Take on Me

In keeping with the music video theme, I always remember the one that is probably my favorite video of all time. At least of the ones I've seen.

As a kid I read a lot of comics and would practice drawing comics and making flip books. In order to make a flip book you needed a pad of paper, a pencil, an interesting imagination, and a lot of time on your hands, depending on how detailed you wanted it to be. My brother once made a great one of a car driving off a cliff and exploding into flames at the bottom. One of mine consisted of a little stick man doing back flips and then landing in a pool of water and eaten by an alligator.

Here is a good example of what we were doing...



We would draw these on my mom's pads of paper, whatever she was using to make to-do or grocery lists, so I don't really know what she thought when she was at the store buying bananas and milk and saw these little people dying horrible deaths.

Maybe it reminded her that she needed to buy Band-aids.


And this is why I love, love, love this video by A-ha. Not only is the song great (I have it on my ipod), but the video is utterly clever, charming, and beautifully creative. I remember watching it the first time and being blown away...especially at around 1:35 into the video. I sat there with my mouth open, mesmerized and wondering, "HOW DID THEY DO THAT?"

I watched it again this morning, and twenty years later I'm still impressed.