Funny / Todd In The Shadows Trainwreckords 2020

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Specials

The Beach Boys - Summer in Paradise (1992)

• After an overview of The Beach Boys' brief comeback with "Kokomo" and Mike Love's desire to capitalize on its popularity, Todd immediately sets the tone for the rest of the video by referring to Summer in Paradise with immense bafflement, dubbing it "the unquestionable low point of the Stamos years."
• Following the Title Sequence, Todd introduces the review by bringing up Mike Love's bad reputation.
  Todd: He has unequivocally been cast by history as the villain of the Beach Boys. That band's story also includes Brian's abusive father, Murray, his abusive psychiatrist, Dr. Landy, and Charles fucking Manson, and yet somehow, Mike Love towers above them all.
  • You can tell that Todd found out that there's a Beach Boys song written by Charles Manson during research and that the only thing stopping him from talking about it is that it wasn't on this album. Hell, the fact that he mentions Manson's relationship with the Beach Boys as casually and offhandedly as one would a kitchen table is amusing all on its own.
• The Running Gag of cutaways to footage of Mike Love bragging about being a Kavorka Man and Brian Wilson casually describing his dislike of Love.

Mike Love: I am very much a ladies' man, I admit to that. Life in prison as ladies' man!

Brian Wilson: No, I don't like Mike Love at all.

• "There are some accounts that defend Mike Love. Especially the ones commissioned by Mike himself."
• Todd compares the album's "update" of the band's first single "Surfin'" to the theme to Beverly Hills, 90210, but asked some friends if it sounded like any other TV shows. One friend suggested it sounded like the theme to Baywatch.
  Todd: Yeah, about that...
  [Description Cut to the band's guest appearance on Baywatch where they perform "Summer of Love"]
  • Todd openly admits that the story of "Summer of Love" could be its own video, not only revealing it was originally planned to be the follow-up to "Do the Bartman"^note which wound up being rejected by Fox "after the initial Simpsons merch bonanza gave way to good taste" (and had Bart rapping instead of Mike), and that it wound up on the Baywatch soundtrack seemingly only because it name-checked the show, and that the resulting Baywatch-themed music video (itself part of an episode of the show) was made after the album bombed, but, as Todd bluntly points out, this meant that The Beach Boys became "artists on the same level as David Hasselhoff."
• Todd's one piece of praise for "Summer of Love" is that it is only the second worst of the Beach Boys THREE rap songs they've released. ^note He's referring to "Smart Girls", though it should be noted that it technically was a Brian Wilson solo song.
  Todd: This band...
• "A whole ton of these late stage Beach Boys songs are just them reliving their glory days rather than actually coming up with something new. Who do they think they are, Disney?"
• On the album's title track and its Green Aesop:
  Todd: And C'mon, people, if we don't save the Earth, where else is Mike Love gonna drink wine coolers and creepily ogle 20-year-olds?! [background music cuts out] I'm kidding, Mike Love doesn't drink.
• Towards the end of the album, Todd reveals the last song: a cover of "Forever". And if you thought it was weird how Todd didn't really comment on the drummer shown in the music videos (aside from that "Stamos years" remark at the start), well...
  Todd: Let's give it a listen.
  (cut to the John Stamos music video)
  (cut to Todd, grabbing his head in frustration)
  Todd: (annoyed) Okay...
  • Todd's increasingly sharp pretender disses towards Stamos right after describing how he befriended Mike Love. In order and in quick succession, he states that Stamos is "barely a Beach Boy," compares calling Stamos a Beach Boy to calling Spike Lee a New York Knick (complete with a silly photo of Lee in a Knicks jersey), refers to Stamos as "a mascot at best," and finally states that "Charles Manson had more creative input on the band than he's ever had."
  • Todd openly states that this cover was not made for the album, citing how it appeared on Full House several months prior to the album's release, and in particular was the focus of a two-parter, "Captain Video", where it became Jesse and the Ripper's first major hit.
    Todd: And the plot of the episode is that Uncle Jesse has to stop the record company from turning it into a rap song!
  • "This being on the album was clearly just a thank you to Stamos for the TV appearances by letting him think he's now a real Beach Boy. No, this is a performance from Jesse and the Rippers, and don't you forget it!"^note Even funnier? It actually was credited to Jessie and the Rippers in the music video.
• Todd pointing out that this album has become such an Old Shame for the band that not only has it never been reissued, it's not even on their Spotify page, despite the fact that you can find every little studio outtake of theirs from 1963 on the streaming site.

Arrested Development - Zingalamaduni (1994)

• Todd makes the Obligatory Joke about the band's name:
  Todd: Now the story of a successful rap group that lost everything, and the one album that had no chance but to sink them all into obscurity. It's Arrested Development.
  • He then shortly thereafter sneaks in another reference, during a clip of David Letterman discussing the album:
    David Letterman: (holds up a copy of the CD) This one is also destined for greatness as well!
    Todd: It wasn't.
    • There's a certain tragicomedy in AD going on Letterman in the first place: not only do you name your album that, but your press agent books you for an interview with the one late-night show host who absolutely loves to repeat Inherently Funny Words for laughs... and, of course, Dave can't help himself. Considering his known track record, it may have even been an intentional pairing on the part of the label.
• Todd's increasing bafflement at how Arrested Development was by all accounts a very prominent group at one time, and yet every retrospective on hip hop whose scope ought to include it has seemingly conspired to Un-person them.
• Todd points out Zingalamaduni peaked at #55 on the pop charts, putting it in perspective by pointing out that it charted lower than Shaquille O'Neal's rap debut of all things (which came out the same year and specifically peaked at #25).
• "Ice-T was rapping about killing cops, and Arrested Development was rapping about playing a game of horseshoes. A game of horseshoes!"
• Todd shows a clip of a VH1 special in which Ice-T bluntly states "I hated Arrested Development, it was the wackest rap" while Usher gives the group backhanded complements.
  Usher: They represented unity, they represented peace, they represented (raises fist) this. Whatever (pumps fist) this is, they represented it, 100% of that.
  Todd: God help me if I ever get dunked on by Usher and Ice-T in the span of twenty seconds.
• Todd's increasing annoyance at the group's anti-gangsta passive-aggression.
  Todd: If people are forced to choose between Snoop Dogg and you, you lose. Every single time!
  • The group is so preachy they even recommend the listener watch their weight during the first song on the album.
    Todd: Thanks, Mom.
• Finding out that one of the positive reviews of the album came from future film critic troll Armond White. ^note  For reference, Armond once put I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry on the same level as Brokeback Mountain, a comparison you would only make if you were trying to rile people up.
• Todd's horror at "Warm Sentiments", a song about abortion sung from the man's perspective.
  Todd: Well... I don't know what I expected. ...his girlfriend had an abortion, he's got feelings about it. And he's gonna explain those feelings...at length.
  • Hell, the way he discovers the song's existence can be fairly amusing to listen to, with Todd reading a mention of the subject matter in an old print review whose overly-negative impression of the album he generally disagrees with, not changing his flat, offhanded tone once, before doing a pretty impressive verbal Double Take upon realizing what he just read.
• Anytime Todd untangles the mountains of Unfortunate Implications and Did Not Think This Through that the album can't stop throwing at him.

Greg Allman & Cher - Two the Hard Way (1977)

• This video is Todd's first sponsored video ^note  Express VPN and he decides to talk about its utility in listening to foreign music.
  Todd: So if you are, for example, a fan of J-pop, and boy am I ever...
• This album may seem like an odd choice at first, since both Cher and Gregg Allman had long careers after its failure. Todd, however, points out that this album led to the end of their marriage, so it definitely qualifies as a Trainwreckord on that front. Todd's excuse for covering it is that it permanently ended the career of "Allman and Woman", as the album is billed to.
  • This is also a case where one of the artists in question has had so many flops and kept their career going that judging by that criteria is pointless. Todd mentions how on a list of the biggest flop albums of all time^note As in the biggest sales drop off from the previous album, Cher appeared on it nine times, including twice in the top five.
• Todd opens the episode professing some sympathy for celebrity couples, since their relationships are judged constantly in the public eye, especially if the public thinks the couple is wrong for each other. Afterward, Todd compares Greg Allman and Cher to Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton, sneering that they're an awful couple.
  (points arrow to himself) PART OF THE PROBLEM
• Todd's Portmanteau Couple Name for Cher and Gregg; "Chregg".
• Todd's mockery of the album cover, particularly taking the piss out of Gregg's dopey expression and horribly misguided attempts at looking like a sex symbol.
  Todd: Duurrrrgh...
• When discussing the opening track "Move Me", Todd mocks its overuse of the word "love" by comparing it to "When Loving Lovers Love".
• Describing the album as "something Elvis Presley would have performed at his very fattest."
• Todd questions the poor chemistry Cher and Allman have when Cher has made successful duets with tons of other artists, and brings up, of all things, her duet with Beavis And Butthead.
• The fact that Gregg and Cher's on-stage and on-camera performances, played throughout the video, just don't gel at all, gets analyzed, with Gregg concentrating super-hard on "the music man!" while Cher plays to the crowd and repeatedly fails to get him to interact with her in a charismatic way.
  Todd: It's actually impressive how little chemistry they have!
• Todd addressing the Elephant in the Room that Cher isn't exactly a great singer, to the point that autotune as we know it was partially invented because of her. Gregg Allman has the same assessment in his memoir, which shocks Todd because even if he agrees with him, he's not married to her.
  • Gregg's Brutal Honesty throughout his memoir provides unintentional comedy throughout.
• The shock at discovering Cher covered a song with Gregg that she previously sang with her first husband, Sonny Bono.
  Todd: Did she just cut and paste Gregg's face on their old albums too?
• The tour behind this album was cancelled after the first week because of Cher's posh pop audience and Gregg's roughneck rock audience getting into conflict. Todd illustrates this by showing the scene of the gay Broadway dancer trying to fight the cowboy in Blazing Saddles.
  Dancer: YOU BRUTE! YOU BRUTE!! YOU BRUTE!!! YOU VICIOUS BRUTE!!! (sobs and collapses into the cowboy's arms)
• After taking a moment to praise Gregg's moody, slightly melancholy cover of Jackson Browne's "Shadow Dream Song" — a cover that also barely has Cher in it, something he considers a positive — Todd audibly shudders as he reads out the title of "I Love Makin' Love to You", another interminable Captain-and-Tennillesque song about Cher and Gregg's fondness for sex. He goes on to call it emblematic of the record's failure as a whole: two wildly different artists nobody wanted to imagine getting physical, now a couple singing about making love, layered with an overload of "Tony Orlando-style horns" and Vegas schmaltz.
  "This whole album sounds like the Family Feud theme."
• The last of many Elephant in the Room jokes is that it's an awful sign that on an album ostensibly all about how happy the lead couple are together, the heartbreak songs all sound lots better and more sincere than the love songs.
• "This album feels a lot like having a baby to save the marriage: it's bad for the both of you and it fucks up the baby."

Liz Phair - Funstyle (2010)

• The Disney "Feature Presentation" intro after his sponsored ad.
• His lead-in to the intro after going over how Liz dropped the album.
  Todd (after hearing a soundbite from Bollywood): Yup... that's her rapping all right. Holy fuck. This is Trainwreckords.
• With its obnoxious Indian-inspired riff and godawful Piss-Take Rap, Todd's pretty sure that if Liz Phair released the lead single "Bollywood" now it would get her cancelled.
  Todd: Oh my God, what does she think she's doing?!
• In lieu of a music video for "Bollywood" (the song doesn't have an official one), Todd instead shows looped footage of one of Liz Phair's interviews (which becomes more and more distorted as the song goes on), before replacing it with footage of a dance number from, well, a Bollywood film. The interview footage becomes a Running Gag throughout the rest of the video (since the album only had one real music video), punctuated with everything from other film clips to a single gif of her on-stage to slowly warping stock images.
• Todd's bafflement that Liz genuinely thought that her label and management would like her new satirical comedy songs.
  Todd: She stuck to her guns. Kind of admirable I guess, but also insane.
  • And once the song ends...
    Todd: OK, so that was horrendous!
• Like Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails, Liz Phair released an album digitally and started working as a score composer. However, in the latter case, unlike those two bands, she didn't do so for prestige movies, instead...
  Todd: [as the intro of the first Beverly Hills, 90210 revival is shown] Yeah, she was making background music for crappy TV shows you never heard of, like Swingtown and... [the intro of In Plain Sight is shown] ...I don't know what this is.
• On regular album cut "Oh Bangladesh" (one of the few songs she seems to have performed live):
  Todd: Considering her take on "Bollywood", maybe leave Bangladesh alone.
• Todd's reaction to discover that "Beat Is Up" is another song featuring her mindlessly talking crap over Indian dance music like "Bollywood".
  Todd: Man, Liz, what did India do to you?
  • Todd notes that the one main difference between the two songs is that this one features a guru dispensing advice, so for the "music video", instead of a Bollywood film, Todd shows scenes from The Love Guru.
• When Todd gets to the second single, "And He Slayed Her", as soon as he says the title out loud, he immediately realizes that it's about someone named "Andy Slater."
  Todd: [sighs] Okay, I'll bite. Who's Andy Slater?
  • Turns out Andy Slater was a record executive that Liz butted heads with. Since the single was a failure and didn't get a video until two years after it came out (which Todd suspects Liz might've funded herself), Todd's not even sure Andy Slater ever even knew about this.
• The final track, "U Hate It", which is another comedy song where Liz imagines winning awards for Funstyle even though the record executives hated it, apparently expecting it to become the new Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (considering her earlier statements that the album would be a revolutionary new art form altogether, she might've even expected it to become the next Melt).
  Todd: This. Song. Is. DELUSIONAL!
• His utterly dumbfounded reaction to the lyric in "U Hate It", "You're being a peñis... colada, that is."
  Todd: NO Liz! 'Peñis Colada' is not gonna win you a Grammy!
  • Todd punctuates his reaction with a WWE tap-out on his piano, complete with a UFC voiceover.
  • He'd later give this line a Call-Back in the "Timothy" OHW episode, cementing its status as the Signature Line of the Trainwreckords series.