Rate Your Music score: 2.22 out of 5!
Did Mr. Hooper appear in a rock video? No. He did not. At least not that I know of. Let's get that out of the way.
I didn't want to give this lost hit an entry, because it was a remake of a song whose earlier version still receives some play. Brownsville Station's recording of this song was a big hit in 1973. But when Mötley Crüe came out with their remake in 1985, I noticed something hilarious.
The video starts out funny enough, with the mean dog chewing up the kid's homework and the angry principal wielding his "board of education." But there's something really funny at 2:40. I saw it right away back in 1985.
Look at the man playing the accordion up on the stage. When I first saw that, I thought he looked just like Mr. Hooper from Sesame Street! But I knew it wasn't him, because I knew that Will Lee, the actor who played ol' Hoops, had died several years earlier. If he hadn't died, I would have thought it was him!
In fact, some people today actually think it was him.
It gets funnier, as we see the Mr. Hooper look-alike wrapped in toilet paper and sticking out his tongue.
I think the character in the video was designed to be sort of a typecast of an unhip performer that school officials might invite to play at a school event. It's like how in 1990, when I was in high school, my school had a dance where they hired a DJ who only played old MOR standards instead of exciting new rock 'n' roll. My school pals made fun of that dance for months.
Another organization I dealt with shortly thereafter was just as bad. It had a dance that was as tame as a 2020 Zoom prom, and its idea of contemporary music in 1990 was acts such as New Kids On The Block who appealed mostly to young kids. It didn't allow music that older teenagers listened to, such as rock, rap, and some other styles. In fact, one of my contemporaries tried smuggling in a Mötley Crüe tape in the front of his pants, and it was confiscated and destroyed.
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