“I smell roses.”
This single sentence can mean a lot of different things depending on where you say it. But if you’re at Autzen Stadium? It probably means you think the Oregon Ducks are going to make it to the Rose Bowl.
And while most fans are trying not to jinx the Ducks making it to Pasadena on Jan. 1, a group of roommates made a music video entitled “I Love My Ducks” with an opening scene in a rose garden where they are singing … yup, you guessed it: “I smell roses.”
The video then picks up a beat and the crooning turns into a rap video with the Casanova Center and Autzen Stadium as the background. One of the roommates, senior journalism advertising major Jamie Slade, proclaims, “I love my Ducks!” as he’s dressed in a Aaron Brooks No. 0 basketball jersey. To his left is senior journalism magazine major Michael Bishop in a Malik Hairston No. 1 jersey and to Slade’s right is senior journalism electronic media major Brian McAndrew in a Jeremiah Johnson No. 24 jersey.
The beat continues and Puddles, the Duck mascot, appears and starts dancing.
And then the rapping starts. First it is Slade, starting out with, “holy moly, is that my boy Masoli? Cooking up the offense like he’s cooking ravioli?”
That cheesy line is followed by perhaps my favorite of the entire song: “Jeremiah always keeps things rolling. Three hundred average when he goes Rose Bowling.”
Priceless.
It’s actually a well-put-together video, produced by McAndrew in collaboration with Bishop, Slade and tech director Bob Martini, who is a senior in the business school and the crew’s fourth roommate. The group calls itself Supwitchugirl and the project is for Duck U, a weekly variety show that students put together that airs at 10 p.m. Wednesdays on public access channel 23.
Every week the group collaborates on a new project for the music segment of the show, and they’ve done things in the past such as “H1N1 Vir ‘Us’” and “Just Don’t Flush It,” a video about saving water by not flushing the toilet after you go pee. I watched them all on Tuesday and I laughed at all of them. I gotta say, pretty creative stuff.
As for this week’s version, “I Love My Ducks,” Slade said that last Tuesday when they were brainstorming for this week’s show, the idea was discussed. McAndrew and Slade said with how well the Ducks are doing and with a chance to go to the Rose Bowl if they win their next two games, the atmosphere was ripe for it.
“We just love our Ducks,” Slade said. “Everybody does. The team is playing well, and the atmosphere on campus made it a great time to do it.”
McAndrew and his roommates shot the video on Friday and Saturday for hours and then he spent all of Sunday and Monday editing the footage and adding the beats.
The hard work paid off. Once the group put the video up on YouTube, it exploded and there were already more than 1,200 views Tuesday evening. And Supwitchugirl also attracted perhaps the biggest eye of them all — head football coach Chip Kelly. His assistant e-mailed the group to tell them Kelly loved the video and wants to meet with them next week during the bye week.
Perhaps Kelly liked the video because of Bishop’s line, “Then there’s Chip. So crispy. So nifty. So clean. Got the brain of a dolphin … I don’t yell ‘O,’ I scream.”
Bishop says the inspiration for the dolphin reference came because a girl he knows says he has the brain of the dolphin to compliment him for being smart. He then started playing with different rhymes to try to fit it in.
“I just remember from when I was a kid that Flipper was so smart,” Bishop said. “I just wanted to say something on how smart Chip was. He’s an offensive genius.”
However, the video doesn’t come without a tad bit of controversy. The marketing department at the AD wanted Supwitchugirl to take it down because Puddles is in it. Copyright infringement, you know. It’s not derogatory in any way, but by 6 p.m. on Tuesday the video had been switched to private, meaning you must add the group as a friend before you can watch it. This is unfortunate because it was a funny video that I wish more people could see. Maybe Chip will be able to get the ban lifted and let the video flourish among Duck fans …
But in the end, the video is just one outlet for a fan base that is hungry for something bigger than what the team has done in the last decade. But for now, we can all deal with smelling roses. It’s still a couple of weeks before we will actually see them.
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Hilarious rap video deserves to be seen
Daily Emerald
November 17, 2009
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