Saturday, June 16, 2012

Shots! Shots! Shotsshotsshots!


Once when I was back in high school, my friends and I were watching some kind of cheesy show on TV that featured lots of women in bikinis. It was on regular TV, so that's as risque as it got, though I do believe it played at 11 o'clock or later.

Anyway, it was cheesy in all the ways you might expect a show like this to be cheesy, but the cheesiest thing about it was one of the songs they used to accompany all the fast-zoom footage of these women prancing around on the beach. I still remember it to this day. It went something like this:

"Ahhhhhh bikini! Ah ah bikini! Bikini! Bikini! Ah ah bikini!"

The thing that made us laugh so hard was that it was just so nakedly about the thing it was supposed to be about. There was no subtlety or subtext. It wasn't a Beach Boys song or some other ditty that alluded to the love of the female form with metaphors or innuendos. It was just a song about bikinis -- without any other lyrics than the word "bikini." And, I suppose, the word "ah."

Whichever musical genius composed this song may have written some actual lyrics, but that portion of the song was not needed or used in this context. It was just a 15-second loop of the song that played at least a couple times during the show, the words chanted by what sounded like some really shallow, really handsome dudes. We laughed hysterically.

The song they play in the ads for That's My Boy reminded me of this.

You know, the one that goes "Shots! Shots! Shotsshotsshots!"

I guess it's an actual song people know about from an actual group people know about. Looking it up, I see that the song is actually called "Shots," and it is by LMFAO, known primarily for "Party Rock Anthem." (In this case, Lil Jon is also featured.)

What makes me laugh is that it's used in the same on-the-nose way as "The Bikini Song" from that TV show about bikinis back in the early 1990s. In the same way that "The Bikini Song" ensures you that you will be getting plenty of women in bikinis, "Shots" ensures you that this movie will contain plenty of people pounding shots of alcohol, preferably in a strip club.

If you don't already know that by looking at this movie, have you been paying attention?

The movie is really overplaying its hand here. Most Adam Sandler movies -- especially those that are rated at least PG-13, which is probably all of them -- are guaranteed to bring the bawdy humor. Frat boys needn't worry that there's enough there to make them laugh, especially if they have low standards for humor, and they certainly needn't worry that there will be plenty of men doing bad things, with women who are either scantily clad or not clad at all.

So a song called "Shots" -- whose primary identifiable lyrics are "Shots! Shots! Shotsshotsshots!" -- is just overkill.

So no, even though they've conveniently released That's My Boy just before Father's Day, I will not be seeing it this weekend.

In fact, I may not be going out to the movies at all, even though my wife has urged me to go. Last year on my first Father's Day as a father, I saw X-Men: First Class, and it felt like a bit of a treat to be able to go. Now that my son is a year older and theoretically a year more manageable, getting out to the movies isn't such a novelty.

So instead, I'm going to stay in and watch a movie. That's right, late Sunday afternoon, after my son wakes up from his nap, my wife is going to take him out for about two hours. And I'm going to sit at home and watch something -- not sure what yet -- on my couch. In the middle of the day, without anyone bothering me, and totally of my own choosing.

Now that's a real novelty.

Happy Father's Day to you, if you happen to be a father as well.

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