Last Friday’s feature article “Are These the 10 Worst Musical Numbers of All Time?” generated a great deal of reader response on social media, with multiple people offering suggestions for wonderfully awful musical sequences that deserved to be recognized. Well, in the tradition of movie sequels, here is our follow-up edition with 10 more of the worst musical numbers ever put on film.
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BOOTLEG FILES 902: “Strawberry Fields” (unfinished animated feature from the 1980s).
LAST SEEN: On YouTube and Internet Archive.
AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.
REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: Unfinished production with music rights clearance issues.
CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Not likely.
During the 1960s, producer Al Brodax experienced back-to-back career peaks thanks to the decade’s most influential band – he was the driving force behind the animated television series “The Beatles” and the 1968 animated feature “Yellow Submarine.” In the mid-1980s, Brodax tried to score yet another Beatles-fueled triumph with an animated feature film called “Strawberry Fields.” Unfortunately, the project fell apart well ahead of its completion and the surviving footage went unseen until last year when the unauthorized upload of a work-in-progress reel appeared on the Internet.
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Now Streaming Exclusively on Netflix.
In 1985, Quincy Jones teamed up with Michael Jackson and Lionel Ritchie to create one of the biggest music hits of the 1980’s. It also happened to be one of the biggest bits of performative activism ever staged for a worldwide audience. While America was in the throes of the Regan era, more and more celebrities stepped up not only to act as idols but as activists striving for some kind of change. With “The Greatest Night in Pop,” Bao Nguyen chronicles the making of “We Are The World.” The surefire hit and Grammy Winner became a legendary anthem for activism teaming up some of the all time greatest singers of the 1980’s who stepped on to sing.
1983’s “Making of Michael Jackson’s Thriller” is a documentary I watched so much as a kid. I fondly recall my uncle owning a copy of it on VHS and while he lived with me and my family, we’d sit down with him and watch this almost everyday. Despite it being a pretty basic documentary by today’s standards, for 1983, “Making of Michael Jackson’s Thriller” was humongous. Not only was it a look behind the scenes of the biggest video of 1983 and perhaps of all time, but it was an important video release that changed pretty much everything.
It’s such a breath of fresh air to watch something about Michael Jackson that is about the artist. “Thriller 40” is a ninety minute look in to the making of Michael Jackson’s historic album “Thriller” and how much it influenced a generation. As well director Nelson George digs in to how it continues to influence generations both far and wide, and the way every movement within the album was a calculated bit by Jackson to completely boost his status from superstar to near deity proportions. “Thriller 40” is a marvelous documentary that gets down to the nitty gritty of the making of “Thriller.”
Although I absolutely love “Thriller,” I’ve never been one to associate Michael Jackson with Halloween, but apparently someone does. “Michael Jackson’s Halloween” isn’t just an animated special for the whole family, but it’s classic Michael Jackson. It has his music, it inspires individuality, and it further emphasizes Michael Jackson as something of a mythical figure that centered his life on defending children against sinister forces lurking in the shadows. Suffice to say “Michael Jackson’s Halloween” is a weird animated special, but it’s an oddly entertaining one that will work if you’re a Jackson buff.
Debuting to the world in April 19th, 1987, thirty years later, The Simpsons has never been afraid to take a look back at their history and mock the absurdity of it all. While the show has been quite excellent in its formative years, back in 1990, the show reached the height of its popularity to where it had oodles of merchandise. There were dolls, shirts, comic books, books, video games, et al. and the show took the opportunity to mock that period back in the “Behind the Laughter” episode. In it the narrator looks at how obscene the merchandising for the show was to the point where the characters went so far as to release birth control and, yes, two cheesy hit novelty albums.
Hilariously enough in 1990, The Simpsons did release a “legitimate” music album named “The Simpsons Sing the Blues!”