Tag Archives: mtv music videos

Give Me The Creeps: ‘Land Of Confusion’ Video By Genesis (1986)

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Back in the golden age of MTV (when they actually played music videos), one of the most highly watched videos was for ‘Land Of Confusion‘ by Genesis in 1986.  Comprised of puppets from the UK show Spitting Image, it was a marvelous social commentary on the 80’s, centering around then President Ronald Reagan.  Oh yeah – and it completely scared the shit out of me.

To this day, I can’t watch that video without feeling uneasy – and it’s not just because of the uncomfortableness of the giant ape in bed in-between Ronald and Nancy.  Yes, that’s disturbing – as is the random guy eating his own tongue between a hot dog bun, with ketchup and mustard applied of course. Puppets in general creep me out, and this video had creepy puppet overload going on.  I could never look at Phil Collins in the same way after first watching this, not that I really had a fascination with looking at him before this.  Nice touch with the severed puppet heads at the beginning of the video by the way. So kudos to you, ‘Land Of Confusion‘ video…..you were the first (and only) creepy puppet music video to ever give me the creeps.

Give Me The Creeps: ‘Mr. Roboto’ Music Video From Styx

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Robots freak me out.  I remember watching Lost In Space when I was a kid and ‘Robby The Robot’ gave me some horrible nightmares.  So did ‘Rosie’ from The Jetsons.  And ‘Twiki The Robot’ from Buck Rogers made my skin crawl.  But all of them paled in comparison to ‘Mr Roboto’ from the video and song of the same name by the legendary rock band, Styx.

Call me a wimp all you want, but I’m not afraid to admit my fears.  And it’s bad enough to have one creepy robot, but then to have it morph and replicate into five robots is creepy robot overload!  Not even Dennis DeYoung’s angelic voice can deter me from being freaked out by these walking metallic nightmares.  I honestly remember having to turn the channel when the Mr. Roboto music video would come on MTV when I was 7-years-old, which when I think about it now is actually quite embarrassing.  It’s a bit more tolerable today since I’m a grown-ass man, but I still am deeply troubled by it.  And that’s even more embarrassing.  Fuck you, creepy robots.

Mr.Roboto