History Music / OingoBoingo

* WordSaladHorror / WordSaladLyrics:: "Just Another Day", "Whole Day Off", and "Dead or Alive", among others.

* VillainProtagonist: "Little Girls"

* LittlePeopleAreSurreal: The music videos for "Little Girls", "Nothing Bad Ever Happens" and "Stay".

The band retired after a farewell concert on Halloween 1995, having reverted to the name Oingo Boingo for the concert. Bassist John Avila went on to produce ReelBigFish and is currently playing with TheMutaytor. Keyboardist Richard Gibbs got hired to score ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|Reimagined}}''. Drummer Johnny "Vatos" Hernandez continued playing in various bands and had a cameo in ''Film/FromDuskTillDawn''. Guitarist Warren Fitzgerald joined TheVandals. Richard Elfman and Matthew Bright created half a dozen film projects together. And DannyElfman became a fulltime film composer, with Steve Bartek as his arranger.

* CoverVersion: "[[TheKinks You Really Got Me]]", "[[Music/TheBeatles I Am The Walrus]]" and "Violent Love"[[note]]by Willie Dixon[[/note]].

* IJustWantToHaveFriends: In "Private Life".

* ISeeDeadPeople: The narrator of "Mama".

* VillainProtagonist: The narrator of "Little Girls".

* StalkerWithACrush: "Insanity" and "Something Isn't Right"

* VillainProtagonist: WordOfGod is that Elfman enjoys writing "disreputable characters", but the narrator of "Little Girls" is one of the few who's outright evil.

* ISeeDeadPeople: The narrator in "Mama".

** The video for "Weird Science" shows look-alikes of other pop stars of the time ([[Music/CyndiLauper Cyndi Lauper]], {{Music/Madonna}} et al.) in chains doing slave labor.

* GenreRoulette: Plenty of times. Probably the weirdest examples are "Country Sweat" (a slowed-down country version of "Sweat"), "Water" (Main/BlueGrass), and "Burn Me Up" (thrash metal with a '''''saxophone chorus''''').

* {{Foreshadowing}}: The marimba lead break on "No One Lives Forever" sounds like a test run for Elfman's score for ''Film/{{Beetlejuice}}'' (three years before the fact).
** "Nasty Habits" resembles an early version of the music for the breakfast machine scene in ''Film/PeeWeesBigAdventure''.

* FishOutOfWater: "On The Outside."

* [[WomanInWhite Girls in White:]] The doll-dismembering girls in the "Insanity" video.

* [[WomanInWhite Girls in White:]] The [[spoiler: doll-dismembering]] girls in the "Insanity" video.

* HarshVocals
* {{Hellevator}}: "Elevator Man"...[[MindScrew possibly.]]

* MelismaticVocals

* BlackComedy: "No One Lives Forever"

* HypocriticalHumor: The adults in "Only a Lad" say of the title character, "society made him" and "he's our responsibility"...then proceed to do ''absolutely nothing'' to stop his behavior.

-->Raised by pedestrian wolves, out in the forest
-->Raised by suburban lions, out in the jungle

** The song "Capitalism" is a Take That inspired by the left-leaning PunkRock bands at the time.[[note]]Although the song's message reflects values which Elfman himself no longer holds, the lyrics are just vague enough to also be interpreted as condemning the privileged hypocrisy ''created'' by capitalism, thus making it popular on both sides of the political spectrum.[[/note]] It includes the immortal tirade:

* TheGongShow: [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTRd1a5MVMw Here they are]] in a 1976 appearance.

During the film's DevelopmentHell, Danny had taken over and re-formed the band to incorporate his new symphonic sound into their music, and the group very quickly took off in the direction of [[NewWaveMusic New Wave]] {{Ska}}. The new band, called Oingo Boingo, was formed in 1979.

In 1972, a young Californian visionary named Rick Elfman decided to form a circus band. The lineup soon consisted of over a dozen people, including his wife Marie-Pascale, his best friend Matthew Bright (who would go on to direct ''{{Freeway}}''), a young Steve Bartek, and Rick's little brother Creator/DannyElfman, who had just returned from traveling Africa and Europe.

* VideoFullOfFilmClips: The videos for "Dead Man's Party"[[note]]featuring [[Film/BackToSchool Back to School]] clips[[/note]] and [[Film/WeirdScience "Weird Science".]]

In 1994, Danny Elfman suffered a breakdown and (temporarily) broke off all ties with Tim Burton. Because Danny wanted to go in a different direction, the band reshuffled its lineup, rechristened themselves Boingo, and recorded a SelfTitledAlbum which focused most on the rock and orchestral influences of the band's sound. It was partly inspired by Danny Elfman listening to his daughter's album collection, which included Music/TheBeatles, JimiHendrix and Music/LedZeppelin. Their new sound alienated many old fans and gave them plenty of new ones. But by that time, and particularly after a truly terrible gig at the KROQ Weenie Roast, the group realized that their time together was over.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: The marimba lead break on "No One Lives Forever" sounds like a test run for Elfman's score for Tim Burton's ''Film/{{Beetlejuice}}'' (three years before the fact).

* FatalMethodActing: '''VERY''' narrowly averted with Danny Elfman, who was almost asphyxiated when two fans in the crowd he'd just dove into grabbed either end of his t-shirt and pulled with all their might, bunching it up around his throat. Luckily, the shirt tore right before he passed out.

** [[Film/TheNightmareBeforeChristmas "Tender Lumplings."]]