A popular fad of the 80ies we already covered in our first episode was combining live videos with animation. However, while “Sledgehammer” was certainly setting a standard, the title of “best Music Video of the 1980’s” in my opinion goes to a different representative of the genre. One and a half billion views on the remastered version on YouTube alone tell me I’m not the only one to think so.

While there had been a (rather boring) video for A-Ha’s “Take On Me” before, Warner Brothers saw much more potential in the song and so a second version was created. Produced by rotoscoping 3000 frames over the span of 16 weeks the video manages to tell a thrilling story over the course of it’s four minutes, complete with a boy-meets-girl beginning, two menacing villains and a heart-stopping climax where the life of the hero hangs in the balance… Ok, I might exaggerate a bit, but decide for yourself: