Idolator’s Tribute-Video Treasury Hates Raymond

kater | September 25, 2007 2:40 am
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Ed. note: Once again, Idolator intern Kate Richardson scours the video sites, looking for the best fan-made music videos. In this installment, she looks at two clips that venture into Everybody Loves Raymond‘s living room:

During its nine-year reign of terror, Everybody Loves Raymond was a pox on the bloated corpus of prime time, senselessly propelling Brad Garrett and his insidious antics to national fame while constantly overshadowing more creative, and, you know, funnier shows (such as, ahem, Arrested Development) at the Emmys (seriously, how did Doris Roberts win over the brilliant Jessica Walter so many times? It was rigged!). It was just determined to hang around and sit in network TV’s proverbial recliner year after year, eating chips and wiping grease stains on the armrests. Simply put, it was lazy and generally humorless, which makes it perfect fodder for tribute videos. So get out your Jive dictionary and prepare to release your inhibitions/feel the rain on your skin:

Song: “Jive Talkin” by the Bee Gees Concept: Everybody Loves Raymond as a boring dance at a community rec center that’s deejayed by your least-favorite uncle. What an appropriately bland song choice! In fact, if Everybody Loves Raymond were a song, it would probably be “Jive Talkin’.” Both emit an aggressive banality usually reserved for daytime TV commercials, and for this reason it is perhaps dangerous to combine them into one product. And yet, as usual, YouTube has tragically little regard for common courtesy. Where this video really succeeds is in approximating the experience of actually sitting through an episode of ELR. The editing is extremely sub-par, which makes the video kind of listless and boring, and the still shots are just plain lazy. It really is just as much of a failure as the show itself. Best music-to-image sync-up moment: The dance sequence midway through is about the only thing that’s actually matched up with the music. Silliest music-to-image sync-up-moment: At about 1:18 a funeral scene is matched to the swirly keyboard solo. Of all the sitcom antics one could pair with this part of the song…a funeral?

Song: “Unwritten” by Natasha Bedingfield Concept: Everybody Loves Raymond as The Hills. I’ve avoided directly addressing the tribute video creators, but I’m going to go ahead and go there now because both of these videos were made by the same person, and both are horribly edited. So, tvgirlonline, please, please step up your game. This video is even worse than the last. You need to grasp the concept of the quick cut, because your videos are like watching paint dry in slow motion. Seriously! You’re obsessed with a terrible TV show, I can deal with that, but, please, don’t bring these dreadfully assembled tributes into the universe. Anyway, the vaguely entertaining concept of the “Unwritten”/ELR combo is outweighed by the utter boringness of actually watching the video, and that’s about all I can say, really, except maybe that more pop songs should be this tolerable. If Natasha and Kelly C. did a small club tour I’d totally be there. Best music-to-image sync-up moment : The cut at 3:02 is actually synced up to the big break in the song, making it the most compelling moment of the entire video. Silliest music-to-image sync-up moment: Any time Peter Boyle and Doris Roberts are onscreen, because you can pretend that you’re actually watching the opening credits to The Hills and that they’ve been added as cast members.

Verdict: The winner of this week’s match-up is…neither! They both suck, so instead I’m giving the victory to this ELR tribute set to “Semi-Charmed Life.”