"Hit the drum and something splashes out" meme in music videos.

Cafe Society
1

So, I’m watching VH1-Classic the other day and they’re showing 80’s videos. Man are those things cheesy! (and yes, I was around for them when we all thought they were cool)

In a Guns n Roses video (Welcome to the Jungle) the drummer is wailing on the drums only to hit one that is full of confetti – which flies all over the place – got me thinking: When did “the hit the drum and something (undrumlike) goes flying around” meme get started? How many instances of it can we list?

I know I’ve seen it numerous times with at least milk and water being in the drum.

2

The first one I remember was the classic Centerfold by the J. Geils Band. See the milk at about 2:46. Since it was released in the early days of MTV in 1981, I’d be willing to bet that it was the first.

3

I know **Poison **did it at least once. Can’t remember the song…

4

Blue Man Group does it in their show, though I would argue that it’s used better by them than in some cheesey video.

Didn’t they do that in Tapeheads with the goofy video they were making and dumping paint on the lame band?

5

The Who, Rolling Stones Rock & Roll Circus, 1968. The water starts flying around 6:30.

6

I’ll bet anything that this long predates music videos – it’s a pretty obvious visual gag, in which the expectation that hitting a kettle drum produces nothing is subverted by the drumhead being absent and water (or whatever) splashing out. I’ll bet they did it in vaudeville, if not earlier. And this has a very Spike Jones feel to it, so I’d bet he did it by the 50s at least.

I have no examples, but I could’ve sworn I’ve seen this as a kid.

7

That’s the milk one I partially remembered - after I typed “milk” I wasn’t sure I was remembering it right, good to have my memory reinforced.

8

I can’t help but wonder if there wasn’t more to the milk splash than meets the eye, given the subject matter of that song.

But, I have a dirty mind.

9

Crap, and I have the DVD of that! In my own defense, I just saw it last year, and saw the Centerfold video when it was released.

10

I agree it should be “milk”.

11

The “drum filled with milk” joke was done by Ernie Kovacs back in 1957. That may be the earliest.

It does not sound like Spike Jones’s style; Jones would have his musicians run to join the singer with the props, something you can’t do with a kettledrum filled with milk.

12

It was done (and rotoscoped, too) by Queen for the Innuendo video. Wiki lists the album as 1991, so the vid can’t be much older.

13

Also, Rolling Stones Rock & Roll Circus was not released until 1996 do to the fact that The Who tore it up and made the Rolling Stones look bad.

14

But the Who’s performance was included in The Kids Are Alright (1979).

15

Plus, while the Who indeed kicked huge ass, I think the Rolling Stones made themselves look bad, as well. They were in disarray; Brian Jones was on the way out and appeared to be on the verge of collapse, Mick Jagger had been working on a movie and wasn’t around so much to rehearse.

They should’ve made a completely different film about a year or two later, IMHO. :wink:

16

I should have figured it would pre-date music videos.

17

For something that was created in the very early days of the genre and is almost thirty years old, that video holds up pretty well.

18

Well, they say the perky ones do.

19

For some reason, I was thinking ‘What was that music video where the drummer hits the drum, and the drum is full of milk?’ So I searched, and this thread was the first hit. The link to Centerfold is dead, but I found the video here.

Aside from just now, I’ve only seen the video once – and that was back in the '80s. It’s the only one where someone ‘hits the drum and something splashes out’ I’ve seen. But then, I didn’t have MTV until they stopped showing music videos.

20

just the first 20 seconds of this: