MASON WILLIAMS --- Classical Gas (Official Video Re-Creation) ... Back in 1968 when Mason released Classical Gas, he got the idea to have a video accompany the music. (Some people say it was the first bonafide music video ever produced; if not, it was certainly one of the very first.) Heres the story: The Classical Gas Video, as it has come to be known, started out as a student film in 1963 entitled God Is Dog Spelled Backwards. The film was created by UCLA film student Dan McLaughlin who used Beethovens 5th Symphony as the original soundtrack. McLaughlins idea was to bring together the worlds greatest art and the worlds greatest music to create the worlds greatest film. After seeing the film in early 1968, Mason (comedy writer for The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour and composer of Classical Gas) approached McLaughlin about replacing the music with his (Williams) composition which had become a successful Top 40 record at the time. The revamped music video was first shown on The Summer Brothers Smothers Show (the Smothers Brothers summer replacement variety show hosted by Glen Campbell) in June 1968 and then twice more throughout the year on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. The video has since passed into legend while Classical Gas, due in part to the impact of the video, became one of the largest-selling instrumental recordings of all time. As with many others who saw the video at the time, a fellow who saw it when he was just a kid (10 years and 9 months, to be exact) was awestruck by it. The video made an incalculable impression on him, so much so that it became one of the seminal moments that drew him to video editing. (This fellow seems to prefer anonymity, although the name on his YouTube Channel is GTinsdale which could be fake.) Anyway, when he got a bit older, he set about trying to find a copy of the original video - contacting CBS (which aired the Smothers Brothers), the Museum of Broadcasting in New York City and libraries around the United States. Unfortunately, it was not to be found anywhere. When the Internet got up to speed, this fellow was hopeful that the video would eventually show up online. Again, no luck. Finally, he looked into the story of the videos creation and those involved, and it became clear that with all the copyright issues, it seemed unlikely that all of the parties would ever come to an agreement necessary to release it. Realizing this and finally out of patience after almost 40 years, he assigned himself the task of re-creating it. He found a copy of the original student film, re-edited it for timing to Classical Gas and the Classical Gas Video was reborn. Give or take a few frames here and there, it is nearly identical to the actual video that aired on television back in 1968. Even though he initially re-created the video for his own amusement, he soon realized that if he had such fond memories of it, others might as well. Before initially being pulled from YouTube by the copyright gendarmes, the re-created video had been viewed more than 500,000 times - a true testament to the power of a video that, in its original form, aired only three times over 40 years ago. But he also uploaded it to Vimeo where it has remained for over six years. He quietly re-uploaded it to YouTube on July 2, 2013 and hopefully, it will escape notice by the copyright police. https://youtube/watch?v=sbqA-cGqUHY
Posted on: Sun, 21 Dec 2014 06:37:06 +0000
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