Blasting in From the Past!
I’ve been going through some of my first YouTube videos, from 2006, while preparing for the big 20th anniversary of the Pachelbel Rant this November, and this one from my Life as a Comic series really caught my attention. It’s about doing topical material, and the topical material of July 2006? The World Cup, war in the Middle East, and judging a country’s national team by the current leader of its country!
The connections to today’s current events were so strong that I did a short video about the episode—and that was before our stupid president got involved in the whole red card business and every other country in the world decided to root against us!
There’s even an Iran connection, which I didn’t feature in the above video because it took a little more setup than a 1–2 minute social media video allows. The bit starts with the fact that one of the American announcers mentions that the Iranian president was a Holocaust denier while the team is playing near the site of a WWII concentration camp (the World Cup was hosted by Germany in 2006). So the announcer basically implies that the whole Iranian national team are Holocaust deniers because their current president is an idiot. Kind of unfair.
I go on to speculate what would happen if our national team was judged by our then-current president George W. Bush, which is the bit I included. And I thought this 20-year-old topical material was relevant before Trump got involved in the red card suspension controversy, which ensured that the U.S. team would be judged by our current idiotic president.
The entire episode from 2006 is still on YouTube, but it’s unlisted because I guess I’m a little self-conscious about having material on my channel that’s older than half the people on YouTube. But it’s still there, and if you wanna check it out I’ll embed it below.
Meanwhile, mark your calendars for Monday, November 23, which is the big 20th Anniversary Show for the Pachelbel Rant. It’s going to be at the beautiful Caveat theater in NYC and will be live-streamed across the globe! Watch from anywhere!
And if you have any Pachelbel Rant stories or memories, please share! The popularity of the Rant has led to so many cool connections and opportunities, and it’s found its way into so many unexpected places I’d love to share as many as I can in the anniversary show.
Plus I’ll be posting more stuff from my first year on YouTube. Though it makes me feel old I’m grateful the material has reached people and made them laugh.
Here’s the full “Topical” episode in all of its 320×240 pixel glory! (YouTube videos were tiny in those days 😜)