Universal Republic Records
Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, and Jorma Taccone, collectively known as The Lonely Island, rose to fame on “Saturday Night Live” (SNL). They introduced the SNL Digital Short era, a new phase in the late-night sketch comedy series. Their music video “Lazy Sunday” became an early YouTube sensation before official SNL sketches were uploaded to the platform. This success put pressure on The Lonely Island to consistently produce hilarious pre-recorded segments each week during their stint on the show.
Their most successful sketches were typically music videos featuring funny renditions of rap or R&B songs. The trio called this “frapping” – a blend of fake and rapping. Their popular sketches ranged from the risqué holiday skit “D**k in a Box” with Justin Timberlake to “Jack Sparrow,” a cinema-inspired bit featuring Michael Bolton from “Office Space.” However, there’s one music video they wish they had filmed as an SNL Digital Short, even though it would have been an extravagant production.
The song that they regret not turning into a video was actually created for this very purpose.
The Lonely Island’s Expensive Trip to Japan That Never Happened
Universal Records
The Lonely Island’s second album, “Turtleneck & Chain,” features a song titled “Japan.” The lyrics are a tongue-in-cheek half-rap about being in Japan, written solely to force the record label to fund an extravagant music video. The lyrics are as follows:
We’re three cool white friends in Japan (Japan!)
We’ve never been to Japan
So we wrote a song about the three of us in Japan
And our label has to pay for it
On a recent episode of The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast, the trio answered fan questions. One fan asked if there were any songs they wished they could have turned into music videos. All three members agreed that “Japan” was the one that got away because they wanted to film the exorbitantly expensive video that the song described.
The Japan Adventure That Would Have Been Televised Worldwide
Focus Features
The song “Japan” mentions some expensive activities, like staying at the hotel from “Lost in Translation,” eating at the priciest sushi restaurant, and visiting Tokyo Disneyland. There was also a quick detour to Hawaii for a single shot, just because the label would have to foot the bill. The song even takes a bizarre turn where they decide to get extremely drunk and buy used underwear from a vending machine. They would have also thrown Pokémon, a rental car, and a bunch of Yen into a river, literally throwing away money. You can listen to all their planned exploits in the full song:
Surprisingly, Universal Records, The Lonely Island’s record label, was willing to fund the music video. Schaffer said, “The craziest part is when we finished the song and turned it in the album, the head of the label was like, ‘Let’s do it. Let’s make that happen.'”
So why didn’t the “Japan” music video materialize? Schaffer explained that they were too occupied with SNL. Samberg and Taccone echoed, “We blew it.” However, Samberg admitted that they didn’t fully comprehend what being busy meant back then: “We’ve also talked about us probably having the conversation of like, ‘We’re just too busy,’ and now that we have kids, being like, ‘We weren’t! We really should have done it.'”
But The Lonely Island hasn’t hung up their hats yet. A trip to Japan may still be in the cards.
Credit: www.slashfilm.com
