First Thursday of February here on FLASHBack, so that means two things. One, we're going First-Class, looking at an artist whose repeated contributions helped shaped the Flash Animation Genre, and two, Valentine's Day is just a little over a week away, and unlike last year, I'm not going to let it sneak up on me to where I'm all the way through a post about a Flash series mocking Metallica's stance against file sharing before I realize I need to throw in a love themed animation. So naturally, when it comes to matters of love, the obvious choice in this case is Weird Al, who often sings about love especially in his original songs, and was a hugely popular choice for Flash soundtracks.
The first entry we're going to look at today isn't an animation, but instead an interactive valentines day card maker by Shafer Animations that was uploaded to Albino Blacksheep for Valentines Day 2006. This is the exact type of content that doesn't translate well to being video archived and is going to be hard to access after the death of Flash at the end of this year, but I can at least give a screenshot of the kind of output you could make with this thing. The soundtrack chosen to back this widget is Weird Al's accordion-backed polka medley Hooked On Polkas from his 1985 album Dare to Be Stupid. This medley features clips from such love themed songs such as "What's Love Got to Do With It?" originally by Tina Turner, "Method of Modern Love" by Hall & Oates (Fun fact: Daryl Hall and I share the same junior high school chorus teacher), and "Owner of a Lonely Heart" by Yes. (It also has a clip from the song I lost my virginity to, which I will not specify as to keep some air of mystery about myself.)
But ultimately, FLASHBack isn't about interactive Flash widgets, it's about Animations, and long before Weird Al was officially commissioning Flash Artists to make music videos for him, fans were doing it out of their love for his music. Such as the 2006 video that R. Wappin made for Al's 11+ minute ballad about a man's love for his mother, his love for his snorkel, his love of a woman bold enough to tell him "You've got weasels on your face," his love for the city of Albuquerque, and most importantly [spoilers] his anti-love for sauerkraut. Released on Weird Al's 1999 album Running With Scissors, there was no way that Yankovic's Sony Records imprint, Volcano Records, ever would have footed the bill for a music video for Albuquerque, as there was 0% chance it ever would have seen any airplay on Total Request Live -era MTV. Wappin's Flash steps in to fill this void.
Now not everyone is so lucky as to meet the girl of their dreams outside of a donut shop that's out of everything (and I seriously mean everything -- if you ever get the chance to see His Weirdness perform Albuquerque live, be prepared for him to rattle off about another twenty varieties that didn't make the studio cut -- I'm fairly sure he improvises them on the spot just to mess with the superfans who actually have the song memorized and try to sing along). For some people, it can be a long and involved process to find out if you're meant to be with someone romantically. One common starting point is comparing astrological signs for compatibility. Fortunately Al's Running With Scissors album also contains the definitive word on astrology, in the form of a song titled "That's Your Horoscope For Today". In May of 2006, this song was given a fan music video by long-time Mr. Weebl collaborator ZekeySpaceyLizard (Content Warning: Rapidly Flashing Text). (The same song was also used in a Homestuck AMV by KatRaccoon of "Behind the GIFs" fame, and while I have no idea if Flash was used for making this AMV or not, Homestuck counts as Flash-adjacent content at the very least, so I'm including it.)
Of course, not everything has to be about romantic love, sometimes love can be the joy brought by a shop full of tools. In February of 2007, Lennox put together a fan music video for the song Hardware Store from Yankovic's 2003 album Poodle Hat. In an impressive level of attention to detail (but not nearly as impressive as the fact that Al sings this all in one breath), at the climax of the song Lennox makes sure to include: allen wrenches, gerbil feeders, toilet seats, electric heaters, trash compactors, juice extractor, shower rods and water meters, walkie-talkies, copper wires, safety goggles, radial tires, BB pellets, rubber mallets, fans and dehumidifiers, picture hangers, paper cutters, waffle irons, window shutters, paint removers, window louvres, masking tape and plastic gutters, kitchen faucets, folding tables, weather stripping, jumper cables, hooks and tackle, grout and spackle, power foggers, spoons and ladles, pesticides for fumigation, high-performance lubrication, metal roofing, water proofing, multi-purpose insulation, air compressors, brass connectors, wrecking chisels, smoke detectors, tire gauges, hamster cages, thermostats and bug deflectors, trailer hitch demagnetizers, automatic circumcisers, tennis rackets, angle brackets, Duracells and Energizers, soffit panels, circuit breakers, vacuum cleaners, coffee makers, calculators, generators, matching salt and pepper shakers.
So you may ask yourself, why were they selling hamster cages at the hardware store, and why would Al be excited about that? This brings us to the final type of love that I want to cover today, the love between a man and a small rodent. Wait, that makes it sound like I'm talking about Richard Gere. Let me rephrase: the pure innocent love between a man and his pet. At one point His Weirdness had a pet hamster named Harvey that he made a short song about, and Albino Blacksheep user UncleTom made an animation for. (Link goes to the original Flash, as I can't find a video conversion of this and am too behind schedule on this post to convert one myself.)
Next Week on FLASHBack, more on the theme of love.