The Unusuals Beastie Boys Mash-Up (Also, Watch The Unusuals)
An anonymous tipster at ABC sent over this just-for-fun mashup (apparently created by the show for their own amusement) using footage from The Unusuals, the Adam Goldberg/Amber Tamblyn cop dramedy that comes on after Lost now. I just had to explain this to a 23-year-old, depressingly, but it's based on the groundbreaking Spike Jonze-directed video for the Beastie Boys's "Sabotage," from 1994. It's cute:
So! This gives me the chance to recommend The Unusuals, which got solid but not delirious ratings last week (probably because, as soon as Lost ends, everyone runs to their blogs to blog about it.) Just judging from the pilot, The Unusuals takes itself less seriously than any one-hour pilot I've seen, and treats TV and police procedural cliches with the blank stares and "Um, okays" they deserve. Every time I thought I spotted something that would be groan-worthy in a regular show, it was played for laughs or an inside joke (like parodying the copy-machine-as-lie-detector cop show cliche/urban legend in the very first episode. Which took balls, since everyone seemed to mistake it for a ripoff of The Wire.) Anyway, I know I'm like a broken record here, but as someone who currently has the attention span for exactly one hour-long drama (House, duh) I think The Unusuals shows promise as the cop show with a sense of humor about how ridiculous it has to be to be a cop show in the first place.
Posted by Lindsay at 4:15 PM in Music Related Content, New TV Shows
Tags: Adam Goldberg | Amber Tamblyn | Beastie Boys | Sabotage | Spike Jonze | The Unusuals
When I saw this, I was going to lament the fact that it's always "Sabotage," but then you said you had to explain even this ubiquitous (GUESS NOT) selection from the Beastie oeuvre to one of those poor souls from Scandinavia who was raised in a basement rape room and doesn't know about bathrooms without video cameras and two-way mirrors. And then I felt old. And I said "SOMETHING'S GOT TO GIVE: THE VIDEO."
Score = 4
"I just had to explain this to a 23-year-old"
WHUH? I was one when this came out and I got it.
Score = 2
HOLY CRAP! I still haven't come to terms with the fact that babies that were born in the mid-to-late 90s are old enough to be on the interwebs already. Which is a another way of saying I haven't come to terms with getting old(er) ... thanks for reminding me though, Niamh!
Score = 2
Two words; Skittles Reduction!
I'm looking forward to becoming a groupie of this show.
Score = 1
In junior high we had an entire dance game (mainly consisting of rolling around and pointing fingerguns at each other) set to Sabotage. This was the late nineties and I'm 25 now - that 23 year old has no excuse.
Score = 1
Well I'm sold. Unfortunatly I already missed the 1st episode. I'll have to find it online. But it looks cool. Plus I love big mustaches :)
Score = 0
No parody here, just a direct rip-off. Not sure how you can justify this piece of crap stealing from the wire. You're statement 'like parodying the copy-machine-as-lie-detector cop show cliche/urban legend in the very first episode' makes no sense, it is not a cliche like 'good vop, bad cop." it's a joke that had a specific source, David Simon. As stated in The New York Times (critics who know what they are talking about, unlike you evidently), "No show is totally original, but “The Unusuals” lifts a scene from “The Wire” so blatantly that it’s practically plagiarism. Two of the more screwball detectives are questioning a suspect in a series of cat killings, and tell the man that the copier machine is the latest high-tech lie detector, before asking him questions and photocopying his hand with the word “true” on it. That ruse worked on “The Wire” because those detectives were questioning hardened teenagers from the ghetto who knew everything about drugs and weapons, but had no idea what even basic office or school equipment looked like. On this show the suspect is a well-spoken middle-class adult, and the prank makes no sense." Please do explain how on earth the scene in the Unusuals could possible considered Parody. Please!
Score = 0
The copy machine as lie detector was originally done on Homicide: Life on the Street, not The Wire. Basically David Simon ripped himself off. There are no original ideas on television. It's all about character.
Score = 1