Friday Video Classix (ULTIMATE EDITION)

Now I’ve claimed “best video ever” status for about thirteen different things over the years but there is only one clip that ever reduced me to a gibbering wreck on the floor after seeing it for the first time. This randomly appeared on Channel V once about five years ago and I legitimately spent twenty minutes on the floor dying in the arse. Now the moment I’ve been waiting for since the day YouTube opened has arrived. Ladies and Gentlemen, we present you the EPIC clip that is The Skatt Brothers - Life At The Outpost.



Suffice to say that any song who’s video features leathered up cowboys with patently false looking moustaches doing choreographed routines in something resembling a fetish club whilst singing a chorus of “give your love to a cowboy may, he’s gonna love you hard as he can” does not invite in-depth analysis. We advise you to watch it in full for the true earth shattering glory and “oh my god how did they keep a straight face” moments but below are a few frames selected to highlight the unintentional hillarity within,


First things first anything that opens with a room full of cowboys thrusting their pelvises at the screen is either going to be extremely disturbing/arousing or greatly amusing. The fact that they were clearly meant to some sort of Chippendale figures who would make the ladies of the world tear their pants off simultaneously but actually come across as the rejected opening act at the Blue Oyster Bar is what makes it.

You know what they really need to get them over with the ladies? A middle aged guy with an unconvincing mo and a wifebeater shirt who looks like a perverted PE teacher.


And here he is. Ladies, calm thyselves.


Not only do you get Mr. Johnson the massive primary school deve but you also get this slightly looking terrified guy wearing the worst fake facial hair since Governor Muttonchops in The Olden Days.


And as an added bonus this terrifying fellow who is either doing the Haka or simulating man’s first contact with a woman after 20 years in prison.


If that lineup of hot man meat isn’t enough for you there’s a whole line of them. The good news is that despite there apparently being 72 people in the band this song went gold in Australia and kept them all in leathers and amyl for weeks afterwards.


If you can explain what’s going on in this sequence please write in a postcard to the usual address. My money’s that they shit the producer of the video up the wall somehow and he decided to tell them it was some sort of high-concept art piece when he was really just trying to make them look like clowns.


This was the exact bit in my first viewing of this clip that I switched from shocked amazement to actual falling over and struggling to breathe because I was laughing so hard. You may not have the same reaction but you’re all broadbanded up internet freaks with access to disgraceful material 24/7 where at the time I was an innocent child who had nary but a 56k modem and a 200mb a month limit to be corrupted with.


Then in an attempt to lower the camp level of the clip to somewhere between Julian Clary and the Thorpedo they introduce a tarty young lass riding on the back of an eager male in a suggestive manner. Absolutely nobody anywhere in the world is fooled.


Even when she whips the baps out for an airing nobody seems too keen.


Mainly because they’re pulling off (so to speak) more expertly choreographed manoeuvres at the bar. Note the always appealing shirtless, jeans with 80’s trainers look.


Shirtless pool. Look at their big rods etc…


And feel the baritone stylings of the guy who looks like a topless army drill sergeant. Incidentally any gags surrounding the fact that the band are the “Skat” brothers will not be entered into - contrary to popular belief this is a family site and you can look it up yourself.


Finally we’re drawn to a close with the lead singer - clearly the only person to come out of the clip with his dignity even nearly intact - humping the bar from behind while the boys continue their line dancing routines in the background. And that, sadly, is all she wrote.


Except for this guy. Surely just some teenage runaway that they drugged up on Sunset Strip and forced into joining the band at gunpoint.

Your theories on what in god’s name was happening in this video in the comments please. I’m going for the horrifically misjudged pitch to middle aged women angle.