ham fisted theatrics

If Dominic and Donald and I could make a living coming up with concepts for Ludacris/Missy Elliot music videos, I think that is probably what we would do 'till we died.

We have a theory. The production of every Ludacris video begins with Ludacris proclaiming, "In this video, I'm gonna (ridiculous characteristic)." IE, "I'm gonna have a giant head" (Rollout), "In this video, I'm gonna have big arms" (Get Back), "In this video, I'm a baby" (Stand Up). We have found there are very few ideas that seem like they'd be too strange for a Ludacris video.

With that in mind:

In this video, I'm a faucet.

Ludacris' face on a faucet. He raps the song. People come by and turn the faucet on and off to wash their hands. At a certain point, four drops of water morph into Missy Elliot and three twelve-year old breakdancing girls in matching tracksuits, who do a dance in the wash basin, only to melt and go down the drain as Luda's third verse begins.

In this video, I'm an elephant.

Ludacris' face on a full-size African elephant. For some reason the elephant is really into nice cars, but is frustrated by the fact that he can't fit in any of them. Also, he raps. Then there is a disturbed look on his face. We pan 180 degrees around the elephant to see Missy Elliot emerging from its rectum. She only gets halfway. She is kind of shitty but her makeup is reasonably intact. The elephant does a hand-stand, so it appears as if the elephant's back legs are Missy's bottom half. The half-elephant half-Missy begins dancing awesomely. At the end of the video, the zookeeper (played by Timbaland) comes to fetch the elephant from the Hummer dealership, pacifying it with a stun-dart full of Courvoisier.

In this video, I'm Dave Grohl's shirt.

The whole video is a medium shot of Dave Grohl (head and chest.) Dave Grohl wakes up in the moning. He goes and gets a red flannel shirt off the floor and buttons it absentmindedly as he walks out the front door. We see that the shirt pocket is Ludacris' face. Luda does his verses as Dave Grohl goes about his day: going to the ATM, picking up laundry, etc. No one who passes by seems particularly bothered by the fact that Dave Grohl's shirt is rapping. At a certain point, Dave Grohl is at the grocery store paying for a cream soda. He motions to the cashier as if to say "Wait, I have change." He reaches into his shirt pocket, and seems disturbed by what he finds there. He lays the contents of the pocket on the checkstand: a tiny Missy Elliot and three breakdancing twelve year olds. Missy is wearing a jumpsuit that is a big barcode. The cashier scans Missy. The register's display reads "HOT."

In this video, I appear normal at first...

In this video, Ludacris appears, rapping into the camera, seemingly with no exaggerated physical features. Then after the first two verses, the camera flips completely, revealing that Ludacris' legs are, in fact, Missy Elliot's torso, her hands functioning as his feet and keeping him standing. Despite the awkward postion and all the blood no doubt rushing to her head, she manages to dance in a crazy, off-kilter yet really awesome fashion. The verse is entirely backwards.

We zoom way out to reveal that, a la The Little Prince, the Luda/Missy creature is standing on a tiny planet, which, we come to realize, is in fact Timabaland's head. We zoom out more to reveal this Timbaland-head planet orbits a yellow sun much like our own, except the solar flares are twelve year old breakdancers in flaming tracksuits.

If Mr. Cris is interested in any of our treatments, he knows where we can be reached.

Posted by DC at March 24, 2005 05:36 PM