Happy Idiot

Album: Seeds (2014)
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Songfacts®:

  • The Danny Jelinek-directed video for this song stars Paul Reubens as an insane race car driver. The American comic actor is best known for his character Pee-Wee Herman. TVOTR frontman Tunde Adebimpe told Billboard magazine that it was his idea for Reubens to be in the clip. "I went to the people at Funny Or Die and I had this idea of Paul Reubens as a race car driver, sort of in a 1950's-ish Russ Meyer sort of situation," he recalled. "Then it didn't seem like it was gonna go for a while. I got an email literally a week before we started from my manager and some other people at the label who just said, 'Paul wants to talk to you, call him at this number right now.'"

    "Someone had been texting me and I didn't recognize the number so I was like, 'I'm not gonna deal with that,'" Adebimpe continued. "So I got this email and it said he wants to talk to you, so I called, left a message, he wasn't there and I was like, Okay, I f---ed that up, I guess.' And then the phone rings, I pick up and he goes, 'Hey, Tunde, it's Paul Reubens.' He was just the coolest, most down to earth person ever."

    Ruebens also starred in Elton John's 2001 video for "This Train Don't Stop There Anymore" and The Raconteurs 2006 clip for "Steady, As She Goes."

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