Monday, November 05, 2007

Pippi Longstocking

I am rewatching Pippi Longstocking. I haven't watched it since I was a child almost 40 years ago, but I remember a lot of it.
The show* is a great pleasure. It's so full of life and fun, and often very funny too.

I found the theme song on YouTube. I had actually forgotten that not only was I (and everybody) fan of the TV show, but also of the song, and I think this single was played so often the grooves were worn through to the other side. (The Gilmore Girls are fans of her too.)

I found two later and different versions of the Pippi theme song, and I braved my iMovie software, and put them on top of a clip from the first Pippi episode. The first one is a hard rock version, I think that's funny for a song from a kids' program. (I actually have a long standing ambition of making hard rock versions of kids' songs. I have one or two good ones in my head.)

*It is not clear, but I think the first "movie" on the DVD box set is actually compiled from the TV series.

Update: this video has been up now for like half an hour, and already 130 people have watched it. Holy crap! (By comparison, the Vampire Killers clip from yesterday has only been viewed 50 times in a whole day.) I wonder if all that traffic comes from here or from searches on YouTube, or what.

Pascal theorized:
Or it could just be that the words Sweden and Denmark immediately make some people hope there'll be beautiful naked viking blondes? "Longstockings, isn't that some erotic actor? If she chose that name, perhaps she's only wearing that. CLICK."

Actually you might be right. Hard as it is for me to imagine anybody not knowing Pippi, I guess most don't, and after all most new readers here come by way of Domai and may be looking for all that stuff.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Love the clip you posted, but hate the "hard rock" version of the theme song. (Swedish hard rock, my ass ... an oxymoron if there ever was one. ;-)

"I wonder if all that traffic comes from here or from searches on YouTube, or what."

Almost certainly from searches on YouTube. It may be the keyword "Swedish" alone that does it.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

"Swedish"? Is Sweden very popular this week?

Anonymous said...

No, I was thinking it's unpopular enough (i.e. niche enough) to get you on YouTube's "related" recommendations for those who watch other Swedish stuff.

Actually, just now I noticed you also have "Danish" there. Could be a combination of the two. Or perhaps "theme song"+swedish / "theme song"+danish, or some such.

I doubt that people are searching for Pippi Långstrump. That's basically my point. But I am just guessing and could be wrong.

Anonymous said...

Scratch my replies above. It turns out I was as wrong as can be.

I did some research and discovered that (1) Pippi Longstocking is very popular on YouTube, many clips having hundreds of thousands of views, and (2) quite a few of them have comments as recent as yesterday, and (3) from several of the comments you can tell they are Pippi fans to begin with and could well have been searching specifically for Pippi. So, this would suggest a popular search term of "pippi longstocking" or "pippi långstrump" for your clip too.

However, there is one small problem. It seems your clip is so recent that YouTube indexing processes haven't had a chance to go through it yet! It's not yet in the database. Even searching for the exact title "Pippi Longstocking Långstrump theme song covers" will not find it! (At the time of my writing this.)

So the initial 130 viewers must be readers of this blog. The difference of 130 vs. 50 between this clip and the Vampire Killers clip is simply a reflection of what your readership finds interesting, or is curious about.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

I think you're right. (Odd that.)

Pascal [P-04referent] said...

"Mommy, Mommy, I want Pippi!" ;-)

Or it could just be that the words Sweden and Denmark immediately make some people hope there'll be beautiful naked viking blondes? "Longstockings, isn't that some erotic actor? If she chose that name, perhaps she's only wearing that. CLICK."

And then, discovering a kid show, they were just too embarrassed to admit what brought them there, so they played along with the crowd.

Or perhaps I'm just assuming everybody's as dirty-minded as me! :-P

Anonymous said...

128,048 views already...!

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Yea, but that's not mine, but one that's been there longer.

I think Pascal is right.

Pascal [P-04referent] said...

Yay! I'm right, and I didn't even mean it, woo-hoo!
(Does the Homer Simpson belly-and-hips dance.)