When I was young, this piece taught me how orchestral music could be used as onomatopoeic storytelling. It was a turning point in my musical education.
Imagine living out an entire life as a musician and composer (all self-taught by the way). You start out by getting threatened by your classmates for having a racially integrated band in the '50s and '60s. You have all these hits in the '60s, '70s and '80s, (you have all these "misses" in the public eyes as well). Most importantly you have a huge group of fans behind you. There's also a bunch of people against you. You continue to do your thing because you truly believe in it. As the years go by and rights are threatened, you stand up against the PMRC when you feel the need to (which is basically as soon as they step on your first amendment rights). A lot of time goes by. You rehearse and record with the fantastic Ensemble Modern in 1992 in various parts of Europe and receive at least two minutes of a standing ovation (see/hear the end of "G-Spot Tornado" off of "The Yellow Shark" for reference). You release this album on CD (The Yellow Shark) and it does very well, just like the concerts themselves. Imagine all this, and more. All of this leads up to December 4th, 1993 when you lose your battle with prostate cancer. Imagine you are Mr. Frank Vincent Zappa and you do all of this just to lead up to the uploader of this video misspelling your name and adding a "c" in there calling you "Franck" Zappa. Imagine that.
@@HakanTunaMuzik I was speculating on the motivation of the uploader, not the workings of any TH-cam algorithms, which I know nothing about. "Tittle" . . . is that the same as "title"? 🤔
I recently recalled seeing 200 Motels in 1971, in San Francisco, at a midnight show. 200 Motels is not my favorite Zappa work, but I always liked this animated section, and I figured somebody had probably put it on TH-cam.
yes, that actually happened just prior to the shooting of 200 motels. Zappa secretly recorded stuff that Jeff said in private and then made him say it in the movie. he got pissed off and quit.
the dental hygiene dilemma is what made me seek out a copy of 200 Motels available only as a bootleg vid back in the day! (saw 200 Motels as a "midnight movie" in a theater) it's HIP!
The animation is largely the work of the same group that brought us "The Point" in the same year. I love Zappa's music and love this film, but particularly wanted to comment on how much I miss this style of animation. After years of a "tradition of quality" (to deliberately invoke the French New Wave), these animators turned to a style that was intentionally sketchy and often messy. By contrast, everything these days is CGI, slick, polished - in other words, boring.
I believe Murakami-Wolf handled THE POINT's animation. (I worked with Jimmy Murakami about 7 years after this amazing-o-rama-toon.) Fantastic animation segment of a very inventive film.
First saw 200 Motels in a movie theater when it was released. The air was so thick with herbal smoke that you just had to breath and you would hallucinate. Watching this at the same time was transcendental.
From drawings by Cal Schenkel, who did a lot of FZ's cover art in those days - Grand Wazoo, Just Another Band From LA, Ruben and the Jets, etc... Thanks for posting this!
I love this so much! I saw the film at a midnight drive-in showing and bought the vinyl soon after. Then I slid into a heavy Christian phase and destroyed the album. Then I came out of the phase, and bought it again. Then I went into another heavy Christian phase and threw out the album. Then I recovered. Years later I bought the cassette. Then I .... well, you know. Fortunately, by now I was clever enough to simply put the tape away for awhile. Sure enough, after a bit I pulled it out again.
It's been so long since I've seen it, I forgot about this part of the movie; especially the fact that The Tubes ripped off (or "re-purposed"..?) that part at the end for What Do You Want From Life... (Most likely since the last time I saw 200 Motels was before The Tubes even existed)
Thanx for posting! This is a true classic. Alas, there is no dvd as far as I know...besides, the original tapes were sold and dubbed over...so much for the Extended Version :(
Black Sabbath heavy? I doubt anyone will argue that. Grand Funk? Certainly nothing like Sabbath but heavy for an American band at the time but Coven? Coven certainly wasn't heavy. I own their debut Witchcraft Destroys Minds and Reaps Souls and while their female vocalist Jinx Dawson sounded evil and the lyrics were of the occult variety the music was typical late '60s psych not far removed from the likes of Jefferson Airplane.
@@likwidflame TH-cam is the only place where you can expect a reply to a comment you wrote 14 years ago. Well, Facebook, sorta, too, but only if you nudge people by reposting. :)
Alex Rees Indeed. The album version (and a later scene in the movie IIRC) mentions it's him dressed up like Jim Pons and the character on TV is Billy the Mountain dressed up as Donovan.
your assuming and its true but many people have dental probs for other reasons than drugs like family finances and lack of health bens I think your video is mean and insensitive !!!
why attack the beatles and donovan far better people and musicians and wiser than Zappa, this is jargon, his attitude is sickening to me. his humor is irritating to me beyond anything. i don't like his guitar solos.and in the end the notes are just pretentious sounding to me. there is no soul to it. it's empty. it's also boring as hell
jangohump well, the tone on Sexual Harassment is horrendous, BUT the melody line is extremely cool. And as I heard from Terry Bozzio, that was Frank... A lot of incredible players played with him, but I'll warn you now, as a singing drummer, he'll probably be over your head if you don't play at all or in a very rudimentary manner. This is why Valley Girl was a hit song and lots more interesting, adept things weren't "radio friendly." Being objective, Ringo has a great right hand. A REALLY good one. His hands look great. "Help!" those fast 8ths using a single hand ("snake arm") are a b*tch. Trust me. However, his musical ability is WAY below the drummers Zappa hired. That's a fact. I'm not a rabid fan of either one. I know when I was a younger player, Zappa was well over my head. Most of it still is, as was Rush (who I saw 4x). For the same reason. It's friggin hard to play. The Beatles have never struck me as particularly difficult. Not to say this is bad or that it doesn't work. For all 8,500 drums on Peart's kit and his writing every note down, he's not the most feeling drummer out there, and in fact paid Steve Smith's teacher, Freddie Gruber, to expand his feeling on drums. For all that, Ringo is still the best KNOWN and BEST PAID. Frank is a smart guy. I don't agree with many things, but he was no fool. He constructed music in a very odd way. Complicated as hell, and got the world's most adept players to do it, too. I can't imagine Terry Bozzio in the Beatles (complex drummers tend to sound bored doing straight ahead parts), and Ringo couldn't do the crazy Frank stuff, I don't think. I'm too young for the Beatles when they were new, tho. So, it's a thing you get attached to as a teenager. However, to say something's easy...I've found that can change sitting down to play it verbatim. I get asked to play ANYTHING at jam nite. And if I don't know it or guess the wrong part, I need to change it and fix it real time, too. I've been playing drums 9 or 10 years. Great players ask me to play, which is cool. I've been paid to play drums under an hour (didn't move my kit, either) more than a lot of people make all day long. I'm not quite at the 25 years playing point where I know exactly how hard something is on drums at a listen. I'm there on.voice, so I could do that easily on vox. Zappa is very complicated to play. I know that because guys playing drums over 50.years tell me so. I've never heard anyone say that about the Beatles or Donovan, tho. Simplicity has its place. I tend to like simple, as I'm no Gene Krupa and I have a knack for happily playing simple drum lines with a lot of feel. Again, keep the chicks dancing and you'll always get paid. I don't sound bored playing simple. Namely because that's most of what I know, lol.
The Beatles...better people? John Lennon cheated on his first wife numerous times and left her for Yoko while THEY WERE STILL MARRIED. Let's see the Beatles play 'Duke of Prunes' or King Kong'. Let's furthermore see George play in any of the odd time signatures Zappa did, without the use of twelve-tone theory.
@@gloriboigaming7583 Thank you. After some refection, there are some things about my comment that are just not quite right. Zappa WAS a notorious megalomaniac and control freak while at the same time being a brilliant composer. However, he took credit for any writing that his first band did and continued to deny them royalties for many years afterwards. George should NEVER be attacked as in my comment as he was the first Beatle to experiment with a truly odd song ('Only a Northern Song'), not to mention being a very nice man who simply wanted to be a gardener. George's solo output is quite possibly the most quirky of all the Beatles, at least in the seventies.
@@synthonaplinth5980 George Harrison's Within And Without You proceeded Only a Northern Song by a couple of years, I believe, if you're talking about truly experimental-y music explorations. Love those Harrison pieces.
When I was young, this piece taught me how orchestral music could be used as onomatopoeic storytelling. It was a turning point in my musical education.
Zappa didnt need drugs.
This beats the intestines out of the Yellow Submarine "When I'm 64" sequence.
And Adult Swiim's entire lineup.
The orchestration on this is pure genius!
Imagine living out an entire life as a musician and composer (all self-taught by the way). You start out by getting threatened by your classmates for having a racially integrated band in the '50s and '60s. You have all these hits in the '60s, '70s and '80s, (you have all these "misses" in the public eyes as well). Most importantly you have a huge group of fans behind you. There's also a bunch of people against you. You continue to do your thing because you truly believe in it. As the years go by and rights are threatened, you stand up against the PMRC when you feel the need to (which is basically as soon as they step on your first amendment rights). A lot of time goes by. You rehearse and record with the fantastic Ensemble Modern in 1992 in various parts of Europe and receive at least two minutes of a standing ovation (see/hear the end of "G-Spot Tornado" off of "The Yellow Shark" for reference). You release this album on CD (The Yellow Shark) and it does very well, just like the concerts themselves. Imagine all this, and more. All of this leads up to December 4th, 1993 when you lose your battle with prostate cancer. Imagine you are Mr. Frank Vincent Zappa and you do all of this just to lead up to the uploader of this video misspelling your name and adding a "c" in there calling you "Franck" Zappa. Imagine that.
I imagined it was spelled wrong to get it past the Facebook copyright infringement detection.
@@HakanTunaMuzik I was speculating on the motivation of the uploader, not the workings of any TH-cam algorithms, which I know nothing about.
"Tittle" . . . is that the same as "title"? 🤔
"I don't want to be remembered. People like George Bush want to be remembered." - Frank Zappa
This comment really captures the essence of Frank Zappa
I recently recalled seeing 200 Motels in 1971, in San Francisco, at a midnight show. 200 Motels is not my favorite Zappa work, but I always liked this animated section, and I figured somebody had probably put it on TH-cam.
yes, that actually happened just prior to the shooting of 200 motels. Zappa secretly recorded stuff that Jeff said in private and then made him say it in the movie. he got pissed off and quit.
I loved this all my life...i remember Terry Gilliam.
Phytonesc in vision
I'M STEALING THE ROOOOM!!!
the dental hygiene dilemma is what made me seek out a copy of 200 Motels available only as a bootleg vid back in the day! (saw 200 Motels as a "midnight movie" in a theater) it's HIP!
It is quite possible for several realities to exist simultaneously.
The animation is largely the work of the same group that brought us "The Point" in the same year. I love Zappa's music and love this film, but particularly wanted to comment on how much I miss this style of animation. After years of a "tradition of quality" (to deliberately invoke the French New Wave), these animators turned to a style that was intentionally sketchy and often messy. By contrast, everything these days is CGI, slick, polished - in other words, boring.
Glad to learn that info, it reminds me more of 'Dirty Duck', but I see some similarity to 'The Point', also. I miss this style of animation, too.
I can't agree with you more sir!
Wasn't Cal Shenkel involved?
I believe Murakami-Wolf handled THE POINT's animation. (I worked with Jimmy Murakami about 7 years after this amazing-o-rama-toon.) Fantastic animation segment of a very inventive film.
@@RSEFX They were also responsible for producing 'The Mouse and His Child'.
I'm Stealing the Room! I'M STEALING THE ROOM!!!!!!
I'm the 420th like, and this is no different from modern Internet humor.
First saw 200 Motels in a movie theater when it was released. The air was so thick with herbal smoke that you just had to breath and you would hallucinate. Watching this at the same time was transcendental.
This made so much more sense to me when I was trippin'.
From drawings by Cal Schenkel, who did a lot of FZ's cover art in those days - Grand Wazoo, Just Another Band From LA, Ruben and the Jets, etc...
Thanks for posting this!
I love this so much! I saw the film at a midnight drive-in showing and bought the vinyl soon after. Then I slid into a heavy Christian phase and destroyed the album. Then I came out of the phase, and bought it again. Then I went into another heavy Christian phase and threw out the album. Then I recovered. Years later I bought the cassette. Then I .... well, you know. Fortunately, by now I was clever enough to simply put the tape away for awhile. Sure enough, after a bit I pulled it out again.
Give King Crimson a hug.
So you recovered?
It's been so long since I've seen it, I forgot about this part of the movie; especially the fact that The Tubes ripped off (or "re-purposed"..?) that part at the end for What Do You Want From Life... (Most likely since the last time I saw 200 Motels was before The Tubes even existed)
Thanx for posting! This is a true classic. Alas, there is no dvd as far as I know...besides, the original tapes were sold and dubbed over...so much for the Extended Version :(
oh man this is such a good stuff. i miss frank zappa a lot..
Is anyone else scared by that duck at the end?
"Listen to me! Don't rip off the towels, Jeff!"
Yes, boys and girls, being on the road 9 months out of the year is not conducive to a clean bill of mental health.
best part of the movie.
WHAT CAN I SAY ABOUT THIS ELIXIR?
WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!
One of my favorite parts of 200 Motels, the other being "Dance of the Rock and Roll Interviewers"
Black Sabbath heavy? I doubt anyone will argue that. Grand Funk? Certainly nothing like Sabbath but heavy for an American band at the time but Coven? Coven certainly wasn't heavy. I own their debut Witchcraft Destroys Minds and Reaps Souls and while their female vocalist Jinx Dawson sounded evil and the lyrics were of the occult variety the music was typical late '60s psych not far removed from the likes of Jefferson Airplane.
This is one of the most specific and obscure things I've ever read.
I got to get myself some of that stuff
5:44 STILL scares the living shit out of me.
What are people doing spelling his name "Franck." Am I missing something?
They're setting up for the next generation's Mandela effect.
@@acousvnt I could have had a child by now who I'd consider the perfect age to start listening to Zappa since I wrote this comment. Bravo sir!!
@@likwidflame TH-cam is the only place where you can expect a reply to a comment you wrote 14 years ago. Well, Facebook, sorta, too, but only if you nudge people by reposting. :)
jim pons is a goated voice actor
Anyone else starting to question whether or not Frank really didn't do drugs?
What did I just take! What did you put in my tea???!!!!*!&"???
I suspect Terry Gilliam based all his Python animation on this sequence.
somewhat based on when jeff simmons was leaving the mothers
wait…what happened to Schoolhouse Rock
I watched this with my friends while we were baked. Best trip ever.
J P right up til 5:44, then...
@comicwzrd Murakami Wolf is basically a studio run by 2 people, Jim Murakami and Fred Wolf
WHAT CAN I SAY ABOUT THIS ELIXIR!?
I love this
I'd like to have a word with you about you're SOUL !!
una obra de arte
!! Looks like Franck Zappa on a BAD ACID TRIP !!
my maestro.
so clever!
This from the movie mainly live action Frank Zappa movie 200 motels. Animation done by Murakami Wolfe (I believe.)
Who needs drugs? This is a lot cheaper.
BRAIN EXPLODED
Then I won't be small ha ha ha
possums love the old Zappa stuff (200 possum motels)
What can I say about this elixir
there may be none; I don't put much stock in my memory+
Well it said "BEER" on it.
yup!
he's just mad about saffron...
correct me if i'm wrong, is the small devil guy in the purple helmet supposed to be studebaker hoch?
Alex Rees
Indeed. The album version (and a later scene in the movie IIRC) mentions it's him dressed up like Jim Pons and the character on TV is Billy the Mountain dressed up as Donovan.
I remember the song but not this cartoon
well there are bootlegs, if thats what you mean
but they are trying to make a actual better version DVD
@stargate121 Gilliam was already making animations before this piece by Cal Schenkel came out.
yo dat ginger be trippin an shi
@thepantweaver Ask Walt Disney...he'll be back soon!!!
What the deuce??
@macistbassist Which one?
Does this count as a music video?
Benjamin Crookston Technically, yes!
From the movie "200 Motels"
מופרע לגמרי
Haven't seen this in like 20 years. Hilarious!! I just posted my song about dental hygienists, but it's not this funny.
@thepantweaver
Or Big Bird at exactly 2:30
Really? I've never seen any other version of this.
Inspiration alert: th-cam.com/video/zab-zdoyB8M/w-d-xo.html
How did they get away with using Donald Duck?
Maybe they labeled it as satire
200 Motels... dag nabit you whippersnappers
your assuming and its true but many people have dental probs for other reasons than drugs like family finances and lack of health bens I think your video is mean and insensitive !!!
Wack
why attack the beatles and donovan far better people and musicians and wiser than Zappa, this is jargon, his attitude is sickening to me. his humor is irritating to me beyond anything. i don't like his guitar solos.and in the end the notes are just pretentious sounding to me. there is no soul to it. it's empty. it's also boring as hell
jangohump well, the tone on Sexual Harassment is horrendous, BUT the melody line is extremely cool. And as I heard from Terry Bozzio, that was Frank...
A lot of incredible players played with him, but I'll warn you now, as a singing drummer, he'll probably be over your head if you don't play at all or in a very rudimentary manner. This is why Valley Girl was a hit song and lots more interesting, adept things weren't "radio friendly."
Being objective, Ringo has a great right hand. A REALLY good one. His hands look great. "Help!" those fast 8ths using a single hand ("snake arm") are a b*tch. Trust me.
However, his musical ability is WAY below the drummers Zappa hired. That's a fact. I'm not a rabid fan of either one. I know when I was a younger player, Zappa was well over my head. Most of it still is, as was Rush (who I saw 4x). For the same reason. It's friggin hard to play.
The Beatles have never struck me as particularly difficult. Not to say this is bad or that it doesn't work.
For all 8,500 drums on Peart's kit and his writing every note down, he's not the most feeling drummer out there, and in fact paid Steve Smith's teacher, Freddie Gruber, to expand his feeling on drums.
For all that, Ringo is still the best KNOWN and BEST PAID.
Frank is a smart guy. I don't agree with many things, but he was no fool. He constructed music in a very odd way. Complicated as hell, and got the world's most adept players to do it, too. I can't imagine Terry Bozzio in the Beatles (complex drummers tend to sound bored doing straight ahead parts), and Ringo couldn't do the crazy Frank stuff, I don't think.
I'm too young for the Beatles when they were new, tho. So, it's a thing you get attached to as a teenager.
However, to say something's easy...I've found that can change sitting down to play it verbatim. I get asked to play ANYTHING at jam nite. And if I don't know it or guess the wrong part, I need to change it and fix it real time, too. I've been playing drums 9 or 10 years. Great players ask me to play, which is cool. I've been paid to play drums under an hour (didn't move my kit, either) more than a lot of people make all day long. I'm not quite at the 25 years playing point where I know exactly how hard something is on drums at a listen. I'm there on.voice, so I could do that easily on vox.
Zappa is very complicated to play. I know that because guys playing drums over 50.years tell me so. I've never heard anyone say that about the Beatles or Donovan, tho. Simplicity has its place. I tend to like simple, as I'm no Gene Krupa and I have a knack for happily playing simple drum lines with a lot of feel. Again, keep the chicks dancing and you'll always get paid. I don't sound bored playing simple. Namely because that's most of what I know, lol.
The Beatles...better people? John Lennon cheated on his first wife numerous times and left her for Yoko while THEY WERE STILL MARRIED. Let's see the Beatles play 'Duke of Prunes' or King Kong'. Let's furthermore see George play in any of the odd time signatures Zappa did, without the use of twelve-tone theory.
@@synthonaplinth5980 underrated comment
@@gloriboigaming7583 Thank you. After some refection, there are some things about my comment that are just not quite right. Zappa WAS a notorious megalomaniac and control freak while at the same time being a brilliant composer. However, he took credit for any writing that his first band did and continued to deny them royalties for many years afterwards. George should NEVER be attacked as in my comment as he was the first Beatle to experiment with a truly odd song ('Only a Northern Song'), not to mention being a very nice man who simply wanted to be a gardener. George's solo output is quite possibly the most quirky of all the Beatles, at least in the seventies.
@@synthonaplinth5980 George Harrison's Within And Without You proceeded Only a Northern Song by a couple of years, I believe, if you're talking about truly experimental-y music explorations. Love those Harrison pieces.