Articles tagged with Huey Lewis

Let me tell you something: Overthinkin’ makes me feel good

posted by stokes on Thursday, June 11th, 2009 at 11:56am

No Ghostbusters Week could be complete without at least a passing mention of Ray Parker Jr.’s 1984 hit “Theme from Ghostbusters.”

We all know this song—it’s possibly the single most recognizable movie theme song in history—but some of us may not know the inexplicable music video, which is about a woman whose glowing neon house is apparently haunted by the disembodied heads of Chevy Chase and Danny DeVito.  Spooooooky!

(BTW, let me just point out that there’s something predatory about Parker’s relationship with the poor woman in this video.  He’s presumably a ghostbuster, but the ghosts are just his backup singers.  Is he drumming up his own business, like Micheal J Fox in the Frighteners?  And does he really need to hide under her bed while she’s sleeping?  Gross.)

We also probably all know that Huey Lewis sued Parker for ripping off his own 1984 hit, ‘I Want A New Drug.’  This song is pretty famous, but much less well known than the Ghostbusters song, so give it a listen if you haven’t heard it already.

hln

Back To The Future WeekOver the past week, the Overthinking It team has subjected the Back to the Future trilogy to a level of scrutiny it definitely deserves, pointing out a wide variety of paradoxes, inconsistencies, and unanswered questions regarding the series. Because these analyses have focused on the logical, metaphysical, and technological aspects of time-travel within the plot of the three BTTF movies, they haven’t touched on what I consider to be one of the most interesting puzzles in the series:The Huey Paradox.

The Huey Paradox is jointly produced by two features of the BTTF trilogy: the overwhelming number of references to Huey Lewis throughout Back to the Future, along with his near absence in the other two films in the series. Songs by Huey Lewis and the News are the first and last music that you hear in part one of the trilogy: Marty listens to “The Power of Love” as he skateboards to school (and again after getting a kiss from Jennifer under the clock tower), and “Back in Time” plays on his clock radio the morning after he returns from 1955 (and is reprised over the end credits). In addition, Huey Lewis himself makes a brief cameo as one of the high school teachers who deems Marty’s band “too loud” to play at the school dance, cutting off their instrumental noise-metal rendition of “The Power of Love” after about 30 seconds. Huey also reappears briefly as a fedora-wearing man who briefly stares at Marty’s “life preserver” puffy vest in 1950s Hill Valley.