Way-Back Wednesday: Songs From Movies You Surprisingly Still Know All The Words To
Well folks, another week has gone by and it's Way-Back Wednesday again, and this week we're pivoting away from YouTube to more of your generalized, garden-variety movie nostalgia. (Let's face it, YouTube is expansive, but if we tried to keep just doing that we'd run out of videos people actually liked REAL quick.
We'll return to YouTube again in the future, but today we'd like to turn your attention to an equally important topic: Funny songs in movies.
Before YouTube, we had to wait and hope and pray for the movie and TV-making gods to overlay funny stuff with equally appropriate songs, or better yet, write the songs for the situation - but when it happened it was oh-so-sweet. (Kind of like how you used to get so excited when your favorite song came on the radio, before you were able to listen to it on your phone whenever you wanted.)
So, without further ado, here are eight songs from way back in the day (okay, not so way-back in the scale of the history of film, but still) that made us laugh. Go ahead and sing along when you see your fave - we know you still know all the words.
Coming To America: Queen To Be
In this 80's Eddie Murphy classic, as the main character is about to be introduced to his betrothed, an attendant sings his little heart out on this number, "Queen To Be," (seriously, the PASSION) whose intensely, comedically mysoginistic lyrics set the tone for the point the film wants to drive home. (Early cringe comedy at its finest, folks!) The scene afterward, where the would-be bride does LITERALLY what Murphy says, is even more funny for it.
Ferris Bueler's Day Off: Oh Yeah
This is a real song by the band Yello, but it is so perfectly comedically timed in this movie, as the principal villain (HA) Principal Rooney, disheveled and broken, is forced to ride the bus with the high school students that he sort of seems to detest. It makes it so that you can still HEAR Ferris' smug face, even after it fades off screen.
Ghostbusters 2: On Our Own
The original Ghostbusters song was obviously awesome, but this one from Ghostbusters II a whole 'nother level. That rap interlude absolutely makes the song. "Try to battle my boys? That's not legal!"
(That said, we could definitely do without the gratuitous shot of Donald Trump in front of Trump Tower in the music video. Some things just didn't age well.)
Little Shop Of Horrors: Dentist!
There are a plethora of songs we could pick from the cult classic camp horror musical Little Shop of Horrors - it was written by Disney's two most famous composers, Howard Ashman and Allen Menken, before they ever got anywhere near The Mouse. (As a matter of fact, if it weren't for Little Shop, those two might never even have met.)
Still, we'll go with Dentist, because as funny as all the other ones are, nothing beats young Steve Martin singing about being a sadistic laughing gas junkie.
Ella Enchanted: Don't Go Breaking My Heart
There was literally no reason for them to turn Ella Enchanted into a musical, but they sort of did - earlier in the film, Anne Hathaway sings a rendition of "Somebody To Love" (with plenty of soul!) to a group of giants. Then, at the end of the movie, everyone joins together to sing along to this song by the incomparable Elton John - even the recently-poisoned evil King!
(Just because there was no reason for it doesn't mean it can't be awesome.)
Shrek: All Star
Do we even need to say anything? It's "All Star." It's Smash Mouth. It's SHREK.
(By the way, if we ever find any of the TikTokkers who bullied Steve Harwell of Smash Mouth into retirement, we will fight on sight.)
The LEGO Movie: Everything Is Awesome
Everything is Awesome, including this song.
Listen we weren't even old enough to have childhood nostalgia for this movie - the song is just that catchy. It was played so much in so many appropriate settings after The LEGO Movie came out that just hearing it is enough to transport you back to what 2014 felt like (which was, you know, very good, comparatively.)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Ninja Rap
Go ninja, go ninja, go!
Even if you didn't actually SEE the 1991 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie it's from, you probably know this song. It was a jam then, it was a jam when Vanilla Ice performed it in concert, and it's a jam whenever they reference it in shows or pop culture - like the "Go Greendale Go" slogan in the commercial for the fictional college in Community.
That's all for this week - see ya next Way-Back Wednesday, everybody!
