32: Move Your Feet - Junior Senior

It's been three years.

We've been doing this for three years and we just don't love it.

Fuck off, it hasn't been three years, has it?

It has been three years.

Our first recording was late 2019.

Was it?

It was before COVID.

Before COVID.

I want that to be noted.

We weren't a COVID podcast.

Yes.

I thought we were.

No.

Who do I remember?

We can't accidentally were because we released it during COVID.

Because it took us months.

Ahead of the curve.

It's a joke that probably doesn't age.

we're back

hello world

this is we can't rewind we've gone too far

a podcast where a scotman

an irishman and a bulgarian discuss

the silliest the worst the most memorable

music videos and today we're

returning after our small hiatus

with a figurative and

a literal squirrel induced

Bang. This is the 2002 Summer Bangor.

Move your feet by the Danish pop duo Junior Senior.

I'm not sure how I feel about literal squirrel and just bang.

Is that what the kids are saying these days?

It's what we said when we were kids.

Did you?

Probably. I don't know.

It's a squirrel. It finishes with a bang that's induced by a squirrel.

Oh, yeah, it actually does, doesn't it?

Yeah, fuck.

*music*

It's probably impossible to have missed this video if you owned a TV and were somewhat sentient back in 2002,

but equally so, the song disappeared from the consciousness as quickly as it appeared a few months in,

but yet the faint memory of the video lived on enough for us to want to talk about it in detail today in 2023.

The video was directed by British art collective Shinola,

who are the masterminds behind a whole lot of great visual things like your favourite Radiohead and Coldplay videos,

as well as some fantastic movie title sequences.

Basically, for once in this podcast, the low-res quality of the video is on purpose and not by expert.

What is the video itself about, though?

Well, I'm glad that you asked because we, as usual, are struggling with this one.

So, there are two guys and a crazy squirrel who loves causing mayhem.

And a peanut!

But the two guys are inside the peanut.

Oh yeah, here we go.

No, you should do it.

Oh yeah, I like that song.

Oh yeah!

Nailed it.

It's always good when we get Neil to do musical performances in this.

I have this in mind.

I am very musically minded.

I have a Spotify account

and I listen once a day

it's a single song

no more

yeah

I imagine some people

don't watch the videos

before the podcast

like watch this one

because we can't really

describe what's going on

it's just chaos

I don't think I ever really

appreciate how good a song it is

it's just like

pure joy

wrapped in a fucking

blanket of pixel art

the song has been on

like on regular circulation

on my Spotify,

like just the go-to generic album I have.

I haven't seen,

I haven't watched the video in a while.

I never appreciated how good the video is done

and like animated

and how well it flows,

which is, yeah,

it's surprising for pixel art.

Because of the style of the video,

it's kind of timeless anyway,

so it doesn't really get old.

You know, that style of art

that the way it's presented,

it doesn't really matter if you watch it

in 2001 or 2023.

it looks as good as it did you know it's because it isn't like a you know a filmed video it's it's

probably always going to be like that it's always going to be just cool because it's really well done

pixel art obviously it's simple but like ever since smooth and flows and all the art even though it's

like obviously made out of little blocks it's really is just really sort of charming i think

did you ever see like the like amiga or megadrive like demo things that people would do they basically

do like pixel art videos to kind of show off like how much sort of power they could get out of like

an Amiga or a Mega Drive or whatever and it kind of reminds me of that. And I've done a little bit

of diving into it so they the the Shinoa used a program called Deluxe Paint which was released in

1985 and it was basically a bitmap graphics editing software tool it was published by EA so

one of their early bits of software and I think that's really to me it's quite interesting because

they used a tool which you know the performers in the you know you know and in the band weren't even

born yet but yet this video was created with something that is almost twice their age and

you could probably use it today still to make exactly the same style of video which i think is

pretty cool yeah there's a lot a lot of that kind of stuff like people who make games for older consoles

or people who make chip tunes and stuff i remember i can't remember who it was but i saw a guy a gig

once where the guy with a Game Boy

with some special cartridge in it

and he was using it to make chip tunes

and stuff like that.

They say art thrives on restrictions

and stuff like that

and what better way to restrict yourself

than using a fucking

30-year-old piece of software.

Probably more than 30, actually.

But in this video,

it's kind of perfect.

You can make it high-res.

You can even make it more pixel.

Again, pixel art,

but more modern pixel art.

whatever the style of modern day pixel games would be.

But it just wouldn't feel the same.

There's no need for this.

Should we very briefly just actually talk about what the video is?

Hopefully all of you have actually seen the video,

so I've remembered it,

but just a very, very quick rundown of what happens.

So as you were saying, there was a squirrel

and there's two guys trapped inside a peanut

and then the squirrel tries to break the peanut

and there's a horse jumping over some buses.

So we've got a more coherent way of describing this.

Any of you watch Adventure Time?

Yeah.

Did you?

I think this is the idea that conceptualized Adventure Time.

I don't know.

I watched it and I was like, that's all I can see.

It's just that same ridiculous madness, which doesn't have to make any sense,

but you just keep watching the little journey kind of, you know, take place.

That's a fantastic way to put it.

Honestly.

There's a description which is for a completely different video.

which I'm not going to mention here now, but

it was described by the artist

as a Dave Mayhem

and I kind of feel like this is

perfect for it as well. It's just

mayhem, just things happening. You have a

squirrel who's trying to

clearly cause pain to

the band. Quite physical

and literal pain. And also this

squirrel drinks. He kills a bird

at one point, he blows up a guy's cigar.

He blows up the whole world at the end.

Everyone in this video is like happy and

dancing and having fun apart from this fucking squirrel

just wants to ruin everyone's day.

No, Squirrel's having great fun.

Yeah, he's having fun in his own way, I suppose.

Yeah, it's...

But he's being a dick, though.

You're being a dick, Squirrel.

Oh, yeah, a dick.

Speaking of dicks,

oh, boy, all the Inuans,

which are nice.

When I was a child.

Yeah, the one where there's

some very white fluid going into a glass,

a champagne glass.

It's champagne.

I was like, that happened.

I was like, no, no, no, it's not an Inu.

And then the glass winks at you,

and I'm like, oh, fuck.

Oh, yeah, right now.

Dirty.

Glasses got a face, by the way.

Decken glasses.

Yeah, it's important to mention that everything is anthropomorphized.

Is that a word?

Yeah, yeah.

Yes, thanks.

I'm anthropomorphized.

It's hard to say about it.

Everything has faces, smiles.

It's a bit disturbing occasionally.

Yeah, the champagne, but also the scene of the hot dog

when you have both guys doing the hot dog squirt on the hot dog.

A lot of fluids. I've got the video playing in the background and I just saw the toast.

It's quite near the start. There's a couple of slices of toast with faces sort of jumping up and down

rhythmically from the toaster. This isn't an ennuendo. I just saw it was cool.

I think that was the moment where I was like, yes, this video has got me.

It still generally feels like with time still, it's like someone in the zaniness of happiness

since year and as of 2002, well, actually it was post 9/11. But it was the deep end afterwards,

I don't know if all the wars had started yet. So everyone was still kind of like, "Oh, it's early 2000s."

The pre the world going to shed joy. Yeah.

It was potentially there. Although I'm sure it was shed in different ways.

Oh, definitely. But you know, that was pre all the crashes and everything. And I don't know,

there was a lot of innocence in early 2000s, which I don't think we quite appreciated because

We are sales for children.

Speaking of innocence, I can give you some popular events which happened in 2002.

Oh, God.

Which you might remember.

Oh, God.

It was a year of the World Cup in South Korea.

For you football fans out there, definitely not me, but there you go.

The euro.

The euro, just the euro.

Became the official currency.

You showed up.

Had a face.

Ireland moved away from the beloved punt.

That's right.

I didn't say cunt.

I said punt to the Europe.

The Queen Mother died, for those who are into that.

What else happened?

That's pretty much anything worth.

Tornadoes.

Tornadoes.

Oh, they killed quite a few people in Pennsylvania and Louisiana.

Oh, that's a shame.

I'm sorry for laughing.

They're both Pennsylvania and Louisiana.

Another gym chat.

Oh, that's it.

Now that I got to the end of my list, everything else is rather dull.

Very important, but rather dull.

So you've heard the facts.

Speaking of numbers,

I don't understand how this song

didn't get a number one.

I agree with you.

It's got this should be number one

in the charts in the UK, at least.

I don't know about other countries,

but it's like this should be number one

written all over it.

And I'm surprised.

What was number one, do you know?

I can look that now.

It better be something fucking good.

Yeah, it better be really fucking good

or else I'm going to be pissed.

Oh, boy.

Well, no, actually.

Oh, it's also bonkers that year, actually.

Girls Aloud,

Suns of the Underground.

Oh, that's a pretty good song.

That's a good song.

Blue featuring Elton John,

so it seems to be the hardest word,

word, word, word,

which is not a good song,

but, you know,

two big British names at the time.

Well, Elton John forever.

Eminem, lose yourself.

No, you can't really.

Fair enough.

Okay, so they had

Steph competition.

I'm not finished.

Christina Gillette.

Oh, fuck.

Yeah.

My Namesake

Nelly featuring Kelly Rowland

You did a great job

in that song

Well done

Last Ketchup

The Ketchup song

Holy shit

I forgot about the Ketchup song

Pink

Atomic Kitten

Sugar Babes

There is a lot of that

at the time

I think it was probably

very difficult to

fight against it

Yeah that feels

feels like all the

like the big pop

artists all at once

Yeah

From that decade

Three

Yeah three is respectable

concerning that

Were they a one hit wonder?

I don't remember any of the other songs.

I think they probably would be.

Yeah, I think they were.

I'm going to download this album though because it's piqued my interest,

but I don't remember anything else breaking out like this one.

Yeah.

They only had two studio albums over the space of like three years.

So yeah, I don't think they've done too much after that.

Although, let's be honest, if this song came out,

if it was released now and it was put in Eurovision,

it would probably be in all the tunes.

Denmark next year, junior, senior,

although it kind of might just be senior

sort of senior at this point.

Senior, senior.

Senior, senior.

Senior, anyway,

Denmark, get it done.

Get them back.

Eurovision, you'll smash it.

Junior, senior

walked, so whoever the fuck

was who won Eurovision, no sorry,

the British guy who was Eurovision

last year could fly

in the sky

sorry

sorry that just

amused me greatly

well his first his song was about

spaceman or something

it was spaceman wasn't it

something space

yeah I'm sorry I'm in the minority

I really hate that song but it's very

similar the video for a memocrit

it was still like

low-rise poly pixel

video

I didn't see it

I'm really bad for not watching Eurovision

I'm a terrible European

Maybe next year

It seems like every time I hear about people watching Eurovision

they're having a lot of fun

so I think I might jump on the bandwagon

Oh no, Eurovision is really dumb

but that's his appeal

I think Graham Norton in the UK at least

he narrates it in the UK

He doesn't give a fuck

he'll throw the shades to shades

He takes the piss in the most beautiful way

to be honest

*music*

There are many indie games that are just pixel art and all of them are really good, but also

all of them are just, well, just cheap mobile games.

You need to be really good at it and not just rely on the cheap aspect of it to make it look

not generic.

Although when they put their real faces into it, it was quite interesting.

Halfway through the video, they take off the pixel art mask and their actual faces are on.

It's still pixel art faces though.

It's like pixel-sized photos, I guess, is it?

Or would they have actually drawn it?

It's a really low-res, dithered-style image.

I think it would have been like 16 colours.

That's why it looks so sketchy, but that's why it looks the way it is.

But that's a quirk of the software.

It would have maybe been able to do a real photo,

but it still would have looked really different

because it can only do so many colours.

It's like opening a picture on a 90s web browser.

Yeah, pretty much, yeah.

but I think if I was to have a complaint

and this is literally my only complaint

of the video is that their faces are kind of disturbing

but that's purely subjective

to me I don't know why

I'm looking at it going

When you watch the video for a second

at the beginning

and obviously because the band is called Junior Senior

might kind of think that they're

you know father and son

I did wonder that

because some of the questionable scenes

become even more questionable

let's not go into incest as a context the concept basically the the younger because when you see him

in like real life he just looks like a twin literally um so he's animated kind of like almost

as a child it's like when you actually see the you know the pixelated his face doing air quotes

like pixelated version of his face you kind of just see okay so he's just a young man um peanut

dimension. Put that in the notes.

What do you mean by that? That was me.

It's just purely because

the thing opens with

the evil squirrel with his hammer

bashing a peanut and then it zooms

into the peanut and Junior Senior are

inside the peanut dancing. My question is

does this entire video take place inside

the peanut? And then when the world

explodes, is that just him breaking the peanut?

You can take the shelled peanuts.

You can take the unshelled peanuts.

The list is all.

Nellie literally got a pair of sunglasses and put them on to say that.

And then did the Morpheus.

Morpheus.

It was good.

I'll take the unshielded peanut.

Which one's the one that takes you to the real world?

Yes.

Because I'm sick of this one.

That'll be the salted peanut.

Chocolate-covered peanut.

That's all I really had for peanut dimensions.

Oh, I have a peanut-related question.

What's your views on Snickers bars?

I'm a fan.

I used to, for the listeners who don't know,

so Dave's obviously from Scotland.

Nelly lived in Scotland for a while.

I've either of you had a battered peanut

or Snickers bar.

Sorry, just picturing a single battered peanut.

Not at the Snickers.

Once I've had a deep fried Mars bar.

I know it's a stereotype,

but I did try it once because I had to try it.

And it was so wrong yet so right,

is how I describe it.

I had the Snickers bar.

And how was that?

I don't remember

Because I was very drunk

In my first week in Glasgow

Back in 2009

The first week?

Oh my god

You fucking didn't miss right?

You were drunk

And eating a deep fried mouth

Well it was

Yeah

It was like

You knew people

And they were like

Yeah let's

Let's try

That's the thing it's called

And I was like

Is it?

Okay sure

Who thought of this?

There is a robot

Doing the robot

While singing a song

Is robots doing the robot cheating if you're doing the robot competition?

Humans technically probably invented the robot because they were making fun of robots.

If robots invented the robot, then us doing the robot would be cultural appropriation.

Oh, jeez. That's a deep topic there, Dave. Let's not touch any further than that.

But I don't think they actually invented the robot. I think we did.

but maybe that's

we're making

this is going to become

a much bigger issue

when AI becomes sentient

and shit

because the robots

are going to be like

fuck you

we remember the videos

it's not how we move

we have human like limbs

now you bastards

that's my answer

to that question

so basically saying

it will be

playing field

equal field

so robots have like

metal joints and shit

so I guess like

they would only really

move like that

so maybe they do have

a better advantage

because they're

like they're predisposition

to move like a robot

so do we

do we go down the route of when we say robots do we mean like as you say like specifically

the robots made of like metal or do we go down the route of androids as well see robots made of

metal because this particular robot is like a classic like robot with a square head mr robot

something something although i just scrolled to the bit and there's a bit where his limbs kind of fly

sideways and do a full 360 degree spin and even for a robot that's fucking impressive so i think

i'm going to give it to him it's fine it's fine yeah but then he gets destroyed by the squirrel who

which kind of gets me down the road to face.

Is that squirrel actually just trying to...

Fucking squirrel, man.

I know, but like, maybe the squirrel just wants to...

Maybe it's anarchy squirrel.

Some squirrels just want to watch the world burn.

Next question on Nailie's list.

What is the best way to outdrink a squirrel?

Or what drink would be the best drink to outdrink a squirrel?

The context is that after the squirrel,

the squirrel in the video tries to destroy things,

does shots of some drink,

which is implied,

might be champagne,

which is a bit of a shitty thing to do shots on,

but, you know,

shots of alcohol,

and squirrels are not always tiny,

so maybe talk about it.

Well, this is like a fucking gangster squirrel.

He's like,

he's like in the club,

drinking champagne,

spraying it everywhere.

So what would be your shot drink of choice then?

Aftershock.

I don't know why.

I just,

I just had forgotten about aftershock

until you asked that question.

so

yeah

dragon soup

yeah

I mean it

definitely gets me

drunk and I'm

bigger than a

squirrel so I

imagine it'd be

fine

I can probably

deal with

four shots of

Sambuco if I've

had plenty to

eat before that

and then don't

drink absolutely

anything else

the squirrel is

tiny

I mean he has

he has what

four or five

shots of

champagne in

that shot

yeah

lots of shots

in that sense

and after

yeah he's

pissed at the

end of that

because he

sees the

the champagne

bottle in the

glass I've

now got

faces on her

dancing

So maybe this whole video is just this squirrel's like bender.

Maybe.

He's just been out of his tits for days and now he can see his face.

He's on things dancing.

Maybe the squirrel accidentally came across some campers who were having acid in the forest

and accidentally took their acid.

It's basically cocaine bear, but with the squirrel.

Well, it's kind of just getting towards the end of winter here as we're recording.

And it feels like this song has just transitioned me into summer just from listening to it this morning,

which is quite impressive.

My favourite point is Don't Stop the Beat

and Arm appears out of nowhere and stops the record.

That was quite good.

And the worst part was the real pixel art faces

are a little bit disturbing.

That's my only mild complaint.

Especially when he's getting the massage.

Oh yeah, that's actually...

Well, it helps to convey the emotions of pain.

I think this is one of these songs you know,

but I personally don't remember when I first heard it,

but it definitely sticks with you.

I'm going to be totally honest,

and I'm going to quote the San Francisco Sunday Chronicle.

As they said, this is probably one of the best songs ever,

which I think is quite true to word.

It's super slick, visually charming presentation,

and it's the sort of song that would win at the Eurovision.

I personally can't believe it's taken until 2023.

That's 21 years after it's released it for me to actually watch this.

But as Nelly alluded to earlier, I'm pretty sure I've seen it.

I just can't remember.

Stupidly can't remember when and where,

but I'm a little gutted about that.

I kind of wish I'd seen it sooner.

I think it's

everything's fantastic

and I personally

can't fault it

and if there was

one song

that could stop wars

I think it might

be this one

it's a world piece

was very well achieved

because it's

going to destroy

the world

yeah exactly

my favourite part

was the hot dog

it just brings me

joy to see it

covered in sauce

every time

I personally like

sauce on everything

I eat

if I had my way

everything would be

covered in ketchup

I had to

travel with Neil

for about two weeks

several years ago

and oh god

He literally had everything covered in ketchup.

He had ketchup covered in ketchup.

That's right.

And there was a point where you would just steal ketchup packets

so you could put more ketchup on top of your ketchup.

Honestly, Nelly, nothing's changed.

I'll tell you something.

Yesterday, I was having something and I was using three types of barbecue sauce

just to see if there's any difference.

Yeah, barbecue sauce is like one step above the client's ketchup this whole thing.

That's true.

But yeah, lots of sauce

What does it do with IKEA ketchup?

Is it like Heinz?

It's Heinz

Like the small red pack that packs the shijuans

I mean, I'm sure you know the good show of ketchup

Actually, I was

I visited an IKEA the other day

And I just got some chips

And I got some ketchup

And the ketchup they use now is incredibly salty

Really?

It's almost too much

yeah okay so my final points so uh i know when we started this podcast was to look specifically

at bad videos but it's always so much fun when we look at good videos instead and this is probably

the most fun a mainstream video could and has been and the video is equally unforgettable and it just

brings smile every time i watch it though again i haven't actually seen it in a fair few years

because it just hasn't been on my mind to watch.

My favorite part is the head-banging pineapple.

It makes me cackle every single time for some reason.

There is a big fun because it's a fun video.

It's great.

It's for anyone who still hasn't seen the video for some reason.

There's a pineapple where the leaves of the pineapple move

as the pineapple head-bangs.

And it's so much fun.

It's a great we've seen.

And my worst moment is what?

It's not worst moments we're talking about here.

It's three and a half minutes of pure joy.

Take a look at the show notes today for links to today's video,

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Also email, gone to farcast.gmail.com.

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Say goodbye, everyone.

Bye, everyone.

See you later.

Bye.

Can't stop the beat.

Go!

Go!