Napster Bad
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Money good. Napster bad. |
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A series of humorous Flash-animated shorts, produced in the years 2000-2001 by Bob Cesca from a group then known as Camp Chaos, satirizing Metallica and their MP3 sharing crackdown.
First, a little history. In 2000, Metallica sued the peer-to-peer service Napster, devoted specifically to sharing MP3 files, for having Metallica songs freely available on their network. The lawsuit ended up forcing Napster to ban hundreds of thousands of users, and eventually resulted in the Napster company going bankrupt.
The Napster Bad series caricatures Metallica--specifically, Lars Ulrich (mispronounced as ul-RICH) and James Hetfield--as a group of greedy primitives, upset about their fans giving them slightly smaller oodles of money than usual due to Napster. Other music celebrities, such as Dr Dre and Sheryl Crow, also get a lot of flak.
Understandably, these movies aren't very popular with most Metallica fans. And stay away if you don't like off-color humor, either.
The series includes:
- Napster Bad (May 2000) -- Lars and James rant at length (well, Lars does), first thanking their fans for making them rich, then dissing Napster users for downloading their songs, and warning them about the consequences.
- Metallicops (June 2000) -- A Pastiche of COPS, with Lars and James apprehending a music pirate in his house.
- Metallica Millionaire (July 2000) -- James Hetfield stars in Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, and his usual Dumb Muscle depiction is taken Up to Eleven.
- Good or Goblin? (July 2000) -- Nutty McShithead, the literally-named spokesman for "Recording Association for Popsong Economics", gives a PSA on the evils of Napster.
- Sue All The World (July 2000) -- Celebrities opposed to MP3 sharing gather to perform a Charity Motivation Song.
- Napster Dead? (August 2000) -- Lars, James and Nutty are celebrating Napster's shutdown in a beer-filled bathtub.
- Bizarro Napster Bad (March 2001) -- Metallicock, a band which happens to be very similar to Metallica, lays out their own grievances against Metallica, Napster, you and Your Mom.
- Black Comedy Rape: "Good or Goblin?", though it's just audible and not visible.
- Canned Laughter: Throughout "Metallica Millionaire".
- Charity Motivation Song: Parodied in "Sue All The World".
- Cluster F-Bomb: Lars.
- Dumb Muscle: Hetfield.
- Fun with Acronyms: Recording Association for Popsong Economics.
- Good Angel, Bad Angel: Hetfield has one, a demonic clone of Ulrich, in "Metallica Millionaire".
- Greed: The entire music industry is characterized as this.
- Hulk Speak: Hetfield.
- Like Is, Like, a Comma: Ulrich. His very first line is "Like, good afternoon!"
- New Media Are Evil: A lot of shorts feature the characters complaining about the threat that this new "interweb" invention poses to life at large.
- The Noseless: Everyone.
- Our Lawyers Advised This Trope: The original Flash version of the "Napster Bad" short opens with a disclaimer to save the authors from Metallica's legal wrath (the disclaimer is cut from the video version on the production team's current website though).
- Robotic Reveal: Regis in "Metallica Millionaire".
- Running Gag: Regis Philbin dancing to the WWTBaM ditty throughout "Metallica Millionaire".
- Scatting: In "Sue All The World":
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There are people stealin' our copyrighted tunes |
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- Scenery Censor: Lars's bodily details are covered up with foam throghout "Napster Dead?"
- Shout-Out: Hetfield's line "FIRE BAD!"
- Talking Poo: Nutty McShithead, the spokesman of the recording industry. Apparently also a Gasshole.
- Toilet Humor: Reaches its peak in "Good or Goblin?"