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Virusalert

Video screenshot

Song: Virus Alert

Running Time: 3:46

Year: 2005

Album: Straight Outta Lynwood

Parody of: Style parody of Sparks (esp. "This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us", "Amateur Hour", "Barbecutie", "Lost and Found", "At Home, At Work, At Play", "Something for the Girl with Everything", "Achoo", "Get in the Swing")

Genre: Art rock

Guitar tuning: E standard

Lyrics: Lyrics

Video: Watch Here

Download/Listen:

Forum: Forum Discussion Page

Effects of the Virus[]

  • Translating all of someone's documents into Swahili
  • Making someone's television record Gigli
  • Neuter someone's pets
  • Giving someone's laundry static cling
  • Making someone's computer screen freeze (literally)
  • Erasing the Easter eggs of someone's DVDs
  • Erasing someone's hard drive and back-ups (as well as those of the person's relation)
  • Peeling the paint off someone's walls
  • Making someone's keyboard "all sticky"
  • Giving someone's poodle a hickey
  • Investing someone's cash in stock in Euro-Disney
  • Tying someone's phone and making prank long distance calls
  • Setting someone's clock[s] back an hour
  • Start clogging someone's shower
  • Deciding to give someone a permanent wedgie
  • Legally change someone's name to "Reggie"
  • "Mess up" the pH balance in someone's pool
  • Melting the face off someone's skull
  • Making someone's iPod only play Jethro Tull's music
  • Telling knock-knock jokes while someone's trying to sleep
  • Making someone physically attracted to sheep
  • Stealing someone's identity and credit-cards
  • Buying someone a warehouse full of pink leotards
  • Causing a major rift in time and space
  • Leaving a bunch of Twinkie wrappers "all over the place"
  • Making someone wish they had never been born
  • Emailing someone's grandma all of their porn

Solution to the Virus[]

  • Turn off the computer (make sure it powers down)
  • Drop it in a 43 foot hole and cover it completely with rocks and boulders
  • Burn any clothes that may have been worn while online

Trivia[]

  • The animated video was animated by David C. Lovelace, the animator of R*****d Animal Babies seen primarily on Newgrounds.com; there is a Newgrounds logo in one scene in the video.
    • The video features cameos and other references to R*****d Animal Babies:
      • Puppy and Cat appear in the scene where the virus has neutered a woman's pets and given her laundry static cling. Puppy is stuck to the ceiling (from the static cling), his bottom half wrapped in bandages and wearing an Elizabethan collar. Cat is stuck to the wall.
      • Bunny appears in the menu screen of the Peter Rabbit DVD whose Easter eggs are being erased.
      • Cat appears again as one of the clocks that have been set back an hour, parodying clocks shaped like Felix the Cat.
      • The email shown has been sent to "splunge@wizzlepants.com". "Splunge" (a reference to a Monty Python sketch) was one of the "letters" that the R*****d Animal Babies tried to teach in their first video.
  • The official Newgrounds version of the music video promoted a full game, also titled Virus Alert and developed by Lovelace's company Left Brain Games.[1] In it, the player attempted to stop the virus creatures before they could succeed in destroying all the computers. It features cutscenes with Al and numerous pop culture references.
    • A demo was available with the ability to purchase an activation key to access the rest of the game. However, it has been unavailable since 2016. Since the discontinuation of Flash, the game cannot be run on computers updated to block Flash content without workarounds.
  • Over the course of the video, the band member's instruments each turn into various sea creatures — Jim's guitar becomes a shark and starts to eat him, Steve's bass guitar becomes a bass fish, Jon's drums become a giant lobster, and Rubén's keyboard becomes an octopus. This may be a reference to a scene in the Monkees' 1997 TV special Hey, Hey, It's the Monkees in which Mike's guitar turns into a shark, or it could be a reference to the internet cartoon Homestar Runner and its mini series Teen Girl Squad. In Teen Girl Squad Issue 8, Whatserface's bass turns into a shark and eats her, this has some credence for David C. Lovelace has claimed to be a big fan of Homestar Runner.
  • The keyboard player in the video is modeled after Ron Mael, keyboard player for the band Sparks
  • The high reaching melody in Al's vocals were written to emulate the style of Russell Mael's falsetto, though Al's voice naturally doesn't go as high as Mael's
  • The victim of the virus who has their name legally changed to Reggie in the video is physically transformed from a woman into Reggie Jackson (as he appeared while playing for the New York Yankees, complete with sunglasses and team cap).
  • A stock ticker shown in the music video reads, "STRIC 9 UHF 62 SPAM 22.1 AL 1888.3 JOHN 3:15 DEVILCO 666 DUDE 420 TIMBUK 3" This contains various references, such as "JOHN 3:15" - a verse from the Bible often held up on sights at sporting events. Other references in this line include UHF, AL, SPAM, and 420.
  • When Al is helping the virus's victim bury his computer under rocks and boulders, he is driving a truck with a "WA" ("Weird Al") logo that resembles the logo for Wonka candies.
  • The office building has a sign out front that says "Initech", a reference to the movie Office Space.
  • The scene where people run to the door to "Leotard City" is a reference to UHF's Spatula City commercial.
  • Throughout the video, a screen of an email is shown. The email site is called "AL Mail" and it's URL address is http://www.weirdal.com
    • The topbar has options for: Compose Mail, Send, Delete, and Ham Salad
    • The sidebar has the options for: Inbox, Outbox, Matchbox, Draughts, AL Mail, Spamwich, and Crash.
    • Options while composing emails are: Attach a File and Get back to WHERK!
    • The email is From "istare@butts.com" and being sent To "splunge@wizzlepants.com". The Subject is "STINKY CHEESE". The email reads:

      Hello!

      Click on the picture of me squeezing the life out of a poor, helpless
      woodland creature. It's an optimical allusion. Also check out the
      attached movie of a monkey drinking something that isn't lemonade.
      Whatever you do, don't get anything productive done and make sure
      your inbox is full of megabytes upon megabytes of useless crapola
      sent to you all day long by your stupid friends.

      Signed,

  • Also in the music video, George W. Bush - US President at the time - is shown forwarding the virus email.
  • This is the second song on Straight Outta Lynwood to make fun of Gigli, and the only one to directly mention it by name in its lyrics.

References[]

  1. http://virusalert3d.com/ - The website for the Virus Alert videogame. (Archive.org)
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