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Jill

Pardon me?

Xeni Jardin at 10:34 am Wed, Jan 20, 2010

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swabyth.jpg

Our pal Robert Popper located this gem, complete with The Final Cut Transitions Time Forgot. So much to love about "Pardon Me," even the uploader's description: "Maxine Swaby performs the classic. An instant classic." The video's from 2001. Wonder what she's up to now.

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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Eurovision 2013: An American in London

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  • Brainspore

    That was unpardonable.

  • Anonymous

    you cannot unwatch this

  • Anonymous

    Estonia’s Got Talent.

  • Anonymous

    “Anyone remember the low-budget Christian pop videos on TBN?”

    You mean like this:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VPcPCwK_G0

    Keep watching for the breakdancing interlude…

  • Uncle_Max

    That dead stare in extreme close-up at 2:54 is the cherry on top of this delicious musical sundae.

  • Anonymous

    “Pardon me, I didn’t want to go. Pardon me, I want you to know…” Who is she hypothetically singing to, a bouncer?

  • nemofazer

    What were they thinking?

  • tumes

    When you think about it, American Idol has pretty much destroyed the chance that anyone will be motivated to make anything like this unironically. It’s a sad thing.

  • UncommonSense

    This looks even better if you close one eye and cover the other. That lady sure is shiny.

  • ill lich

    Any relation to Horace Swaby, a.k.a. the late great roots-reggae legend Augustus Pablo? (I don’t see this being improved with a melodica solo.)

  • Alan

    I guess the videographer thought it was time to move beyond cheesey wedding videos. Too bad he thought wrong.

  • SkullHyphy

    That’s an unflattering aspect ratio she’s wearing.

    • Anonymous

      That is the funniest thing I’ve read all day. You have won the internet.

    • Teller

      Copy that.

  • iguanoid

    I like the finger waggle for emphasis.

  • Anonymous

    this is a complete jan terri ripoff. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZ94vnmvPrw

  • Anonymous

    This hit goes way up there, right next to Dogg’s “Why Must I Cry?”

    gotta love when they show the piano playing a scale down while the music plays a scale up.

  • jasongnc

    I was like, Ha-Ha, and then on to the next article, until I caught myself singing it! argh. Must play this repeatedly for coworkers to infect their brains!

  • Cigarsam

    I think that abomination deserves a squid chaser.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RodOodcxEc

  • corn

    That made my daughter cry.

  • Anonymous

    Reminds me of something from our local Assyria Vision channel, we have videos like that all the time-especially the opening with the flowers, water, and instrumentals.

  • searconflex

    can. has. unicorn. chaser. ?

  • Anonymous

    Florence Foster Jenkins anyone? Especially the ‘i want you to know~~~~’ bit??

    I really want to unwatch this.

  • bornonbord

    Clearly no one sat through to the end.

    “Pardon Me sang by Maxine Swaby
    Written by Patrick McNeill
    Arranged by Tim Constable
    Video Edited and Direction by Patrick McNeill
    Copyright 2001 BrightFaceMedia
    brightfacemedia@hotmail.com”

    Anyone want to contact Patrick at brightfacemedia@hotmail.com?

  • lovelystrangeness

    I have never seen anyone express less emotion while singing. Her eyes stayed creepily empty.

  • jeligula

    Ouch. Thanks, Xeni. That’s 48 seconds of my life I’ll never get back. Didn’t expect us to watch the whole thing, did you? However, you have my pardon.

  • Anonymous

    It was a college project made 10 years ago while Mr McNeil was LEARNING about multimedia and making films. Mr Popper scammed him into letting him put it on YouTube. I guess you’d get the same reaction if someone found one of your junior school pictures and posted it as an example of your pathetic attempt at art! But what the hell, it’s entertained more people than anything done by those posting comments about it. And there WILL be a re-mix. AND there ARE ringtones available. All being well, it will be heard in holday camps, lifts and supermarkets all through the summer. And you’ll brag you were there at the start! And just for the record, Maxine IS a wonderful singer: how dumb to judge on a bad copy of a copy of a VHS.

  • Anonymous

    looks exactly like something that would be on Tim and Eric Awesome Show!
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yz3St5ywbuU

  • Jebediah

    Wow. If I taught editing, this would be a great example of doing it wrong. (Directing, cinematography, and non-zombie singing/performing, too.)
    Looks like they got the field order wrong, too.

  • Anonymous

    Oh man, someone needs to re-mix this.

  • Red Leatherman

    OK, watch this one and follow with Henrietta and Merna and you start the apocalypse.

  • blueelm

    why?

  • skeletoncityrepeater

    As bad as this is, there is a LOT worse out there. Anyone remember the low-budget Christian pop videos on TBN? I mean, as uninspired and depressing as this whole production is, at least it’s a song, with a melody, and nothing about it really stands out or seems incredibly laughable. It’s just a bad demo.

    • 3eff_jeff

      But they got absolutely everything wrong. The video quality is terrible–it looks like they used a VHS tape camera from the ’80s to make it and then royally screwed up the de-interlacing when creating the digital version. People have already commented on the transitions and zombie-like performances, but even on top of that, the mix is abominable.

      In a song like this, the vocalist is the centerpiece, instead she’s faint, muddled and sounds like a background singer. The backing music has a crisp, electronic feel to it. This probably means they recorded the background as direct-in or they sequenced all the background music, and it never touched air before your speakers. They neglected to even run a simple reverb filter over the two recordings when mixing, so they sound like they are in different rooms.

      They made every horrible rooky mistake in the book. A band just putting a mic in a room and running it into a four track is going to sound better. Normal crappy-demo practices are better than this.

      I’m using some heavy doses of Aurally delivered mind-bleach to clear that out of my head. (This a chaser for those who need something Heavy. Something really Heavy. Something that is Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing. Indeed.)

  • PapayaSF

    She should do a duet with Wing.

  • Anonymous

    I watched this once ironically, then found myself with a craving a second listen that was anything but ironic. It IS an instant classic.

    Paaaaaaaardon Meeeee…

  • Rellimz

    Her delivery reminds me of this classic “Kids in the Hall” video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zr3E94fVifk

    “I’m not Gonna Spread for no Roses”

  • phlavor

    A minute and a half in I realized she wasn’t supposed to be a stewardess.

  • splatocaster

    If you didn’t watch this the whole way through, you missed so very much.

  • miasm

    2 sodding years!