Oddity Archive: Episode 267 - Record Ripoffs Vol. 13 (At The Movies) 

As discussed to varying degrees in this video, this episode was fraught with technical failures, equipment hiccups and absurd/desperate Content ID claims…some for things not in the video in the first place. Please excuse the occasional glitches in edits (none present in the editor-constantly present in the renders) and extra-choppy first and last album segments.

That "Unchained Melody" rendition here gave the word "ouch" a whole new meaning. And, as a side note, Madacy did put out original material from time to time, packaging it in the same manner as their knock-off and re-recording compilations, and was home to a children's album from Crystal Gayle.

My parents had the Hot Movie Hits CD when I was very, very small, which meant that those versions of the songs were the “real” ones to me for years.

I usually don't like "kids from comic strips grown up" stories, but I really need to see the one about Schroeder as a "Studio 78" keyboard player.

About that Saturday Night Fever record rip-off: BCI became BCI Eclipse (which was a part of the Navarre Corporation) that released a bunch of '80s cartoons on DVD, nearly all of them with some sort of issue (most of the Filmation shows were time-compressed and had heavy DVNR, Dungeons & Dragons had music replacement, the '79 Flash Gordon was missing its companion TV movie version, and so on). They eventually collapsed after the 2008 economic crisis.

Okay, I had to double check against the references and I'm going to relay this to another RU-vidr, but I'm almost 100% sure that Beat Street Band Hot Movie Hits album is part of the very same source as the cover versions of popular songs used in The Super Mario Bros Super Show. You see, Saban purchased a catalog of these cover versions of songs for use in that and the first season of Captain N (they used the same cover version of Thriller for both shows), my guess because they could get the music rights for cheap as long as they don't use recordings from the original artists. Even the show's end credits points this out. Now, these are ONLY available on the original broadcasts and rare, well out of print VHS releases as they were replaced in the 90's for reruns because they lost the usage rights. This video features every cover used, and the songs featured in this episode, Danger Zone and The Power of Love are at 13:20 and 8:56 respectively.

I burst out laughing when that whimpy clap kicked in for "we will rock you"

0:54 Otter must be the band that Ernest and Opal had before they had PB&J 1:14 "St. Elmo's Dumpster Fire" sounds like a good name for a movie set in a modern-day high school

6:10 On side A - Wow, they got Rush to do a cover of Tears in Heaven? 12:42 Sounds like the singer got Boz Scaggs mixed up with the Marshall Tucker Band. 13:41 SHE'S SMOOTH... LIKE ICE 23:12 So taaaaake, taaaaake me hoooo--oops, wrong song 27:17 Ladies and gentlemen, David Lee Roth... on quaaludes I saw the soundtrack to That Thing You Do! in the intro, and I'm glad it's gone unscathed, that's one of my all-time favorite soundtrack albums.

I loved the scene of Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle at the beginning. When a stylus sacrifices itself due to a record ripoff, then it was baad. Great work Ben. Boy some of these were bad.

Your take on song titles and artists are exquisite. Forget YT, you need to be writing comedy. Love the new stuff, Benny!

The Hot Movie Hits CDs were sold at K-Mart at least through the early 2000s. At the time these cost $6-9 each, which was really cheap for CDs. They also had a CD with music from the motion picture Rocky 4-3-2-1 that I also got for Christmas that was of similar quality.

As a Canadian, and resident of Quebec, I couldn't stop laughing at the Madacy material. I recommend an entire Madacy episode.

Fun fact, in Germany the same male singer sang nearly all cover versions of German hits

28:48 Children, please stay away from knockoff XTC! Ben is a trained professional.

A few years ago, I downloaded vinyl rip of a rip-off version of the "FM" soundtrack, which I thought was the album featured in this episode, but after hearing the samples, it isn't. So, there are at least three different FM soundtrack rip-offs. The one I have is the best of the three, in my opinion. The singer that they got sounds a lot like Billy Joel. So, if you've ever wondered what "Lido Shuffle" would sound like if it were sung by Billy Joel, my semi-legal download answers the question. Brentwood was also a publisher of dubious quality DVD's in the later 90's. I bought a couple of their martial arts collections (public domain dubs of Hong Kong kung fu movies). They also has some horror and sci-fi collections, though I never came across any of those. That was just before Mill Creek started putting out their massive collections of shovel-ware, so Brentwood may have started that whole trend.

When I had just begun high school, my family and I went to a music store and, finally being a grown up kid, decided to buy one CD. My options were Robbie Williams' Singing When You're Winning or this other CD that had a bunch of great and famous songs from several films. After really thinking it through, I decided to buy the movie's music CD and, when we got home, we played it on the living room's audio player and discovered that all the songs were badly done covers of the originals. And I do mean bad covers. I still regret my purchase to this day, specially since the Robbie Williams CD was on sale.

'When the goin' gets tough, the tough get a pig, yeah!'. (That's what it sounded like, to me). Maybe it should have been renamed as 'When The Going Gets TROUGH' instead? LOL.🐷

There was one sci-fi soundtrack albums that I owned that seemed to include both covers of orchestral stuff (albeit more synthy IIRC) and "Hey let's include more MECO stuff".

It's always a good day whenever ol' Benny boy decides to torture himself with another "Record Rip-offs" installment. 😅

Oranges and Lemons came out when I was in college. About a year later in 1991 I heard an instrumental version of "The Mayor of Simpleton" as background music in a store. The vocal line was carried by a flute. So somewhere out there is an instrumental Muzak version of "The Mayor of Simpleton."

Yes!!!! Record Ripoffs: At The Movies - I've been waiting for this one for years!

26:12 Watch out that Shaggy doesn't come knocking on your door, or all of Jamaica in fact. Jokes aside, this was well worth the wait and all the production pains

Most of these were as upsetting (but in the fun way!) as usual but I laughed out loud at the version of We Will Rock You on the FM not-soundtrack. I think that's about as bad as you could possibly do that. Almost elevates it into its own art form, really.

13:31 Ooh, the 1200 clone with the reverse switch. I have one of those in my bedroom.

"Eff' em". Yes.

I'm surprised I haven't seen this yet. The Record Ripoffs are some of my favorite episodes, and this episode did not disappoint.

That bogus FM soundtrack is one of the worst ripoffs of have yet heard. It's the album that your aged aunt gave you for Christmas after she saw it on sale at a Woolworth's and thought it was the original soundtrack.

I most certainly did not expect XTC to be involved in this mess, but I knew it would be Peter Pumpkinhead since you were talking about the '90s... at least there's a *good* XTC cover album in 'A Testimonial Dinner'!

That guitar solo on We will rock you made my ears bleed

that post-credit scene hurt my soul. and my back, i contorted my shoulders in response to the noise... most unpleasant.

5:37 Again the Countdown GmbH, who collects cover versions from different sources, in the 1970's it was mainly from the Miller Schallplatten GmbH

22:22 You can't tell me that's not a South Park character.

23:27 -- There's no turning back, wheel in a centipede!

I wonder if that label wear on the “FM” rip-off was caused by using that record as a “platter” for a 45 stacking spindle that was shorter than the main spindle as a way to fill the gap. Because I had that problem with my first record player. And indeed, I had a few “throw-away” records for strictly that purpose with the same pattern of label wear. Also, if I had heard it divorced from the context provided, I would have thought Andy Partridge signed off on a polyphonic ringtone for “The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead”.

At the risk of stating the blinking obvious, there actually WAS a band called “The Heebeegeebees” - a parody band who did spoofs of well known artists - the band was Angus Drayton, Phillip Pope and Michael Fenton-Stevens, who were in BBC Radio series “Radio Active”, and a later TV version, “KY TV”.

6:58 roland sound canvas snare

"He sounded like a weird drunk pervy uncle" Not to be confused with a normal drunk pervy uncle.

13:40 the subtitles show "You're cuddle as ice"

Found the existence of "Worms, NE" very amusing

Pickwick actually did do a rip-off version of Senses Working Overtime on one of their Top of the Pops records. It’s exactly as pleasant as it sounds.

I laugh at these, until I realize that my best karaoke nights aren't as good.

God, if I knew you'd be around years later, I would've held onto that Grease non-original soundtrack I bought in high school for, like, 3 for $2 with two other cheapo albums and sent it to you.

The Return of the FM sound alike soundtrack. If y'all want to know what we know, see Record Ripoffs 5 (Pickwick Picked Over) to see how bad it really can get.

There was a "Buckboard" record label that was all Country record ripoffs. I am gonna take a short leap and assume it was the same company as "Springboard".

The Roxette track was pretty close

Honestly, off-brand soundtrack assortments made my childhood happier. The public library would carry these sorts of CDs, and I couldn't buy a lot, so I had some real enjoyment out of them.

WTGGT was HORRID! :-o

25:37 There’s something subtly wrong to me about the phrase “Kiss From A Rose: from Batmqn Forever”

Currently playing a 20 CD movie themes set I picked up for about £2 last year. All rip-offs. May as well call one track "I've Had The Time Of My Bath" considering the room it sounds like ti was recorded in.

22:05 sounds like Super Mario 64 😂

I thought the Saturday Night Fever one was the worst of the lot, but that Mario Paint-esque Kiss From A Rose rendition....that was terrible.

Madacy is to Soundtracks, what Camerica was to video games.

About a decade later BCI would go on to make some really awesome DVD box sets of Dungeons and dragons, He-Man, She-ra and most of the other filmation cartoons. I definitely recommend seeking those out if you love 80s cartoons.

My Ex had this as part of a 3 Disc Madacy Movie Music collection. One disc was the love disc, another was blockbusters, and the third had pretty much every thing else. It had Titanic material on 2 of the discs, My Heart Will Go On on the Love disc, Southampton on the Blockbusters disc.

I just bought the Best of Movie Hits as well recently, I was lucky (or unlucky) to get it. It was cheap so figured why not, and some of the songs are ok, most though remind me when my cat scratches his kitty litter.

1. Heh, Barbar Stipend appears yet again. 2. Wow...That not the original FM soundtrack was cringe inducing! 3. Oh wow...A BCI/Brentwood release. That takes me back. 4. My Hot Movie Hits CD I donated! So happy it made the cut...Especially when I wasn't expecting it to. 5. And as far as that last Madacy relese is concerned: Someone needs to go to jail over that one. It's worse than "Themes From Godspell".

I like the part at the end of the ad where the song just slows down right there.

0:18 - It’s hard to see, but the GAF logo on the projector has been altered to say “Gaffe”!

12:06 I physically flinched when the background singers came in. Ewww.

This was upsetting.

these are always my favorite OA episodes

"Feels like a rubber baby duck" ??? I swear thats what i heard

0:59 Oh so that's where Ryan Adams got his start. Who knew he'd go on to be...well let's not get into that.

"If nothing else, his enunciation is just as lousy as ever." No kidding, I STILL can't tell what the hell the lyric is and it's been almost 40 years. From the first time I hear it until this very moment, I thought - and think - the line is, "Caffeine free, caffeine oh wow."

"i think the cd player just short circuited," ha i see what you did there

16:30 The London Worst End Singers

Countdown Singers... It's the German countdown GmbH, they invented the story of a cover band, but at least they purchased all different cover music, including the repertory from the Miller Schallplatten GmbH. They had a website with free downloads.

Further Comment: 'Turning Tina' (Er, 'Tina Turner') at the end was also hilarious! (Apparently she loves 'Chew', or something that sounds like this!). LOL. It always amazes me how whenever they make these 'cover' versions (or 'rip-offs of rip-offs'?) they nearly ALWAYS have a transcribed song sheet produced by someone whose first language wasn't English! In this way they used only the words they THOUGHT they heard and thought MIGHT go together; even though the meaning of the words wasn't understood and they were the wrong words entirely most of the time anyway. Getting the actual song words right is a good idea; it can only get better from then on, right? But no, it's not worth the paper it's printed on apparently for most of these! LOL.😒

Damn, they just completely skipped over the high note in Bohemian Rhapsody. Not even a weak attempt.

@OddityArchive - note about your cd player. at one point i had a Sony 5 disc dvd/cd player and while it had the "Compact Disc Digital Audio" logo it didn't de-emphasize cd's with pre-emphasis which is part of the redbook standard! kind of mind blowing the sony's (and phillips) the one that invented cd's and wrote the spec that they themselves are not complying with. from what i read that no equipment could carry that logo if it didn't comply with the spec? and that was a model from late 90's around when dvd's first came out so not sure when they stopped suppporting it. but just a heads up being you have a lot of older discs from that era.

Like the proverbial bad penny, these D-list soundtrack albums make their way to you somehow, Benny-boy. I admire your intestinal fortitude. 😂

22:17 -- Why does that sound like something from Negativland's 'Escape From Noise'?

"Springboard Records" ah yes, the label that also carried the cult classic, "Hey Jude, Hey Bing!". Please tell me you have a copy.......

21:22 What do you mean "forgotten" Muppet? That's clearly Floyd's less talented cousin Boyd.

How did these companies get around legal hurdles? Or were they not sued?

The Michael Jackson cover!! 😂😂😂 I need to hear that whole thing

You are my sensei.

'Music from the Movie FM' I heard ALL these songs on the radio CONSTANTLY growing up. Is this just what lazy DJ's played when they went out back to light one up?

Cool, I'm a big fan of Studio 99's rip-offs, they're so funny - and I play these songs as a joke, some people didn't notice.

I have the ripoff (Studio 78) "FM" sound track. (Yes, I actually bought it on purpose!) It's one of those things that's SO BAD, It's a classic! Then too I am oddly entertained by shit like "Troll 2", "Birdemic", "Sharknado" and "The Happening".😜 P.S. The "Studio 78" version of Queen's "We Will Rock You" is AMAZINGLY bad!

11:46 some pitch issues with the tape?

Saturday night fever❤❤❤

these are great

12:50 possibly bad edit 13:02

27:58 was this an editing glitch or did the fake MJ singer have a meltdown at realziing what his life had become

Chock full of funny as always... 'catalytic converter' and 'eat a bran muffin and drink a bad cup of coffee' particularly got me. Collapsed cantilever/suspension - I've read about people encountering them when buying a used vintage cartridge, already collapsed. Never read about someone having it happen to them. And for what it's worth, the episode shows no sign of being a struggle. Oh, and those DMCA takedown notices and the like - there should be a hefty penalty on the claiming party if it ends up being a false claim. As it is, companies are incentivized to just shotgun claims with no regard for validity all day every day. It's almost like those companies paid lawmakers to enact the law as written by the companies... (oh wait, that's exactly what happened....)

That “FM” Springboard release….. I have to question SOME of those tracks! If I remember the movie correctly, three of the tracks on Side A weren’t even out when the FM film was being filmed…or even released! Makes me wonder if those weren’t meant for a different Springboard album….. but with the label being shut down around the release of the album, that’s why they were included?

i had to chuckle a bit when i saw "the hee bee gee bees" scroll past at the start - they were actually a thing! Philip Pope used to do the musical numbers for a bunch of comedy tv and radio programmes, and released an album of parody songs under that name ru-vid.com/group/PL6oQbPxgq97pwZ9v3FirgiadLtXjeTht6&feature=shared - "meaningless songs in very high" voices is a particular favorite of mine

Why does Benny's narrator voice remind me of Jigsaw?

29:24 Seems they were too lazy and/or cash-strapped to hire one of the big Prague orchestras who usually do the cheap jobs the big London and American orchestras pass on

Ben, I do get some pleasure out of a lot of the songs in this recollection, even if they're sung as bad as in these examples. But I wanted to know why you didn't lambasted the version of Whitney Houston's "I'll Always Love You" since it is so difficult to imitate.... Until you've put it at the very end as the outro. BRAVO! It was actually WORSE than I thought it would be.

English born? What a geographic failure, they are from the Isle of Man.

As awful as some of these covers are, they do remind me how good, or at least enjoyable some of these movies are.

Oh Ben, that Movie Hits CD might be the worst record ripoffs album ever.

Movie soundtracks would have to be some of the worst albums ever created.

I have the original soundtrack to FM on an 8 track tape that my dad got with a lot of other 8 track tapes. I've never seen the movie, or even really listened to the 8 track tape, but I've heard the songs elsewhere though.

Most of those songs are mushy and silly enough already - why would anyone want to copy them and these particular albums are awful. What were they, like a dime each or something. Hilarious and great episode after months of boring repairing videos and fiddling with some forgotten nerdbox 80s/90s technology no one cares about anymore.

But you don't accept Bitcoin? What kind of place is this??? Guess I'll just call up Ali Baba instead! At least they give a free sample of questionable seeds with each order!!

Man these are some of the most depressing covers of songs ever like these guys definitely have butchered some the greatest rock songs ever!