Ah, the ’80s. In my opinion, anything to come outta them could either be demonically marvelous or downright atrocious. Considering a majority of us at CoS and our readers may have been born in that fateful decade, I’m gonna take a risk and say there are very many things that came out just wonderful. You know, us, John Hughes flicks, metal, all that. And then there were the music videos …not so lucky, to say the least.

In a time when special effects amounted to some really trippy beams of green light and… Tron, I guess it’s only fair to cut some slack for those who braved the new technologies of the era to produce visual magic. There were choices upon choices upon choices of 1980s music videos when it came to which one deserved Break Yo’ TV credit, but I decided to go with one from the vault of funny metal dudes singing about elves and magic and Dungeons and Dragon-ry of the sort.

Enter Ronnie James Dio, former head of the most blackest Black Sabbath, and current accomplice of Tony Iommi in band Heaven and Hell. We’ve all learned that great things come in small packages, and though every rule usually has an exception, this one ain’t it. Dio, like any other who takes over a legend’s band (Van Hagar, anyone?) took the backlash for Sabbath when Ozzy left the picture, but he wasn’t only about dethroning alcohol-soaked heavy metal gods. Ronnie James Dio has been one of the best known names in metal for decades now, and continues to belt out bouts of vocal power from his small chest with his aptly titled band, Dio.

Through it all, the man had a penchant for imagination. One could say he would like The Princess Bride. Further, one could say movies like Legend, Troll, and The Neverending Story greatly influenced his songwriting—and video ideas. Watching his slammer “Mystery” of Dio (the band)’s second album The Last in Line, I feel compelled to say that I expected Link, Princess Zelda’s savior, to pop out from the sidelines at any moment.

The action of the video takes place in what I’m guessing is some interpretation of Middle Earth, Dio-style. It begins with footage of big-haired nymphs doing aerobics by a fountain or a statue of sorts (what is that?) and then in comes Dio, hiding behind a rock or a sleeping hippopotamus, dressed in Robin Hood’s weekend clothes. What’s really admirable about him is the way he keeps everyone in mind when he shoots a music video. See, Dio likes to add sign language to his vocals to aid the hearing impaired in enjoying his cinematographic disasters. He explains “Can you see?/There’s a storm on the edge of the sky,” by running lines over his eyes with his fingers and pointing yonder, at the edge of the sky, where the storm is a-brewin’.

Sadly, most of his signing consists of pointing and hand explosions (it’s like jazz hands without the jazz, just the positioning of one hand on each side of the head). I doubt many viewers without the capacity to hear would be able to decipher his message from the ambiguity of his fifth-grade recital gestures. (Lots of pointing around, pointing at himself for “me”, shaking his head and fingers for “no” or “don’t”, you get the jist.)

Not to mention the wardrobe choices of these characters. Not only is Dio wearing a black and purple pleather Fred Flintstone-meets-the-Renaissance suit, but his trusty aide, the “Wise Man”, appears to have stolen the King of Hearts’ pajamas. (By the way, the kid looks like the love child of John Mayer and the Karate Kid, in robes). Then there are the effects. I know we’re talking early ’80s here, but now that we’ve evolved past that point, I think it’s fair to chuckle at the sci-fi misfortunes of yore.

Towards the beginning, the image of Wise Man creeps in subtly—not—next to Dio and blows some plastic confetti off the palm of his hand, then turns to the camera to give us all a very intense, magical look of wonder and wisdom. All the while, he’s half superimposed onto the frame of Dio pointing at the storm of impending doom. The Wise Man is really a ball; every scene he takes charge of made me at least giggle with cheesy embarrassment. The cut of his half-twirl in the “forest”, fanning out a deck of cards to show his magic prowess, or the dramatic-prairie-dog-esque shot of him conjuring fire from his palm, or the bedside scene where he’s got that Christmas tree ornament dangling from his wrist, they all crack me up—that last one especially. When I saw the Wise Man magicking over a maiden’s body, with that little silver cube hanging from his wristband, I knew this video was gold. Come on, we can see the string! Ok, maybe not, but when he finally plucks it off and holds it up like it’s the sacred remedy, I was so relieved that thing was done bouncing around in midair, ignored.

This medieval forest in which Dio chose to frolic is really an astounding place with dangerous creatures worthy of the Zelda saga or any other fantasy video game today preferred by the pot-and-pizza crowd. At one point, Dio makes like Link and takes the sword forged from the fires of Mount Doom (okay, I know, I’m mixing up my fantasies) from our pal the Wise Man to defeat the evil ogres that threaten the interpretive dance team, er, nymphs. The monster seriously looks like someone didn’t know what a pig looked like and created a pig-cat-man instead. Such foul creature has no place in the magical world of Dio, so our hero slashes through paper vine after paper vine to defeat the abomination, which, it turns out, can change faces. Yeah, it’s so evil that not even one monster head can hold all of its hellish will, so it turns into a sock-face monster, and then a villain from the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers. (Keep in mind, this is pretty advanced stuff; the Power Rangers didn’t come out till the ’90s.)

Yeah, it’s really a mystery, Dio. What you were thinking when you made this? It’s great at times, though, like the first time Ronnie sings, “It’s a mystery/It’s not what it seems to be,” and a strange maze of blue flashes across the screen as he points across directly at it. Yes, that beam of blue is really a mystery. It seems to be impersonating lightning, but what it really is, we do not know. Either way, I have to thank Dio, the band and the man, for bringing to us such an awesome fail of music video-making.

Disclaimer: The portrayal of Ronnie James Dio’s music video in a comedic light in no way means that we at CoS encourage his current illness to progress nor wish for his recovery to fail. May Dio win victory over his cancer, defeat the beast and continue to rule as the inventor of the Devil’s Horns forever. Rock on, Ronnie.

TAGGED AS: Dio, Ronnie James Dio