Deteriorata
| Vid | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Deteriorata |
| Creator: | Deejay |
| Date: | 1992 or earlier |
| Format: | VCR vid |
| Length: | |
| Music: | "Deteriorata" narrated by Norman Rose (National Lampoon); choral work by Melissa Manchester.[1] |
| Genre: | |
| Fandom: | The Professionals |
| Footage: | |
| URL: | YouTube; Download, Archived version |
Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Deteriorata is a humorous Professionals VCR era vid by Deejay. It was a popular favorite of fans for its clever illustration of the song's absurd lyrics with clips from the show.
Lyrics
Excerpts:
- Remember The Pueblo.
- Strive at all times to bend, fold, spindle, and mutilate.
- Know yourself. If you need help, call the FBI.
- Exercise caution in your daily affairs,
- Especially with those persons closest to you -
- That lemon on your left, for instance.
- Be assured that a walk through the ocean of most souls
- Would scarcely get your feet wet.
- Fall not in love therefore. It will stick to your face.
- Gracefully surrender the things of youth: birds, clean air, tuna, Taiwan.
- And let not the sands of time get in your lunch.
- Hire people with hooks.
- For a good time, call 606-4311. Ask for Ken.
- Take heart in the bedeepening gloom
- That your dog is finally getting enough cheese.
- And reflect that whatever fortune may be your lot,
- It could only be worse in Milwaukee.
- You are a fluke of the universe.
- You have no right to be here.
- And whether you can hear it or not,
- The universe is laughing behind your back.
Reactions/Reviews
1992
Just saw my first (well, first GOOD) songvids, courtesy of Sandy (thanks!)--mostly Pros and B7--this is fun stuff! I wouldn't mind finding out more about how all this works. I have a friend who runs the Media Center at one of our branch campuses, it's possible I can talk her into teaching me a few things on a Saturday using their equipment. Unfortunately, she is NOT into fandom, though she has two sisters who are and so she does understand the concept.
One of the songvids we saw was "Deteriata" --lampoon of Desiderata done to a very amusing series of Bodie/Doyle clips--I howled and howled. I still insist on muting or fast-forwarding thru that scene where Cowley reads it--yeah, I'm sure they were trying for sentiment, but after seeing that damn piece of writing during the 70s on everything from posters to mugs to tea towels to toilet paper it just struck me as horribly hokey. The only thing that could have been worse was if, sitting next to the framed Desiderata quote, there'd been one of Big Eyed Kid posters. Major kitsch. [2]
1993
Deteriorata - Pros - humorous - DeeJay. The funniest vid! I can't see the kid in [the episode] Takeaway without wanting to call him "Ken".[3]
1997
I've been listening to a lot of my tapes and the radio recently data entry being the exciting thing that it is and I've been thinking some about the fact that there are quite a few songs that make me automatically think of certain fandoms specifically because music vids. Sometimes it might not have been a song used that I would have thought of automatically, but it was made into such a great vid that it just seemed to define the fandom for me. Does anyone have specific favorites? These are the ones I would choose to show someone who wanted some kind of music vid to explain a fandom to them. (Don't ask me who would need this. Maybe Devo dropped in.)
[other fandom recs snipped]
PROS: Probably "Send the Marines"(MVD). I know a very good SAAB vid has been done to this, but I just think of Pros automatically when I think of this song. Also "Deteriorata" (DJ). [4]
References
- ^ Deteriorata - National Lampoon, Archived version
- ^ Alexfandra's post to Virgule-L mailing list on 12-18-92, quoted with permission.
- ^ In 1993, Sandy Herrold included the vid on her Desert Island list of favorite songvids in an email to the Virgule-L mailing list. Quoted here with permission.
- ^ comment by Michelle Christian on Virgule-L, quoted with permission (July 21, 1997)