Also after receiving a few emails from people inquiring about what I looked like, I realized that Matt is a heartthrob of sorts to many of the X-E faithful. Hell, I'd bet good amount of money that many of the readers here think he's the hottest thing to hit the spotlight since Isaac and popular supergroup Hanson skyrocketed to the top of the charts with their breakout hit "MmmBop". With such a meteoric rise to superstardom, you guys are lucky Matt hasn't let all the attention get to him. The subject of today's article is not new to X-E readers. He's been a creative force in the music and film industry (working with some pretty damn famous Turtles and even MC Hammer), he's been a pro motocross racer in his spare time, and he has even branched out into doing naughty photo shoots with fellow musical superstar Madonna. So who is this mysterious jack-of-all-trades? VANILLA ICE of course! Ice, or "Jesus" as we like to call him, hasn't been featured on the site in a while, so I figured he was long overdue for an article. After all, it'd practically be a crime for us to not utilize anything Vanilla Ice-related.
 That's right. For those of you who may not remember, in the X-E review of Vanilla Ice's acting debut in 'Cool As Ice', Matt was able to successfully prove beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Vanilla Ice is in fact Jesus. How was he able to do this? Well, it involved a lots of complex theorems, excessively difficult mathematical equations and computations, and large amounts of Jack Daniels, but it's true nonetheless. Going over this particular live performance is an incredibly long and complicated process that should not be taken lightly. When something as intricate and elaborate as Vanilla Ice's Saturday Night Live performance is on your screen, nothing else really deserves your attention. Vanilla Ice has dance moves that have their own dance moves. He's that fucking good. Remember...Vanilla Ice is Jesus. By the end of this article, he'll probably be turning water into wine and walking on water. I have no idea how this file actually found its way onto the internet, but somehow one of my good friends managed to find it and download it. Of course when he brought this to my attention, there was no fucking way I was not going to have it. Needless to say, after watching it for the first time, I was speechless. Well, I wasn't exactly speechless, but the only words that would come out of my mouth were "Holy shit!" and "No fuckin' way!". This video was truly like nothing I've ever seen before. You see, here at X-E, a lot of the stuff covered here follows a very basic formula: tragedy + time = comedy. Take The Worst Witch as one of the most obvious examples of this phenomenon. Despite all this, I freely admit that I'm a huge Vanilla Ice fan, and as far as I'm concerned, I don't see how anyone can possibly not like him, especially after reading about a few of his various exploits on this site. Disliking Vanilla Ice is like defying the laws of physics. But this article isn't Vanilla Ice, the man. This article is about Vanilla Ice, The Performer, and since there's really no other way I can describe this performance, I'll just say this: Vanilla Ice, the Performer, was in fine form on this particular Saturday night in New York City. For those of you who have never had the opportunity to see a Vanilla Ice live show, I hope you're ready to be absolutely blown away.
I wonder what the hell Joe Mantegna, best known for his performance as Ian- the aging radio host in the compelling drama known as Airheads, was thinking when he introduced Ice. Whether he was just acting or he was actually a fan, he did a pretty good job of looking excited to be introducing him. Before the performance even begins, we can clearly see what makes Ice such an icon. He attires himself in clothes so flashy you'd be hard pressed to even find a MC Hammer outfit that could compete with it. And as we all know, only people on top of the world can get away with wearing outfits like that. Ice is truly a superstar, and this performance is his chance to use his power to make a statement. Remember when Prince performed live and wrote "Slave" on his face to show all the viewers how his record company was forcing him to release albums when they were unfinished or when he didn't want to? Well, Ice's statement is that much more profound, and instead of putting it on his face, it's emblazoned across the back of his coat. So what's this all important message?
"Word to your mother." Were you expecting something else? Something more controversial perhaps? Remember, we're talking about Vanilla Ice here. Anyways, back to the performance itself... I sure hope the guy who choreographed this performance did it for free or maybe even paid Ice to let him choreograph the routine, because watching Ice and his dancers tear up the stage has to be one of the worst displays of a dancing I've ever seen. Let's face it, I just watched a New Kids on the Block home video, complete with live NKOTB performances, and their choreography had movements that at least resembled something that could be considered dancing. Hell, my sister and her friends had better moves than this in their sixth grade school talent show. I guess it only goes to prove that Vanilla Ice is truly a superstar that none of us could keep our eyes off of.
You know, when you're watching a live performance on stage or a music video on MTV (like a NSync video for example), there are a few things you've got to realize while watching. First off, if they weren't dancing in perfect synch with a bunch of other people, they'd look like complete idiots. Second, none of these moves are really applicable when going to a bar or club. Getting a group of you and your friends to do the "Bye, Bye, Bye" dance routine in the middle of the bar's dance floor probably won't get you any free drinks. Chances are it'll get you a swift ass-whoopin' instead. At this point in the show, Ice and his boys have really got the crowd into it, but somehow I doubt any of the people in the audience were prepared for what was to come next... ...an EXTENDED DANCE BREAK!
This is easily my favorite part of the performance. Apparently, Ice and his boys didn't feel they had gotten enough of a workout earlier in the day, so we get to watch them do some incredibly sexy pelvic thrusts followed by a few synchronized pushups. Ice and his boys seem to be quite enamored with the SNL stage, don't they?
Well, apparently humping the floor was considered a rather nifty dance movie back at the height of Ice's popularity. At least that's really the only explanation I could think of for them to be doing this. I tried this move at one of the campus bars but kinda gave up on it after I was repeatedly kicked in the ribs and head by other people on he dance floor. When I told my attackers that I was just trying to be "cool as Ice", they just kicked me more. Let's take a step back for a moment and try to realize how we've gotten to this point and just why Vanilla Ice is such a hero to me. First Vanilla Ice stole the beat for his only hit song from Queen and David Bowie. Then he rapped over it and didn't even think it was good enough to be used as his first single. Then some DJ found it on the other side of the album, while Ice's original single was busy bombing everywhere it was played. When one of the DJ's accidentally played "Ice, Ice Baby" on the radio, people seemed to like this new song and wanted to hear it more. Ice's albums started flying off the shelves, and then he started appearing on television and touring. And then he made his way to the Saturday Night Live stage to bring you this once-in-a-lifetime performance. So what's my point? Well it just goes to show that this is one fucked up world we're living in.
Click Here To Download the Entire Vanilla Ice Saturday Night Live Performance
SPECIAL VANILLA ICE BONUS: TMNT 2 - VANILLA ICE OWNS THE STAGE I know this movie has been covered on the site before, but Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: The Secret of the Ooze is one of my favorite movies for one reason and one reason alone: Vanilla Ice makes a truly inspired cameo appearance in one of the local clubs. The way in which the scene is set up is a thing of pure cinematic beauty too. Some mutants crash through the doors and try to bring the Iceman's performance to a stop, but Ice isn't about to let that happen. Hell, he'll even make up a song on the spot about it.
The scene starts outside the club where the turtles are surrounded by the foot clan along with Tokka and Rahzar, and they are trying to convince the two big dumb asses to eat some doughnuts they've made. Of course, Tokka and Rahzar eat the damn food like idiots, but what did you expect them to do? Hell, I know I could never turn down free food even if it was from my enemies. I'll bet George and Saddam exchange cake and brownies all the time. After Tokka and Rahzar eat the doughnuts, they proceed to kick some heroes in a half-shell ass and in the process, they toss them through the doors leading into a "hip and cool" dance club. Now this is no ordinary dance club. This is THE place to be. It's kind of like Studio 54 (without the gay sex and drugs), except in the TMNT universe. I mean Vanilla Ice is performing there. I'm surprised there weren't riots outside where people were waiting to get in. Anyways, the Turtles get tossed through the door, and the crowd turns to see four huge ninja turtles fighting another giant turtle and a giant apelike turd creature. Now, most people would think that an event like this would seem out of the ordinary, but the guests manage to convince themselves that these guys in costumes were brought in by the club's owners for extra special entertainment. Now, I'm no expert, but at a hip dance club such as the one they are attending, I don't think the first thing that comes to mind is to get some costumes of giant turtles and have them fight it out on the dance floor. In my opinion, this is the point in the movie where it becomes rather far fetched: Vanilla Ice needs no fucking back up entertainers! If you book Vanilla Ice for a show, do you immediately think to yourself, "Oh shit! Who else are we going to get for the extra special entertainment?!" No you don't, because you already have Vanilla Ice, the single greatest rapper of all time. If that's not good enough for you, I don't know what is. Meanwhile, Keno is busy meditating with Splinter, but he's not quite focused enough to block out the sheer
So the crowd is convinced the Turtles fighting in front of their faces are just people in costumes (OK, that's not too tough to figure out), but they still should've known something was amiss. Vanilla Ice could tell something wasn't right. As soon as those green shits came flying through the doors, he stops the music (evidenced by the classic "Whoa, whoa, whoa, G!" line). The turtles proceed to fight it out with the two behemoths, but the chemicals they had put in the food were not having the desired effects (other than making Tokka and Rahzar burp constantly). They were being outmatched and outsmarted by two of the dumbest creatures to ever walk the earth. What can they do? Donatello and the crazy ass Doc Brown rip off find the answer, fire extinguishers. They proceed to defeat them through the use of fire extinguishers. Yes, fire extinguishers. I probably can't even fathom what thoughts are going through your mind as you read this, but I'm guessing it's something along the lines of, "My God Vanilla Ice is awesome, and that fire extinguisher idea was pure genius!"
So after the two mutants are disposed of, the rest of the Foot Clan decides to drop in and mix it up with the Turtles. Bad idea. Call me crazy, but remember the scene where the prospective foot clan members go through a 'Ninja Aptitude Test'? The one where they hang the dummy in the air, and the person taking the test has to steal as many bells as he can without making a sound? Well, something tells me they left out the scene with the 'other test' where they have to learn to repeatedly run into the feet of any jumping or kicking Mutant Ninja Turtle. Either way, the four turtles manage to kick the crap out of about 50 members of 'The Foot' while at the same time hitting on random women in the dance club and performing nifty little dance moves. Looking back on this part of the scene, I could only come to one conclusion: these Mutant Ninja Turtles have rhythm and soul to spare. All in all, this scene sums up all that is great in cinema. It has determined heroes, retarded villains, idiot bystanders, white rappers, and even a synchronized dance routine by four giant ninja turtles all in the span of about six minutes. If this isn't the greatest thing you ever see in your life, I don't know what is.
Click Here To Download the Entire TMNT2 Scene
Click Here To Download the Entire TMNT2 Scene
*In order to download the larger file, you must download and install this decoder. It's well worth it, only 500k in size, and it won't fuck your computer up or anything. You will need it for all hi-bandwidth movie clips I put on the site in the future also, so you might as well get it now.
Now that I've got this article finished (I hope you enjoyed it), I wanted to throw a few article ideas out there and get some feedback on what kind of stuff you guys want to see here on X-E. Like I said before, you probably won't be seeing too many Transformers/Pokemon/He-Man/Corey Haim related articles written by me, because quite frankly, there's really no reason for me to cover that stuff very often when Matt already does it to perfection. One of the ideas I've been seriously considering (as long as Matt's cool with it) is a weekly article recapping a bunch of stuff that was on TV during the week, but I'm not exactly sure how many X-E readers would be interested in an article like that. Here is a taste of some of the shows I'd most likely be covering in these weekly recaps: Buffy, Angel, Dark Angel, Roswell, Gilmore Girls (don't make fun of me for that one), and probably any other television event that seems to be worth watching each week. So please feel free to send me some email with some feedback on this. I know there are a lot of Buffy and Angel fans who read X-E, so let me just say that those are my two favorite shows on TV right now. I never miss them, and I've been a fan of both since their very first episodes. So you can rest assured that I'm not someone who will be watching these things for the first time and have no idea what's going on in the storyline or anything like that. I've seen every single episode of Angel and all but one of Buffy (I missed the one where Xander and Faith hooked up, and I'm still kicking myself for it), so if enough people want me to cover older episodes of these shows (I have them all on tape), I could even do that too. BUT I'm not going to do any of this unless I get enough feedback from you guys telling me you'd be interested in reading about this stuff. So if you want to see these articles, send me an email saying so!
- Scott
More Vanilla Ice Madness!!!! | ||||
