Parry Gripp, the Weird Al Yankovic of YouTube
Could Parry Gripp be the best thing that ever happened to YouTube? The man behind Buffy the Vampire Slayer's theme song is turning Internet-video disaster into visual punk rock.
Everything that makes YouTube a time-wasting creative desert is just fodder for Gripp's brilliant mind. Take "Young Girl Talking About Herself," which remixes clips of well, exactly that, paired with lyrics of a frenetic energy that reminds me of They Might Be Giants or Weird Al Yankovic.
"If this catchy tune were made into a real 3 minute song I'd download it," one commenter writes in a YouTube comment. But that misunderstands Gripp's genius. If he were just copying Yankovic's schtick, he'd do classic three-minute rock songs about the Internet, designed for radio play; or he'd just carelessly slap a bunch of viral-video references into a song, like Weezer.
How backwards! Three minutes might be right for archaic formats like the LP, but it's wrong for the Web. Most of Gripp's video-mashup songs are one minute or less in length — exactly right for the YouTube attention span. The joke doesn't get played out. It's over before you know it, and leaves you hungry for more — click, click, click. But enough words. Behold the brilliance of Parry Gripp!
"Shopping Penguin"
"Dramatic Chipmunk Hey"
"Spaghetti Cat (I Weep for You)"
"Hamster on a Piano (Eating Popcorn)"
"Cat Flushing a Toilet Music Video"
"This Is My Ringtone"
"Robot Hamster"
"Puppy Time"
"Do You Like Waffles?"