23: Freestyler - Bomfunk MCs

be voice-like girls, put your hands in the air, blah, blah, blah.

Hello and welcome to We Can't Rewind, We've Gone Too Far, a podcast where a Scotsman,

an Irishman and a Bulgarian discuss the worst, silliest and weirdest as fuck music videos.

Say hello everyone.

Hi, I'm Neil.

Hi, I'm Dave.

Hi, I'm Neil.

Today we're back to the year 1999.

There's a good chance some of our listeners were not even born yet, but we remember.

The Year of the Euro, SpongeBob Squarepants, and the Scottish Parliament, and ah yeah also

that movie about a young man who discovers he has special powers gets teleported to a

new world and is maybe the one?

Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, that's the one.

And amongst all this madness, we got a glimpse of one of the most 90s videos to ever hit the

90s: Pre-Styler by Bonfunk M.C.

The video follows a 15-year-old boy played by the model and musician Marlo Snellman,

who discovers he can rewind time with his minidisc player.

What follows is approximately four minutes of pure late 90s alternative schlock

masquerading for original and cool ideas.

It was remade as a full feature film in 2006 under the name of Click,

a true masterpiece from the comedic genius Adam Sandler.

This was a film I actually cried during my first watch, and I shit you not.

I think we need to dig into that a little bit.

Yeah, I think that's more interesting than an actual music video.

I want to, I think, I don't know what it was, but I mean, I'm a fan of Adam Sandler, right?

I like the Waterboy.

I like Happy Gilmore.

I like all of his other classics of his time.

And I thought Click was like a film which was serious.

And there's a part in it at the end where I think he sees himself and he's old and it's

like raining and he's in like an old person's home.

And I think it was when, whenever he was like dying and he was trying to shout out to his

daughter and she wouldn't hear him.

Anyway, that was just very sad.

I highly recommend you watch it and feel the same feeling.

I've never seen Click, so I can't remember it.

I mean, it's not exactly a good film,

but it's mildly entertaining.

Let's put it that way.

I mean, mildly entertaining is probably what you put on most of his movies.

I'm sure I have seen one or two good Adam Sandler films.

He had a new movie, Got Gems.

I haven't seen, but apparently it's amazing, from what everyone says.

Have you seen it now?

No, no, but I've added it to one of the watch lists.

It looks actually quite serious.

He's like a New York something or other.

I think it's probably not directed by him or his fucking production studio.

I think there was theories that his production studio was basically a tax scam, which, you know, fair enough.

Is that a legend or is that a fact?

That's a legend.

We can't get sued for that.

Anyway.

Go, continue.

Proceed.

The song and the video were released in October 1999 and was mainly shot in the Helsinki metro.

The song became an instant success across Europe and all the way to New Zealand.

Because I think I remember, potentially, I'm not going to say this for a fact, but might

stumbled across on the uh you know the not so illegal music sharing sites back in the day on the

line wires we've all been there on the line where yeah i know but i think that might have been the

first time i heard it i'm fairly certain i downloaded this off napster at the time i'm fairly certain i

did i think i heard it on the radio but i'm fairly sure i got it off napster didn't have a mini disc

player though unlike this guy i remember it when it came out because they had mtv and there was on

MTV all the fucking time for whatever fucking reason. And they also had another song which I

can't remember the video for. I've seen it definitely. But it's called B-Boys and Fly

Girls. Oh, is that them as well? Yes. Or I did that. Like, B-Boys, Fly Girls, Put Your

Hands in, yeah, blah, blah, blah. The song's a cookie cut. The hip hop, is that hip hop?

Uh, 90s. That's the only way I can describe it. 90s. But yeah, it was like, it's one of

those videos where it looks really fucking dumb when you watch it and it's why we're reviewing it

but then kind of like you just forget about it in like a month because it's all actually

forget forgettable and daft i don't think i ever really realized how shit it was because i

like i stumbled across this because i guess my youtube has been corrupted by this podcast and

it was recommended i sort of stumbled across this and i was like i was like i forgot about that i was

just watching going this is fucking awful we should talk about this on the podcast it's perfect

But yeah, it's really bad.

I like the concept, kind of.

It's not that original, but I do like the concept.

But I just think the execution leaves something to be desired.

Probably had no budget whatsoever.

So for the amount of no budget they had was, you know, fine.

It's a 1999 music video from a completely unknown hip hop or whatever band.

So I would expect.

Let's not forget that.

And I tried to make this joke at the beginning about, like, the good old switcheroo for, like,

the one but it's actually

The Phantom Menace but that movie

came out like

four months, three months, something like this

after The Matrix

and if you tell me that the creators

of this masterpiece did not

watch The Matrix I will laugh in your face

because everybody watched The Matrix in 1999

like fucking I watched The Matrix in 1999

I was gonna say yeah, it felt

like The Matrix a little bit, felt like the style

looked like The Matrix

I guess they've just replaced the leather jackets

with tracksuits

Well, they were probably more weather appropriate for Helsinki.

Although Helsinki is quite cold, I'd imagine.

But yeah, no, there's a lot of like just, I think we'll discuss this later anymore, but

like the color correction, color grading and just like the dirtiness of how it looks like.

It's a very Matrix-y feeling.

Very clean, very clinical.

How is it clinical?

It's not clinical at all.

Well, there's not like a lick of rubbish anywhere.

No, no, I mean the actual colours, not the...

Finland is fine. Finland is really fucking clean.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's really desaturated.

It's really dystopian almost.

Like it's Equilibrium. Do you have seen that before?

Yes, yes, it does.

Sorry?

The movie Equilibrium.

I've not seen it.

Oh, it's good. It's good film.

When they're in the city sort of thing,

being sort of ultimately controlled by something

and they can't be themselves.

Everyone looks very robotic.

Like, with personal stances, they just try to be like, oh, we're in the Matrix, we can

move around, blah, blah, blah.

Or whatever they thought the Matrix is, which is what everyone probably in 99 in Finland thought

the Matrix is, which is like, oh, cool, we can do cool shit, like move around and this

point is not there, this point doesn't exist.

Kind of like someone who's seen the Matrix attempting to do a similar style with no money,

obviously.

Yeah.

So maybe that, yeah, that could maybe explain the look of it.

but as Neil was saying there when I watched it again it was just the look of it just made me kind

of go even the fact that they've obviously deliberately made everyone only wearing like

white red and black and stuff like that which is I think pretty sure was deliberate the white and

red was not necessarily signifying anything it's more like they were very fashionable colors like in

my head when I was watching that I was like oh yes I've seen this in lots of places and it's very like

of it literally of its time like that combination of very very harsh combination of like white tops

red skirts which specifically the three women dancing for some reason i just kind of vaguely

remember when i was a kid watching this and thinking oh yeah this is very like what cool

kids wear like red and white fashion of the time and all that jazz yeah let's not talk about fashion

we're clearly the podcast to talk about it

*music*

where they're from like they're in Finland but they don't know what their actual background is

but just that music they make and especially that 15 year old boy who is like whiter than me and has

fucking dreadlocks it just kind of made me feel like it's really fucking fake of course my point

is I don't know whether it's fake for them it just it feels fake because of the that 15 year old boy

they decided to go off with there is a whole thing on wikipedia which basically this boy's mother

is apparently a very well-known model company owner magnate whatever she's known and probably

super fucking rich and he probably never had to deal with any of this you know you know the general

populace kind of thing so just the whole thing of like how he acts and have been like oh very tough

look at how i'm dressed or whatever when you know who he is it just feels so fucking fake and just

It made me feel like Ali G as a

act. Yeah, I think this is

the kind of thing Ali G was making fun

of, if I remember rightly.

Yeah, exactly, yes. I was pretty young at the time

but yeah, looking back

I think this is pretty much exactly what he was making fun

of. Yeah, I mean Ali G

was very much more like

true and real than this wee boy.

He doesn't massively

pull it off either. I don't really think

many people in the video do. They're all kind of

you know, doing some sort of strange

dance fighting at each other and it just it comes across pretty weird i'm like is it meant to be

threatening is it or is that just how you say hello in helsinki i don't know i don't know

i mean i guess it's trying to do the whole break dancing thing yeah which i kind of understand it

was early to mid-notice in bulgaria there was a whole thing where a lot of people just like use

clubs for break dancing like proper like teachers and everything and the song was played a lot because

why we wanted to be.

But yeah, I think that's what they were trying to do.

But it's just honest, it just feels so fake.

And it's those three women,

which we should absolutely talk about,

that he stops time off and kind of moves between them.

They're just doing like fucking robotic movements.

We're drunk at the club.

We're just kind of swishing around.

Yeah, I think the first time you see them is pretty bad.

I think it gets slightly better after that,

but the first one there is proper.

Like dad at a wedding dancing, you know,

It's not really, not amazing.

The overwhelming sense of awkwardness from this video

is just, it just attacks you from all angles, I think.

Any thoughts about breakdancing, Neil?

Did you breakdance in your youth?

Yeah, it just, yeah, I did back in the day.

I was very good at it, yeah.

Until I broke a hip and then had to retire early.

Had to stop the age of three.

Yeah, I don't know, I just feel,

it's just, the whole, this whole video

just feels a bit robotic.

You know, everything just feels a bit stiff.

Feels like no one's warmed up.

you know 9 a.m okay and okay girls you sit here okay child you sit there man just kick that board

and do a couple of laps around pull some shapes and then the robotic child just kind of waltzes

around this station it just felt yeah just feels a bit stiff feels like everyone's made a cardboard

three minutes 44 the wee guy with the playstation controller what is his facial expression even meant

to be is what is going on there?

I don't understand.

There's one amazing face at 3 minutes

50. Oh no, you're right.

You're right at 3 minutes 50.

Look at your chapter on your podcast

player of choice right now to hear what we're talking about.

Oh, that guy. Yes.

He's actually straightening as vanilla ice cream.

Vanilla ice.

You know when you walk through a cloud of smell?

I don't know, like you've walked into like a fish factory

and you can't really control your face.

That's what the guy looks like.

He just came across a really bad smell and he's not happy.

This is very spot on.

I think he's just a bit annoyed the kid's looking at him.

I mean, would you not be annoyed the kid looking at you?

Look at this boy.

Look at how he looks like.

If someone looks at you in the street, what would you do?

But would you start dancing immediately afterwards?

That's the question.

Maybe.

I mean...

Do you always start dancing?

What kind of question is this?

I don't know about you guys, but I would whip by my PlayStation controller and just freeze.

Why is he carrying a PlayStation controller?

That's the question.

For the listeners at home,

this guy we've been talking about

for the past however many minutes,

he's also carrying a PlayStation 1 controller

for no apparent reason.

My only theory for that is because

many discs were Sony as well.

So I think maybe Sony may have given them some money

and they were just like,

give one of them a PlayStation controller.

We don't know.

He's on the way to play fucking Hogs of War

with his mate and he's about to fuck shit up.

It looks like he's carrying that, like he's going to hold up a shop.

He's going to boomerang it at someone.

You know, if you didn't know what video games were,

you know, you didn't know that was a controller,

you'd think that was just a gun.

When he dances with it, it looks like Neo dodging bullets.

We're back to the Matrix again.

Now there was this particularly knowledge about breakdancing,

so maybe those are some legit moves.

I just keep coming back to this squaring up to each other.

I don't know if it's like, you know how people are having a rap battle

and they're like smack talking each other.

I don't know if it's like that in dance form, interpretive dance insults.

There is another version of this video,

which is not a parody, allegedly.

I never really got to the bottom of why they made it,

but there was another version in 2019,

similar to the original,

but with slightly, admittedly better dancing.

Less white?

Yes, less white, better dancing,

and they're using a phone instead of a mini-disc player.

It's a lassie instead of a wee boy this time.

It's still kind of weird,

but it didn't give me that same sort of recoiling

and sort of feeling as the original one.

All those amazingly talented dancers,

they deserve a better video

that actually highlights their amazing dancer skills.

And that video ain't it.

It's a really fucking pointless video.

A remake of a video,

of a song and video

that should have been left in 1999.

Thanks.

Although, you know what?

Maybe after we get the new Matrix movie,

which is due next year, I think,

or something like that.

Is it?

Yeah, I'm not sure when, but it's in production at the moment.

Maybe we'll finally get a new version of that with this video.

Updated one.

I didn't mind the new one.

Yeah, but I don't know the point of it.

It just feels like a bit of a vanity project.

It's all short.

Like, it's competent, but...

Not particularly inspiring either way.

Like, if we had only had this version, we probably wouldn't be talking about it that way.

Oh, yeah.

i feel i did version of the one just just a video whatever although i will defend i do quite like the

bit where she turns her iphone on the side and everyone slides down i thought that was quite funny

because the magic device seems to have gained new powers in the the 10 years 10 years 20 years

i have elapsed and then this one she and the new one she seems to like directly be making people

dance with her phone so i think that kind of confirms in my head the theory that all these

people are being controlled by some sort of

overwhelming force. 5G radio

terror thing.

They've all been vaccinated by a bit, clearly.

This is our future, guys.

We're going to be dancing in Helsinki.

Fuck yeah! Which sounds

pretty good.

Where did I sign up? Oh, I've already signed up.

Let's go. On that note,

what would

all you both do

if you had a device of your

choice that could stop and rewind time

and what would that device be?

that's a good question i'm thinking i'm thinking from a work point of view it would just be really

handy to have like a mixer that could not only rewind the take but wait i you rewind the take

and then the real life rewinds as well so if you fuck it up you can get another one isn't that just

having different takes or not yeah but everyone gets pissed off at you when you fuck it up so

if they're not aware that you're taking 15 takes then it's fine that's like oh there's a nicholas

there's a Nicolas Cage movie like that what's it called the Nicolas Cage that we've talked about

before in this podcast I'm pretty sure yeah yeah what was that one called is it was it the casino

one might have been next I think it's one I've not seen one of Nicolas Cage's masterpieces yeah it's

it's a 2007 Nicolas Cage film called next where he has the ability to see events minutes before they

occur oh that movie yes we have talked about this in the podcast because we were talking about this

when we were planning heists.

Oh, yes, yes.

For some reason.

I can't remember why.

Russian band.

Ah, Little Bag.

We really have to watch this film.

We can do a special

where we review that.

For our...

also with the coffee subscribers.

So would that be your choice, Neil?

Or what device would you use?

I don't know.

A pocket calculator.

Wow.

I don't know why.

I think a calculator

would be a good thing

to keep in your pocket, right?

Nerd.

Hey.

That's rude.

You can put in the exact date, though.

That would be quite handy.

You can also type boobies.

Yeah.

The world would be a better place.

What would your device be, Nelly?

A Nintendo Switch.

Because then you can be like,

oh, I want to plug in into this game.

Like, I want to be inside this game.

You know, Animal Crossing,

as opposed to Halo Infinite or whatever.

Yeah.

But, you know, if someone pisses me off,

I'm like, okay, off you go to this island by yourself.

Here you are on Cuphead Island where you have to murder bosses or they'll kill you.

So instead of time travel, you're going to have one that you can imprison people inside Animal Crossing where they have to spend their life paying off that raccoon.

What's his name?

Tom Nook.

The gangster of Nintendo.

It feels like a mobile phone, like a smartphone, is the most logical thing because you have a music player on it and you have a calculator on it as well.

and you can record sound as well.

Yeah, multi-purpose.

Although when you said Nintendo Switch,

that made me think the PlayStation controller guy,

maybe that's his time travel device.

Maybe they've all got one.

And that's why the world is so fucked up

because everyone's just rewinding

and fast forwarding each other constantly.

And people are not dancing.

They're just trying to move,

but they can't because someone's constantly rewinding them.

This is why it looks so robotic

because they're not dancing.

They're just trying to move forward,

but they can't.

Some cunt where Kindle is around the corner

fast forwarding them and they can't move.

It's terrible.

Imagine in a Kindle, like the same what I suggested with like plugging someone within a game, but plugging someone within a book.

And if someone really aggris you and annoys you, you get them and you put them in, not even in Fifty Shades of Grey,

but one of those like weird, very, very badly written offshoots of like someone's mom who read Fifty Shades of Grey and she was like,

I can write this and it's like for free on Kindle because nobody wants to spend money for it.

I have never read books the way I knew those books, I promise.

Total side rant, but if you remember Rob from the Muse episode,

we were drunk one night and he did a dramatic reading of Fifty Shades of Grey,

and it's the funniest fucking thing I've ever heard.

Nice.

I'll always remember the line,

do you not want my kinky fuckery?

Is that going to record somewhere?

Because that's going to be very funny.

I think it might be.

I used to have a habit of recording shit on my phone.

I'll have a look, see if I can find it.

Do you want a regular vanilla relationship with no kinky fuckery at all?

my mouth drops open

kinky fuckery I squeaked

my inner goddess is down

bended knees

with her hands clasped

supplication begging me

I like your kinky fuckery

I like

maybe we can

maybe

that's what we can do

for

like our Patreon

special episode

I think that's an OnlyFans extra

we can't rewind

we've gone too far

on OnlyFans

anyway

moving swiftly on

look is that

like filmmaking thing

doesn't work out

for both of you

there's always

other outlets

there's other options

out there for you guys

good to hear

you could do

Scottish Irish

ASMR

that'd be pretty good

actually

yes that's

yeah

I think we've

a good market there

yeah

potato bread

and soda bread

really close to the

microphone

that'd be good

anyway

back on to

I'm back on track

yes

where we

get the train

back on the rails

the rails

are off

the

planet and we're into outer space

I put in the notes have you ever

had someone dance aggressively at you on the

subway or any form of public transport

is this a thing and then someone has put

yes who has had

someone dance at them aggressively on the subway

I live in London everyone

everyone does everything aggressively in here

have I

you must have like should you

have taken the fucking subway

on a football Sunday and someone

very aggressively shirtlessly

like wiggled around you or something

Yeah, but not at me.

It's Glasgow.

More around me, but not at me.

But in terms of stories about strange interactions

and public transport,

probably funniest one was a drunk guy on the train

back to Glasgow one night.

He decides to crawl up into the Joe Heatherwee

luggage compartment above the seats.

He crawled up there and planked himself in there

and fell asleep.

And he was there for the rest of the journey.

I've got photographic evidence as well.

That's nice.

Who put in the purgatory

temporal torture sort of thing?

I can sort of see that. It's just because he

kind of gets rewinded back to the start

at the end and I was like, is that just him stuck there

forever? Is he never going to escape? Yeah, God help him

if he is. It feels like that

is the end of that. Actually no, that's the

beginning. Oh my god, can you imagine being in that loop?

What a shitty loop. That's why there's

two different versions of the video because

it's two different victims of this

strange mini-disc purgatory.

You did realise that

It isn't the same person in each video.

They got like another

actor, performer. I didn't, first

couple of watches, I didn't know that.

The first time I watched it, I did go as,

because I couldn't figure out if the wee boy was a girl or a boy

to be honest. And then

I looked up and, okay, he's a boy.

It would have been cool if they'd got the boy back for the

remake, but just older.

It just would have been like, they've literally just

done it again. He's still stuck in the

time loop, and technology has

somehow evolved, but he

is still there. Sounds like a boomer.

Sounds like a boomer.

So I don't know where that came from. I apologize.

What would someone

what would he be? Would he be? I always forget.

Is he a millennial? Am I a millennial? I don't know.

You're a millennial. We're all millennials.

Yeah, we're millennials.

So what would he be? Same?

Yeah, because he's like

what, six years older?

Yeah, he's like

top millennial, like old millennial.

The elder millennial.

Yeah, I'm trying to be.

So my final point for this video is that we should just leave it in the 90s. It's a very quintessential

90s video but we should just stop trying to make it modern. We don't need this. We genuinely don't.

It genuinely don't. It's a very... the idea of having a device that stops and rewinds time is so

old and so worn out. Just bury it. Leave it. We don't need to zombify it. It's fine. It's fine guys.

it's fine let's have new ideas we can do this yeah i think it might be one of the first videos we

watched on this podcast where i just instantly just went like i had a physical reaction of like

and i actually i could never really quite put my finger on it but it just looks

shit and the concepts fine but it's not that original and it's awkward and possibly dystopian

and it's slightly terrifying yeah i don't like it uh so my favorite part is the matrix uh no

the favorite part is uh three minutes 50 uh that guy's face is fucking golden and it's literally

the only saving grace for me for that video and the worst part is everything else i i genuinely

really don't like this video and i think it doing the worst thing is which is just boring and that's

the worst thing you can be especially on this podcast my favorite part is the fact that he's

using a mini disc in the original version because i'm just a sucker for obsolete media formats my

worst part is the colorizing i don't know if this is just a dodgy youtube compression which is making

it look like this but there's just something about all the color in the film which looks really just

horrible and slightly dystopic and yucky i think my favorite part was the 90s nostalgia and it'll

probably never leave my mind i haven't heard this song since we brought it up on this show and yeah

i think it's just one of those ones i'll forget about it but once it comes up inevitably again

i'll be like oh yeah i remember that yeah worst part of the video is really dull and it has not

aged well i think it's aged worse than some of the uh 80s videos we've had on the podcast and i think

it's that sort of weird time where digital video just hadn't hadn't even you know it wasn't in it was

in its infancy um and it just is a very badly aged video i think that might be why i hate the

kind of look of it so much when i started it was all like said the dv cameras and stuff like that

and they all had this kind of look to them so just as a result every indie film looked shit

like you could use it well but most people didn't i guess and it has that kind of look to it was only

really when dslr's kicked off the indie films actually started looking good again so yeah i

think it's in that little gap

maybe right

okay conclusions

taser knows

nope nope no

enough for me

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and goodbye

bye

bye

bye

bye

oh this was really

bad

it was really boring

Peace.