As an undergraduate, the first Radio-Television-Film class I took was a fairly simple one entitled "Introduction to Broadcasting," where we were unofficially initiated into the department by the dry humour of Dr. Propel. He was really big into pop quizzes, dramatically asking us to "take out...TWO...sheets of...papah!", and making sure we knew not only the proper names of various production equipment but how to spell the names as well.
I remember two moments in this class that surely took place on the same day and had to do with characteristics of video production. The first lesson dealt specifically with shot setup and how a camera tilts, pans, zooms, trucks and so on. Somehow Dr. Propel managed to associate these words with the video for Coolio's Fantastic Voyage. Here I am, a freshman, and foolishly thinking that this is what we do in broadcasting classes: watch videos. I was briefly familiar with the song at the time and sat watching for the first time something that I gathered was old news to most of the rest of the class. What did it prove? There is a strong feeling that Dr. Propel wanted us to see how the director of the video managed to include various camera angles and movements, as well as camera tricks, into the short film to convey the entertaining festivities shown. Propel loved the scene where Coolio opened the trunk of his car and an entire zip code worth of people, who we were led to believe had been locked inside, stand up, stretch, and then walk nonchalantly onto the beach.
The other moment I recall involved another video, this time a snippet of the 1993 Sylvester Stallone vehicle, Cliffhanger. Propel wanted us to understand the important role sounds and music play in television and film, and had us watch an early scene in which Stallone, on the side of a cliff, successfully tries to reach a rope attached to a rescue helicopter. He is pulled to safety but the woman with him misses and falls, presumably, to her death. Our first viewing of the scene was played normally. The second viewing was more or less the same five minutes as before, only this time Propel had edited the chorus of Tom Petty's Free Fallin' over the scene with the woman falling, giving the picture a slightly different (read: comical) mood.
Years later and working at the radio station, when Coolio's hit single popped up on playlists I couldn't help but smile and shake my head. Am I the only person to think of people falling off cliffs when I hear "slide, slide slippity slide, gonna wanna write her name in the sky?"
Yes, probably.
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Fantastic Voyage
(Alexander, Beavers, Craig, Dobbs, Ivey, McCain, Shelby, Shockley, Stokes, Wood)
Coolio
From the album It Takes a Thief
1994
Come on y'all let's take a ride
Don't ya say shit just get inside
It's time to take your ass on another kind of trip
Grab you gat with the extra clip
And close your eyes and hit the switch
We're going to a place where everybody kick it, kick it, kick it
Yea that's the ticket
Ain't no bloodin
ain't no crippin
ain't no fools in the part set trippin'
Everybody got a stack and it ain't no crack
And it really don't matter if you're white or black
I wanna take you there like the Staple Singers
Put something in the tank, and I know that I can bring ya
If ya can't take the heat get ya ass out the kitchen
We on a mission
Come along and ride on a fantastic voyage
Slide, slide slippity slide
I'm hittin switches on the block in a 65
Come along and ride on fantastic voyage
Slide slide hoo ride, ain't no valley low enough or mountain high
I'm tryin to find a place where I can live my life and
Maybe eat some steak with my beans and rice
A place where my kids can play outside without livin in fear of a drive by
And even if I get away from them drive by suckers
I still gotta worry about them snitch ass brothers
I keep on searchin and I keep on lookin
But fools are the same from Watts to Brooklyn
I try to keep my faith in my people
But sometimes my people be actin like they evil
You don't understand about runnin with a gang
Cause you don't bang
And you don't have to stand on the corner and slang
Cause you got your own thang
You can't help me if you can't help yourself
You better make a left
Come along and ride on a fantastic voyage
Slide, slide slippity slide
I do what I do just to survive
Come along and ride on a fantastic voyage
Slide slide hoo ride, that's why I pack my 45
Life is like a trip and then you die
Still trying to get a piece of that apple pie
Every game ain't the same cause the game still remain
Don't it seem kinda strange ain't a damn thing changed
If you don't work then you don't eat
And only down ass brothers can ride with me
Hip hop hop your 5 quickly down the block
Stay sucker free and shake the busters of your jock
You gotta have heart son if you wanna go
Watch this sweet chariot swing low
Ain't nobody crying ain't nobody dyin
Ain't nobody worryin everybody's tryin
Nothing from nothin leaves nothin
If you wanna have somethin you better stop frontin
What you gonna do when the 5 rolls by
You better be ready so you can ride
Come along and ride on a fantastic voyage
Slide slide slippity slide if you're living in the city it's do or die
Come along and ride on a fantastic voyage
Slide slide hoo ride you better be ready for the 5 rolls by
Just roll along (that's what you do)
Just roll along (that's right)
Just roll along (that's what you do)
Just roll along (that's right)
Do you want to ride with me
(REPEAT 9 TIMES)
