Funny / Todd In The Shadows One Hit Wonderland 2023

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Specials

Autograph - "Turn Up the Radio" (1984)

• Todd expanding his "Nirvana Killed My Career" concept thusly:
  Todd: [By the end of the hair-metal era] there were so goddamn many [bands] that Nirvana had to set off a bunch of roach bombs to get rid of them all.
• Throughout the review, Todd pointed out how Autograph is such a bad name for a metal band.
  Todd: I mean hair metal band names are supposed to be like Whitesnake or Faster Pussycat, something dangerous or sexy. Autograph... I mean I kinda get it. You know, someone wants your autograph, 'cause you're such a rock star, probably signing some hot girl's boobs. I guess, but it's still just your name written down. Might as well give yourselves the name "Name".
• During the failed follow-up section, the subsequent output failed so much that Todd considered Autograph to be posers, even for a glam metal band.
  Todd: You read the backstory of Mötley Crüe or Guns N' Roses and it's all like "Yeah, we were livin' in a dumpster on Sunset Strip, doin' lots of drugs and bangin' chicks!" and these guys' backstories were like "Yeah, I was... doin' a little session work for Boz Scaggs."
• Todd mentions that he thinks the band chose their name because of how similar it sounded to the hit song "Photograph" from Def Leppard, Todd then says that was a joke when he originally wrote it into the script but then was dumbfounded to find out that this origin of the band name was an actual urban legend.
• In "Did they do anything else?", Todd mentioned that they appeared in the 1987 film Like Father Like Son, with Kirk Cameron's character going to the concert.
  Todd: And they go and Kirk Cameron's like (over Cameron cringing in the audience) "Oh no, it's the Devil's music. Oh, it's so sinful. They'll teach me about evolution next. Rapture me now!"
• Todd remarking on how the title track from the band's second album "That's the Stuff" sounds like the theme to a sitcom and overlays it over the opening credits to Step by Step to illustrate his point. Becomes even funnier later on when Todd reveals that lead singer Steve Plunkett did in fact write some actual TV themes later on, including 7th Heaven of all shows.
• When asked "Did they deserve better?", Todd gives a slight chuckle before saying a Blunt "No".

Nena - " 99 Luftballons/ 99 Red Balloons" (1983)

• The reason why Todd is doing this review? To tie it in with the Chinese Spy Balloon debacle of 2023.
  Todd: ...it was a big thing that happened. Talk that President Biden was weak or that the Chinese have learned so much classified shit, all because the Chinese lost a fucking kite with a GoPro attached to it.
• As Todd is describing the plot of the song, in which letting a bunch of balloons loose ends up causing a war:
  Todd: ...and to be fair to what happens later, 99 balloons is just way too many balloons. Like what are you, like a car dealership? The house from Up? What are you doing?
  • This leads to an illustration of a jet fighter apparently targeting Carl's house from Up. Then Todd reveals the fighter to actually be the Enterprise from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country when Nena unflatteringly compares the military officers in the song to Captain Kirk.
    Kirk: Fire!
  • On the same note? Todd discusses the original version of the song, where the fighter pilots clearly identify the 99 red balloons as just balloons, they then blow the snot out of them anyway, because "Fuck yeah!" and things spiral out of control from there.
    Todd: "What would Captain Kirk do? He'd blow that shit up!"
• After the band broke up, Nena herself focused more on raising her kids and working on the German dubs of some animated films... including Quest for Camelot.
  Todd: Having to do the voice for German Quest for Camelot; the indignity.
• During the Where Are They Now segment, Todd finds out that Nena developed controversial opinions on the COVID-19 Pandemic and QAnon. Todd decides to chalk it up to the language barrier and pretends he didn't see them.

Skee-Lo - "I Wish" (1995)

• Todd opens the review by saying "Hello" in the exact same intonation that Skee-Lo does at the beginning of the song.
• Given that Skee-Lo lamenting his height is both the main hook in the chorus and all over the first verse, Todd himself can't resist a couple of jokes, even introducing him as a "short king".
  Todd: If Google is correct, he's literally shorter than Too $hort, who is literally named 'Too Short'!
  • On a related note, immediately after Skee-Lo achieved success with a song about how he was a lovable loser that didn't have a girl, a recurring theme for several future songs in his catalog is how, if anything, he has TOO MANY girls. Todd finds his posturing unbefitting at best, and ridiculous at worst, singling out a bar from the Failed Follow-Up, "Top of the Stairs," about how Skee-Lo turns down women because he's worried about venereal disease.
    Skee-Lo: Cause I gotta million honeys knockin' on my door / And I'm not tryin' to score with one / cause diseases kill and that's ill / to make a mill and then you gettin' done
    Todd: I realize the AIDS era was different. I'm still not sure this was a winning message.
• Todd takes a brief sidebar to detail the history of the sax sample, which came from a song by jazz-fusion artist Bernard Wright. He does not let the fact that the album it comes from is called 'NARD, or that Wright released a single called "Yo 'Nard," go unmentioned.
• Inevitably, the question of "what's the deal with the rabbit in the hat with the bat" comes up, a question Todd finds himself unable to answer.
  • Todd states that "it was the preeminent question of 1995 music, right after whether Alanis really dated Uncle Joey."
  • When Todd tries to demonstrate how the lyric tends to be the first thing brought up whenever the song comes up in pop culture, he includes "latter-day Family Guy," (showing a scene where a genie makes Skee-Lo taller and gives him a basketball ball, re being a "baller", and... well, a rabbit inside a hat with a baseball bat) which Todd calls "the repository of lazy pop culture punchlines."
    Peter Griffin: Skee-Lo?!
    Skee-Lo: What?
    Peter: You need money!
    Todd: Barely even trying anymore. Not saying my jokes are any better.
  • Part of the strangeness for Todd is that it's "sandwiched" between more conventional desires and ambitions, essentially forcing you to do a Double Take the first time you hear it.
    Todd: You're like, [agreeing] "Yeah! Yeah! YEAH." [beat] "Wait... the thing before last, what was that?"
  • After consulting with a very convoluted theory from a Genius.com contributor as to what it might mean (according to whom the "rabbit in the hat" is meant to be a 'trick', which is supposedly slang for an easy girl, and the "bat" refers to Bacardi rum due to having a bat on its logo, so it supposedly means he wishes he had "a sleazy girl who brought him some booze"), Todd concludes that it's probably just silly wordplay and that the explanation is bullshit.
    Todd: [after a prolongued Beat] Are you lying to me, Genius.com? See, I might have bought it without the Bacardi stuff, but yeah, this sounds like a prank written by Darryl from The Office.
    Darryl: [with barely restrained contempt for Michael] You know, things us Negroes say.
• Todd notes that, when it comes to Skee-Lo's post-"I Wish" career, a series of interviews with Skee-Lo himself are the primary and often only source for most of what happened, making stuff difficult to verify.^note As a disclaimer explains, in spite of what he himself may have claimed online, Tony Burrows from Edison Lighthouse likely did not sing "I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke", so Todd wants to avoid one-sided accounts. He clarifies that it's not because he doesn't trust Skee-Lo, but because between 1996 and then, absolutely NOBODY in the press cared enough to even speculate on what he was up to.
  Todd: "That's not me saying, 'he's lying'; that's me saying, 'no one wrote a goddamn thing about this guy for 17 years, or, if they did, it's been erased from the Internet'!"
  • When going over his acting credits, which are equally obscure^note As of this episode's release, Skee-Lo had a grand total of three credited roles on IMDb, all of them for his own music videos; his Baywatch Nights cameo was only added after the video came out., Todd is shocked to find that there was a television show based on the movie Dangerous Minds, that Skee-Lo guested on an episode of Baywatch Nights, AND that Lou Rawls, of all people, was a regular cast member on that show.
• Todd thinks Skee-Lo's 2001 single, "At The Mall" (about Skee-Lo trying to play off to his girlfriend how some girl got his number) is funny, but was even funnier a year earlier when it was "It Wasn't Me" by Shaggy.
• Arriving at Skee-Lo's third album Fresh Ideas (or, according to him, his second, since I Can't Stop was a collection of old demos given modern production without his consent), Todd encounters an unpleasant surprise in the first track: an "I'm Back, Bitch" song that begins with Skee-Lo nasally complaining that he's not a one-hit wonder. Todd immediately issues some advice for any one-hit rappers, citing previous OHW inductee Mims and his rap "Move (If You Wanna)" — don't do this, because it doesn't work.

Aqua - "Barbie Girl" (1997)

• Just the fact that he timed this to release right as Barbie (2023) came out. He even admitted he had been holding off on this one for years for that very reason.
• To fit the mood, the title cards for each standard One-Hit Wonderland section are presented with the big pink Barbie font.
• Throughout the review, Todd imitates René's deeper singing voice.
• Todd went the extra mile, and actually bought a Barbie, and uses it as a prop in the video to make a few points about the toy.
  • He discusses how its a regularly observed phenomenon amongst parents that small children, no matter their gender, upon encountering a Barbie doll for the first time tend to strip it naked and look at what's underneath its clothes. After this, he falls silent for a bit, and then slowly begins to lift up the skirt of the Barbie doll he is holding.
    Todd: What? It's not #rapey. She's not real. It's a doll. (smacks it on the keyboard)
    • He then does the same again in the outro.
      Todd: (genuinely surprised) Oh, wow! Her robe comes right off! (quickly drops the doll on the keyboard and walks out) ...Jeez.
• Todd off handedly snarking "Victoria's Secret" singer Jax will write a song rebuking Barbie decades too late.
• When discussing Aqua's beginnings, Todd brings up that the group temporarily went by the name Joyspeed, during which time they only produced one song of note named "Itsy Bitsy Spider" (Todd makes sure to pronounce the title with a faux Scandinavian accent). The song got a short remark in passing a later Rolling Stone interview, where the group admitted that "it wasn't very good."
  Todd: No. No, I'm sorry, you don't get to glance off it like that. If I interviewed this band, I would ask about nothing but the creative process behind "Itsy Bitsy Spider". That demands an answer!
  • Todd later joked that the song was so bad that they had to change their name to avoid being associated with it ^note (when in reality, they just changed labels).
• Todd compliments Lene as Barbie for fitting the Barbie stereotype perfectly, even if she doesn't look like it, starting with the fact she's a redhead (complete with "not blonde?" caption). He does not extend the same compliment to René as Ken though, saying that he's "still not quite sure what to do with their odd interpretation of creepy, predatory, Eurotrash Ken."
  Todd: Ken has always been a bland, vaguely gay nothing of a man. Bald, growling, head tattoo René is not any Ken doll I ever saw.
• Todd notes that the song itself, once you strip away the aesthetic and the lyrics, sounds rather classical. To demonstrate, he plays a harpsichord rendition of the song over footage of Marie Antoinette, and it surprisingly fits.
• Todd notes that Aqua's first post-"Barbie Girl" single was titled "Doctor Jones". He then notes that there's only one "Doctor Jones" he knows of, and then:
  Todd: But surely, that's not who this song is about... Surely. And let's just hold off for a comically long amount of time... okay, let's hear it.
  [cut to the music video of "Doctor Jones", with Aqua dresssed to archeologists while the title "Doctor Jones" appears onscreen in a very familiar font]
  Lene: ♫ Doctor Jones, Jones, calling Doctor Jones... ♫
  Todd: All that anticipation over whether "Barbie Girl" would make the Barbie soundtrack and yet no one wondered if "Doctor Jones" would make the soundtrack to Indiana Jones 5. I mean, didn't you want to see decrepit, old Harrison Ford getting down to this?
• On Aqua's second US single, "Lollipop (Candyman)," Todd points out that the song prominently features the name of a candy bar (Bounty) that isn't even made in the country!
• Todd finds himself to be utterly shocked he actually likes "Turn Back Time", especially considering it so different from the rest of their music, calling it "heart-breakingly beautiful".
• For a bit of Last Note Nightmare, the episode ends with Death in Rome's hauntingly sombre cover of "Barbie Girl".

Mike Oldfield - "Tubular Bells", AKA "Theme from The Exorcist" (1973)

• Todd does his opening ad read (for Skillshare) In the Style of Sally Struthers' famous International Correspondence School ad.
  Todd: Do you want to be more creative? Sure, we all do...
• Given the release of a new Exorcist film - and in spite of "Tubular Bells" being a one hit wonder by technicality (through association with the original film) - Todd felt it's the right time to bring back the One-Hit Wonderland Spooktacular Edition.
  Todd: I feel Halloweeny. 'Tis the damn season. So, much like Linda Blair, we're gonna bend a little on this. So at the moment, let us appreciate the long, creepy shadow of "Tubular Bells", an absolutely towering piece of work in multiple genres, and we will try to keep it vaguely Halloween-related. YOUR MOTHER SUCKS COCKS IN HELL! (cue projectile vomiting)
• When starting out Before the Hit:
  Todd: (wipes his mouth) Alright! Believe it or not, I think this is actually my first attempt to cover Progressive Rock. It's kind of hard to cover because (over a graphic timeline of Yes' many lineup changes) every band in it is an unstable mess. I think at one point Emerson, Lake & Palmer was actually five lute players named Johnson.
• Todd's first exposure to "Tubular Bells" was the ''Pure Moods'' new-age compilation from the 90s that included the song.
  Commercial announcer: Set adrift to the timeless pleasures of "Tubular Bells".
  Todd: "The timeless pleasures..."
  (jump cuts to the vomit scene from The Exorcist)
• In searching for the titular tubular bells in "Tubular Bells" (they're near the middle of the 45-minute piece), Todd claims that he knows what tubular bells sound like. His keyboard even has a setting for them! [proceeds to play "Joy to the World" using the setting]
• Todd calling "Mike Oldfield's Single" (a single edit of "Tubular Bells" released in response to an unauthorized single edit of the—again—45-minute piece) "the original Taylor's Version".
• Much to Todd's surprise, Mike Oldfield did release a single in the interim between his second and third albums, featuring avant-garde composer David Bedford^note (who also produced an orchestral version of "Tubular Bells") on vocals. With roster like that and a title like "Don Alfonso", Todd fully expects it to be something "from an opera"... only to be greeted with a novelty song about a shitty bullfighter.
  Todd: (following a moment of Stunned Silence) I-I feel like my head's about to spin around backwards. WHAT?!
  • It was such a whiplash that the French single release had to clarify that it was by "Mike Oldfield (Oui! Mike Oldfield)". Todd's inability to keep a straight face easily summarizes the utter ridiculousness of the song.
• In a more subtle joke, Todd notes the extreme disdain Oldfield's fans have for his 80s "pop" period with some degree of amusement.

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