Antics In The Forbidden Zone: Adam Ant On VHS!
Posted in Music, Retrovirus, Video |
Screencap from The Czech Adam Ant Fansite
10. “Puss ‘N Boots”
Confession time: Strip is totally not my favorite album, but this song and the title track are amazing. There is probably more mugging in this video than in all the other videos combined. The mouse gangster dancing around the giant blocks of cheese? The mouse gang in satin baseball jackets? The king gobbling fake cheese? Yep, it’s all here, folks. The actress who plays Puss is especially lovely. Plus, choreographed dances!
Screencap from The Czech Adam Ant Fansite
11. “Strip”
This is such an awesome video and an awesome song. It helps that the actress is totally gorgeous and seems to have wonderful chemistry with Adam. I think at this point in his fashion career he had a tailor who made the same outfits over and over in different fabrics (a la Prince). And this is like, the millionth appearance of that repeated-movement-on-a-cut effect that he has in every video! (Whatever that is called; fellow film nerds help me out here.) Why does he bite his lip and make such a funny face when he pulls his shirt down over his collarbone? At any rate, it’s endearing. The harem scene is especially hysterical because of the three dudes in the wicker baskets. Summer and I would frequently kill ourselves laughing because once she asked, “Why does that one guy have an ice pack on his head?” (Oh, I am laughing so much just typing this out!) The cancan sequence is yet another superb visual accompaniment to the music of the song. And the bridge! Definitely in the top five of all Adam Ant bridges. I like how Adam gets so carried away with his dancing that he mimes a square shape in the air with his fingers. And the clothes that take off themselves to reveal those famous black Adidas shorts, which he’d been stripping down to for years in his live shows. My my. He was so sexy. The shower scene is my favorite scene in any video ever.
Screencap from The Czech Adam Ant Fansite
12. “Apollo 9″
I’d actually never even heard this song until I got the Antics In The Forbidden Zone tape. I had seen the “Vive Le Rock” video but at that point I had become a doom and gloom teenager who listened to Bauhaus and The Smiths and found Adam Ant’s shtick a bit silly. (I’m the first to admit that was stupid on my part.) This is one of the catchiest songs of all time, with harmonies that combine all the greatness of the tunes on the Friend Or Foe album into one beautiful three-and-a-half minute package. Who knew that a guy who wore lipstick on his cheeks could look so handsome in an olive drab NASA jumpsuit? Or flared jeans and a silver lamé space jacket? The press conference with the cowboy hat! Jeepers! I don’t think anyone except James Dean himself has ever captured the essence of James Dean so well. This may be the happiest and most exuberant Adam Ant has ever looked in any of his videos. (Which makes the later years even more heartbreaking.)
Screencap from The Czech Adam Ant Fansite
13. “Vive Le Rock”
Here is yet another stellar song and video from a terribly-underrated album. Methinks a soon-to-be-hugely famous Morrissey secretly liked this. The motorcycle jacket and jeans look is working! And even the red plastic pants and mesh top. When he sings, “You’re scratching records but you won’t be scratching mine,” he really looks like he means it. And even though Adam wrote most of his songs on bass guitar (and played bass on most, if not all, of his albums) we rarely see him with a guitar. So that magnificent white Gretsch is a sweet surprise. Look Ma! I’m on top of the world!
Additional Resources:
Adam Ant’s biography, Stand and Deliver, was published in paperback at the end of 2007 and the two-DVD set (The Very Best of Adam & the Ants: Stand and Deliver) is also available for purchase. For more information please check out the Official Adam Ant Website.
14 Responses to “Antics In The Forbidden Zone: Adam Ant On VHS!”
December 1st, 2008 at 8:48 am
Oh man, I don’t even know what to say. I don’t even know how to pick a favourite video. Though it’s probably Apollo 9.
THE MARCO BUTTON! HE HAS A MARCO BUTTON! I don’t care what anyone says, I ship them.
December 1st, 2008 at 1:59 pm
Wait! Where is the Marco button? I love that they are BFFs. Seriously, every time I think about all the work that went into the reissues, I get all teary eyed.
LLM
December 1st, 2008 at 8:33 pm
I remember his concert was on Nickelodeon (yes) the first week I got cable and I was over the moon. I can’t even imagine how many hours I spent in my bedroom playing his records. I was pissed off at Captain Sensible for calling him an ugly old pirate. Did you also watch Jubilee to see him? Or go see Slamdance? He did a lovely job with the reissues and his book was interesting.
December 1st, 2008 at 10:22 pm
Oh Captain Sensible! I am disappointed in him. I have NEVER seen Jubilee. I am a bad Antfan. I did see Slamdance on video but I can barely remember it because it was so long ago. One thing I do have very fond memories of (and which I still have on VHS) was his wonderful performance in the first episode of “The Equalizer!” And “Northern Exposure,” that was a good one, too.
LLM
December 5th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
I have to go with “Strip” as my favorite video… though “Ant Music” remains my favorite A&Ants song because it’s so Bow Wow Wow drummy aggressive and stompy. Love it. I obviously totally need to acquire “Antics” because I’m not entirely sure I’ve even seen all these videos – plus it’s always good to rewatch, as I did with the INXS video collection (spooky coincidence – on the same night that Michael Hutchence died). There are never enough videos in the world for me. NEVER.
December 5th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
Also, SLAMDANCE is totes good, because it also has Tom Hulce and Virginia Madsen! (I taped it off Cinemax and watched it probably 100 times or more – it was on the same tape as SID & NANCY).
December 5th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
Yes, “Strip” FTW! I agree about there never being enough videos in the world, especially not Adam Ant ones. I love that you mention “I taped it off Cinemax and watched it. . . the same tape as Sid & Nancy” because I have so many tapes like that, still!
LLM
December 31st, 2008 at 12:31 pm
This commentary was hilarious. I have this video collection, too. I actually recently found it on VHS in the dollar bin at Half Price Books. My sister and I used to practically wet our pants when ANY Adam Ant came on MTV as kids. I really need to frame that old school Ant poster that I recently found… the same one my sister had when we were kids. I definitely think “Desperate, but not Serious” was the sexiest of them all… but my faves were “Prince Charming” and “Strip”. Those videos were hilarious. Anytime Adam makes the lip-quiver expression, I crack up. I love Adam Ant. I wish I had gotten to see him in concert!
December 31st, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Oh and that reminds me… 2 movies with Adam Ant that I’ve seen that were TERRIBLE were: “World Gone Wild” and “Love Bites”. Ugh! Just repugnant!
December 31st, 2008 at 12:41 pm
If you say they are terrible then they must be REALLY terrible!
LLM
January 30th, 2009 at 11:04 pm
[...] Antics In The Forbidden Zone: Adam Ant on VHS!, Popshifter November/December 2008 Issue [...]
April 6th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
“Wet your pants?” It sounds like you and your sister had orgasms! That’s NO surprise, since Adam Ant is a Scorpio, the birth sign that rules SEX!
As for myself, “Goody Two Shoes” was my favorite, and I even went to sleep one night and had a dream about having sex with Adam Ant!
May 24th, 2009 at 6:47 pm
I adore Adam, have to say that I love Dog eat Dog as the songs go but my favourite video is probably Stand and Deliver, it’s his expression in the third chorus that does it. Also check out my Adam Ant paintings http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=122800817#/album.php?aid=80946&id=697806920
Also I dreamt I was watching videos at Adam Ant’s house while he stood behind a curtain once……
March 24th, 2010 at 4:15 pm
you know you said “I’d like a list of all the other eighties videos which also utilized the “slow motion mirror smash” shot” well I know one….LABYRINTH! 198..3? I think? “As the world falls down” sung by the equally as handsome David Bowie, Sarah (the girl in the video) smashes the mirror too! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VppuD1St8Ec