You people have probably already seen this. But just in case:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6ZtwttbGE8
Obviously, I like it. But what, exactly, was the Cartoon Network thinking? Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends isn’t The Venture Brothers. It’s a show for kids, not net-savvy hipsters. And besides, most hipsters aren’t tuning in at 9 am for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. I’m guessing 95% of NBC’s viewers were simply mystified by the surprise appearance of Rick Astley. Then again, this is making headlines all over the net, reaching people who have no interest in the parade itself. Then again, I’m betting most people who are amused by Rickrolling don’t have kids.
So, thoughts? Is the Cartoon Network brilliant, or did they just indulge their own geeky fantasies without helping their show?
While the fact that they’d even do that was funny enough, I don’t think the parade organizers fully understood the joke. At the very start of the broadcast, they namecheck Rick Astley as one of the parade’s performers (or at least NBC did). I’m sorry, but it’s not a RickRoll if we know it’s coming.
I was amused, although I would have waited for the Halftime Show at the Super Bowl. Just think, they could announce Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson as performers, so the publicity machine could kick up the ratings as everybody would tune in to see if there would be another “wardrobe malfunction”; and then, right at the end of “Rock Your Body”, the music would switch up, the cameras would cut to a short tweedy British dude and three ’80s-tastic backup dancers, and voila! 100+million viewers get Rickrolled.
Maybe the Cartoon Network was just looking to promote its show as the next irony-laden internet meme.
[So, thoughts? Is the Cartoon Network brilliant, or did they just indulge their own geeky fantasies without helping their show?]
I don’t se why they should be mutually exclusive. They were brilliant while indulging in their own geekyness.
I can’t decide whether Barry Manilow has killed the Rickroll, or whether he has demonstrated how awesome it is.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TswTenrEwwM
The arrangement loses a lot of the ’80s flavor – particularly the synth strings, synth brass, synth drumkit, and synth bass line – and the studio production omits the vocal reverb; what’s more, the video lacks the ’80s-era attire and lighting and most of all, the dancing. So while it works as a Barry Manilow tune, it fails at ironic ’80s nostalgia.
Now, I wouldn’t entirely rule out the possibility that this cover might catch on because of the fact that it *is* such an epic fail; but I think it’s much more likely that folks will say “Oy vey, even Barry Manilow is trying to Rickroll people. The joke is definitely over. I will now misdirect people to some other kitschy phenomenon.”
cartoon network and adultswim are pretty much a bunch of guys who are cool nerds who are into the same stuff ( not that adult swim had anything to do with this) but their both really random people at heart and this is just the cartoon network guys pulling what the adultswim guys do all the time, but they have more credit to do something like this on national tv than adultswim since they make kids shows all the time and not the fuuny bad stuff, so hoo rah!
Yeah,
I was thinking the same thing myself…Kind of odd…But then I was thinking maybe he was trying to make a comeback? Or…maybe all the parents of the Kids were the target for his appearance? Who knows…