Songfacts®:

• This very '80s creation is the theme song to the 1985 movie Weird Science, about two kids who find a way to create a beautiful woman through science. The film was directed by John Hughes, who learned the power of music when his film The Breakfast Club, released earlier that year, minted a huge hit with "Don't You (Forget About Me)."
  
  For Weird Science, Hughes reached out to Oingo Boingo, a transgressive eight-piece band from Los Angeles that had songs on the soundtracks to Fast Times at Ridgemont High and The Last American Virgin. "Weird Science" was their first go at making a main theme for a movie, and they delivered a winner: The song captures the madcap, futuristic feel of the film, and it repeats the title in the hook, which is great for marketing. The lyrics are filled with images from the film, hinting at the strange way the computer-generated woman comes to life.
• Oingo Boingo was led by Danny Elfman, who became one of the top film music composers of all time, with songs or scores on Batman, Men In Black, Spider-Man and many others. But back in 1985, his main credit was Forbidden Zone, a movie made by his brother Richard.
  
  "Weird Science" offered a glimpse of his genius in this field. He's able to watch a rough cut and figure out what music should go with it right away.
  
  "'Weird Science' was a goof," he told the A/V Club. "I wanted to do it for fun, and John [Hughes] was a nice guy, and while he was describing the spirit of the thing, I got the song in my head."
  
  "I probably had a 45-minute drive," he added. "And by the time I got home, I pretty much had it in my head. I ran down to my studio and recorded it and sent it out."
  
  Elfman had a similar experience writing the theme song for The Simpsons - he came up with the music in his head while driving home and recorded the demo as soon as he arrived.
• The Weird Science movie was turned into a TV series in 1994 starring Vanessa Angel as the female creation. The series ran for five seasons, and used this song as its theme.
• "Weird Science" is the only Oingo Boingo song that ever charted, reaching #45. Danny Elfman, who traveled around Africa with his violin when he finished high school, was a lot more concerned with creative expression than making the pop charts. Boingo remained mostly a Los Angeles phenomenon their entire career, which spanned 1979-1995, remaining active for years after Elfman became a top film composer.
• The song appears on the Weird Science soundtrack and also on Oingo Boingo's album Dead Man's Party (the title track is a Halloween staple). The soundtrack also features songs from Wall Of Voodoo, Kim Wilde and Killing Joke.
• Oingo Boingo stopped performing this song in 1989. "I found myself quickly onstage not wanting to perform it, so it was a dilemma after the first year or so," Danny Elfman told the A/V Club. "It just didn't feel like it was really a part of our repertoire. It felt too poppy to me."
• The music video mixes footage from the film with scenes of the band in a Frankenstein-like laboratory. Danny Elfman hated it, in part because he had no say in it. He was aghast when he saw Beavis and Butt-Head making fun of it.