By staff writer Brent Stone
July 9, 2007
Well, ladies and gents, I was going to write a big, mysterious intro paragraph to this column that culminated in a grand surprise for all, but I pretty much shot my load with that pun in the title, so here goes: I was Harold Longfellow. Yes, that dashingly handsome yet bitter face you saw in that column was just a random picture I found on Google Images.
Anyway, you may also have noticed that Mr. Longfellow has since retired so that I can bring you the weekly joy that is Beaver Fever. That being said, I had a good time writing that column, and I’d like to bring you a little insight into some aspects of The YouTube Critic that have never before been revealed to the public.
First of all, I want to be clear that the reviews in that column don’t necessarily reflect my own beliefs. I judged videos as Harold Longfellow would have judged them, which sometimes led to me to near-schizophrenic inner divides over some of the videos I really loved. Allow me to illustrate through a little inner-dialoguing about the music video of Hella’s “Try Dis”:
“The greatest problem I had was that I couldn’t just use stoner videos week after week.”
Alex: Hahahahaha!!! The whale’s talking in textures! They all have Down’s syndrome!! Hahahahahaha!
Harold: Are you retarded? This is just more garbage made by drug addicts who’ve never made any real contribution to society.
Alex: God, would you stop whining already? It’s funny! Come on, you can’t tell me it’s not a little bit funny watching the retard eat the donut…
Harold: How can you possibl– wait… what’s that smell? Jesus, are you high again? Is that all you do?
Alex: Oh come on now, I sit around all day watching YouTube videos for this column, what else do you expect?
Harold: Go chase some shiny things, you mongrel.
Alex: Normally I wouldn’t take that from you, Longfellow, but right now I have an overwhelming desire to eat a Sourdough Bacon Cheeseburger.
Harold: Glutton.
That particular review led to my favorite comment ever:
Regarding the Hella music video.
Dear Harlod,
It's seems to me that you've been a bit unfair to this video. You're reviewing it as though it's a feature film…It's a music video for god's sakes! ” A blow to Cinema,” wow, a bit dramatic don't you think? I saw this video about a year ago and thought It worked quite well with Hella's eccentric sounds and personalities. It's no masterpiece, but for an obviously low budget music video it stands out among most of the other crap that's out there. It's fine that you disapprove of Hella's music and this video, but you could have at least judged it a little more objectively.
-Jason
Jason, you may have slightly missed the point of the column, which was to review YouTube videos extra critically as though they were feature films. Nonetheless, I will now clarify that even though it’s one of the goofiest things I’ve ever seen, I’m also endlessly amused by it. That being said, if we’re going to talk about objectivity of reviewing, you have to realize that when a music video is just a bunch of computer animation based around a retard making random movements, it leaves itself open to some criticism.
The greatest problem I had writing the column was that I couldn’t just use stoner videos week after week. I’ve got a pretty mind-numbing collection of videos to watch when high, but I figured that wouldn’t exactly give the greatest sense of diversity to the column. That being said, in an effort to preserve the spirit of Harold Longfellow, I’ve decided that I’m going to bring you all a brand new video each week.
For this week, the video I’ll be bringing you is entitled “Drinking out of Cups,” and it requires a little bit of background explanation. Once upon a time, a man was tripping on LSD. He was rambling on about his hallucinations and getting mildly belligerent, and thankfully he had a friend who recognized the comedic value in the situation and recorded the whole thing. This friend then went home and computer animated a gecko having the hallucinations his friend was talking about over the monologue itself. If that didn’t make any sense, just go ahead and (smoke a bowl and) watch the video now—you’ll figure it out.
If you have any brilliant thoughts on the video or have any suggestions for other videos, leave them in the comments – otherwise, look forward to more of Beaver Fever next week.