and she is jettisoned out through the open roof. “Eeew, hope she’s ok,” says the Hoff.

And with such lazy, bad production values!

I successfully avoided Knight Rider when it was on the air. I almost successfully avoided Baywatch, only watching it once.

But here I am, after having seen this, going to watch the Hasselhoff Hooked on a Feeling video again.

I am so ashamed of myself for being captivated by the weirdness of these videos enough to watch them more than once.

No, I’m not.

I’ve decided that this video is about America turning Imperial Japanese, plays like it’s a harmless nice savior type that’s going to give you a lift to the next level of democratic capitalism, but being psychotic it goes Kabuki demonic on you for no reason at all and leaves you lying bleeding on the street.

Am I right? Am I right?

Update: And then there’s the “Then I’ll just put up a fence” line. Yeah sure, written back in 1975, but voiced with especial meaning here as a jab at anti-immigration policies. I forgot to mention that because I was so carried away with the flag imagery.


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