Music Video
The music video features the typical plot of Bart rebelling against authority when he decides to put his own spin on a rigidly choreographed dance presentation at Springfield Elementary School. The music video for "Do the Bartman" was directed by Brad Bird, with dance choreography by Michael Chambers. Nobody from the staff of The Simpsons wanted to direct it because they were busy doing the show, but Bird finally agreed to do it after having been asked four times. He had a very short amount of time to finish the video because it was supposed to coincide with the release of The Simpsons Sing the Blues.
The entire music video was storyboarded in only two days in the United States. Bird then got on a plane to Budapest, Hungary, where the video was animated by Varga Studio. They thought the video was going to be animated as simply as the original The Simpsons shorts, so when Bird told them that it was going to be done in full animation with no repeated scenes, they "went into deep shock". The animators added the wraparound at the beginning to set Bart against the crowd and put the video in "some sort of context."
The video was nominated for Best Special Effects at the 1991 MTV Video Music Awards. It was the number one music video on rotation on American MTV network between January and March 1991. Following the death of Michael Jackson on June 25, 2009, the music video was broadcast by the Fox network on June 28, 2009—ahead of a rerun of the episode "Wedding for Disaster"—and featured a title card paying tribute to Jackson.
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Famous quotes containing the words music and/or video:
“It was a poetic recreation to watch those distant sails steering for half-fabulous ports, whose very names are a mysterious music to our ears.... It is remarkable that men do not sail the sea with more expectation. Nothing was ever accomplished in a prosaic mood.”
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