A-Ha's "Take On Me": A Video to Get Lost in (Literally)

26 years ago, the #1 song in the land was A-Ha's "Take on Me," amongst the bounciest, catchiest pieces of synth-pop ever to emerge from Norway.

Even more enduring than the song was the innovative video, which used a technique called rotoscoping to combine pencil-sketch animation with live-action. The video remains captivating to this day. So captivating in fact, that my good friend George Feinn once went through the looking glass as it were and into the video himself (I know because I was there).

In this Rock Turtleneck exclusive, George recounts the time when he took on "Take on Me" — and lost.

The first time I saw A-Ha's “Take on Me”  video was in the fall of 1985, in my friend Scott’s dorm room at the University of Connecticut. On Scott’s dresser was an old black & white TV the size of a small microwave. Like Vinnie Barbarino talking to a girl between classes, the set was always on. 

One evening five or six of us (including Rock Turtleneck's Steve Walsh) sat in Scott's room to watch the show Friday Night Videos. It was about 1:35 am.  An intoxicating mélange of smoke filled the air, and Cool Ranch Doritos filled our bellies.

A hauntingly melodic electronic drumbeat kicked in and I was instantly mesmerized. The action unfolded at a breakneck pace. A cartoon motorcycle racing champion falls in love with a woman in the "real" world. He catches her attention by winking to her from the pages of the book in which he lives and she agrees to join him in the comic book. Now that’s love.

Or so I thought. Suddenly, the man’s fellow bikers show up wielding monkey wrenches. I knew I had to help.  My buzz in full swing, I had an "a-ha" moment of my own — I was in the video, too. As the hero, heroine and I were being chased down the penciled hallways, I started screaming “Go left! No, right! No left!” I was in a video game-fever dream with no controls,  yelling at a TV in the middle of the night, with no escape in sight.

We rounded a corner, I turned around and there I was, back in Scott’s room, amongst my  friends, sweaty and disheveled. Like our two heroes, I'd miraculously managed to escape. 

To this day, I still long to transport myself back into that comic book every time I hear the song. And I play at least ten times a day.

Thank you, George for a touching anecdote.

George is far from the only person to be taken by "Take on Me," as this clip from The Family Guy so poignantly demonstrates. 

Explore the surprisingly large A-Ha oeuvre on iTunes here.