‘Take on Me’ Versions 1.0, 2.0, 2.1, etc.

Scene from music video 'Take on Me'Remember the original “Take on Me” music video?

Sung by the Norwegan band A-ha, it tells the story of a girl who gets pulled into her comic book by the winner of the comic’s motorcycle race. They have a lovely time flicking back and forth between animation and live action until the race’s loser comes after them with a wrench.

I first saw it on MTV in the 80s—way back when most of you were probably just little twinkies in your parents’ lunch boxes—and I thought it was awfully romantic. Recently I looked it up on YouTube to show it to Squirt and Tiger, and I found an assorted bunch of little parody/homage videos, some of them very clever in their own way.

Family Guy does 'Take on Me'Perhaps the most famous parody/homage is one done on the TV show Family Guy, where the character Chris gets pulled into the milk section of the supermarket.

There’s a clever snippet by engineering students at Purdue demonstrating how getting pulled into a locker room during finals might impact one’s GPA, and another one by DigitalCha0s.com where the pullee fights the puller, but once he lands in animation land he starts grooving like everybody else.

Mark Cannataro's version of 'Take on Me'These were all right, but nothing like my absolute favorite by Mark Cannataro, where a guy gets pulled through a yearbook (the winner of a high school footrace is voted “most likely to get killed by a wrench”).

Not too great is the “Take on Me” remake by a boy band called A1 that brings The Matrix and Tron into the mix, but hey, eye candy is eye candy.

Ho hum.

Documenting 80s music videos and their spin offs is what I do when I have a huge project like a swim meet food concession to plan.

5 Replies to “‘Take on Me’ Versions 1.0, 2.0, 2.1, etc.”

  1. I loved that video. I downloaded the music about a week ago. It’s too weird you put it up here. Thanks. I have it bookmarked. Wish I could figure out how to download it.

  2. M.G., I knew you had taste. Heh! Don’t you love the shoulder pads? I found a link which describes a way to save YouTube videos… maybe that will help?

    Bonnie, I think you and I were the only ones who liked Tron. It didn’t do very well as I recall, but I loved it.

    EDITED TO ADD:

    M.G., I downloaded the Firefox extension that allowed me to download the video, but it lands on your computer in the flash format, with a .flv extension. You’ll need a .flv reader to play the file. I downloaded the one here, and now I’m watching the video on my computer.

    EDITED AGAIN TO SAY: If I can do it, you can, too!

  3. I tried, but I don’t have firefox and I can’t make the video link be one link that I can click to from my email account.

    That’s okay. It’s bookmarked…

    Hmmm…could you mail it to me? Since you’ve already downloaded it. My email is on my blogger profile.

    I liked shoulder pads. they evened out us bigger hipped gals. And I liked those clothes because they were loose and comfortable and hid a few extra pounds. Ah, well. Pretty girl on that video, huh? Hard to believe we once looked that good.

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