The Man in Humpty Hump's Nose
August 24, 2012 9:20 AM   Subscribe

Back in 1993, the hip hop group Digital Underground needed to release a single to promote their 4th album, the Body-Hat Syndrome, in the hopes they could recapture the magic of their two biggest hits, Humpty Dance and Doowutchyalike. Frontman Greg "Shock G" Davis (aka Humpty Hump) needed a gimmick to promote the new single, Return of the Crazy One, so he hired FM Productions in San Francisco (who had also designed flying pigs for Pink Floyd concerts) to create a 12-foot high sculpture of his own head, which would allow him to emerge from a trap door in the nostrils. Fast forward almost twenty years later, until a guy with the web handle johnny payphone finds the giant head abandoned and covered in dust in an Oakland warehouse after a homeless man attempted to live in it for several weeks. No museums have yet expressed interest in the head, but if you have the money, and you can take good care of it, the giant Humpty Hump head could be yours.
posted by jonp72 (47 comments total) 23 users marked this as a favorite
 
He's really funny lookin'.

But that's odd, right? Cause clearly he gets things cookin'.
posted by inturnaround at 9:28 AM on August 24, 2012 [5 favorites]


never have I felt "WANT" so strongly...
posted by stifford at 9:28 AM on August 24, 2012 [3 favorites]


If this thing doesn't make an appearance at Burning Man and/or the Gathering of the Juggalos, I will be very disappointed.
posted by Faint of Butt at 9:39 AM on August 24, 2012 [6 favorites]


I like my oatmeal lumpy ...
posted by feckless at 9:44 AM on August 24, 2012 [1 favorite]


Oh, man, I was just thinking about this album yesterday. When it came out, I was always sure the breakout single was going to be Wussup Wit the Luv. So much for my career as an A & R woman.
posted by ariel_caliban at 9:45 AM on August 24, 2012 [1 favorite]


Oh yes, both to casually walk really high people by without mentioning it and to win every "what's the weirdest place you've had sex" conversation ever for the rest of my life.
posted by Blue Meanie at 9:46 AM on August 24, 2012 [11 favorites]


Okay, who exactly has the jurisdiction to evict someone from a giant Humpty Hump head?

And why would you bother? Fuck, just let the guy hang out there. What does it matter in the end?
posted by Naberius at 9:47 AM on August 24, 2012


This is looptid.
posted by rocket88 at 9:52 AM on August 24, 2012 [22 favorites]


Hmm. I was going to build my daughters a play structure this fall, but this would totally fit in my yard. And I live in NorCal...
posted by Big_B at 9:53 AM on August 24, 2012 [3 favorites]


"It turned out The Humpty Dance would be their only chance to do The Hump"
posted by Afroblanco at 9:56 AM on August 24, 2012


There's really something very cyberpunk about this. Or at least some other genre of darkly ironic dystopian sci-fi.
posted by Apocryphon at 9:57 AM on August 24, 2012 [3 favorites]


This is looptid.

I am laughing so hard I'm crying.
posted by cashman at 9:57 AM on August 24, 2012 [1 favorite]


Can we all chip in and make it the Official MetaFilter clubhouse?
posted by neroli at 10:11 AM on August 24, 2012 [5 favorites]


A-do-reeeeeer do ree, a-do-reeeeer do-ree.
posted by cavalier at 10:19 AM on August 24, 2012 [9 favorites]


Watch in amazement as Digital Underground give the only good performance in a movie that should have never been made. I have always wondered how they got this gig.
posted by dortmunder at 10:26 AM on August 24, 2012 [6 favorites]


Humpty was the first nerdcore rapper. I could never be cool like Chuck D or Rob Base, but I could sure as hell be "cool" like Humpty.

Of course, at the age of 33, I've not yet gotten busy in a Burger King bathroom, so that's one for the bucket list.
posted by infinitewindow at 10:28 AM on August 24, 2012 [5 favorites]


this is even better than the giant Eddie Murphy head.
posted by xbonesgt at 10:31 AM on August 24, 2012


Watch in amazement as Digital Underground give the only good performance in a movie that should have never been made.

Featuring a young Tupac!
posted by to sir with millipedes at 10:37 AM on August 24, 2012


Mr. Fig and I are currently shopping for a new home....and I think we just found the perfect one!
posted by Fig at 10:38 AM on August 24, 2012


WAIT!

That's the guy who said "Let's Grab 'em in the Biscuits"!
posted by inturnaround at 11:05 AM on August 24, 2012 [2 favorites]


Holy Geeze. 22 years since he ruined the image and style that I was used to.
posted by gofargogo at 11:08 AM on August 24, 2012 [11 favorites]


It will surprise none of you who have listened to Shock G's music over the years that he's an interesting guy with a lot of life experience, and he shares some of that in this here podcast interview with Shock G.
posted by chrchr at 11:09 AM on August 24, 2012 [2 favorites]


"A fictional biography was constructed for Humpty, the story being that Edward Ellington Humphrey III, former lead singer of "Smooth Eddie and the Humpers," had become a rapper after burning his nose in a kitchen accident with a deep-fryer"

love it.
posted by djseafood at 11:36 AM on August 24, 2012 [1 favorite]


What a story. Only in Oaktown, holy shit.
posted by blucevalo at 11:38 AM on August 24, 2012


Oh my god, Dortmunder! I'd completely forgot not only that performance, but that whole movie! Now I'm going to have to watch it somehow, it can't be as bad as I remember it.
posted by gofargogo at 11:49 AM on August 24, 2012


to win every "what's the weirdest place you've had sex" conversation ever for the rest of my life.
The only thing that could possibly beat "inside of a twelve foot tall sculpture of Humpty Hump's head" is if that sculpture were itself inside of a Burger King bathroom.
posted by Flunkie at 11:51 AM on August 24, 2012 [14 favorites]


it can't be as bad as I remember it.

It's worse. I too, had completely forgotten about it until a year or two ago when it popped up on Netflix.
posted by dortmunder at 12:10 PM on August 24, 2012


Grandpa Humpty
posted by mintcake! at 12:41 PM on August 24, 2012


Also: 'Hip Hop Doll' - best b-side ever, or best b-side of all time?
posted by mintcake! at 12:42 PM on August 24, 2012


Oh shit. My wife just said I should pick this up. Now I need to find an 18 wheeler and a 4 man forklift team!
posted by gofargogo at 12:47 PM on August 24, 2012 [1 favorite]


Are you joking? If only my apartment was big enough.
posted by phaedon at 12:59 PM on August 24, 2012


I remember hearing that the giant Mothership stage device designed by Bran Ferren for George Clinton and Funkadelic was somehow misplaced over the years. But dats da funk, yo.
posted by StickyCarpet at 1:04 PM on August 24, 2012


I am not joking. I live about an hour away. But the transport thing is kind of a deal breaker for me, at this point. If I manage to work it out, I'll update the thread or at least post an ask.me (What should I do with a 12' tall Humpty Head?)
posted by gofargogo at 1:10 PM on August 24, 2012 [5 favorites]


Stay off the main roads and drag it with a chain at night.
posted by StickyCarpet at 1:14 PM on August 24, 2012 [1 favorite]


I think we can all agree that Ridley Scott missed a grand opportunity by not including the giant Humpty Hump head in Prometheus.
posted by Strange Interlude at 1:26 PM on August 24, 2012 [3 favorites]


I remember hearing that the giant Mothership stage device designed by Bran Ferren for George Clinton and Funkadelic was somehow misplaced over the years.

Mothership, reconnected.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 1:26 PM on August 24, 2012 [1 favorite]


Metafilter: Stay off the main roads and.....oh, nevermind.
posted by gofargogo at 1:42 PM on August 24, 2012 [1 favorite]


He looks like M.C. Hammer on crack
posted by ShutterBun at 2:27 PM on August 24, 2012 [1 favorite]


If you get busy in the Humpty nose green room does the universe implode?
posted by jennybento at 3:44 PM on August 24, 2012 [1 favorite]


I gotta say I didn't expect much, but that is a truly awful song.
posted by Ad hominem at 5:45 PM on August 24, 2012


There is no sex in the Humpty nose green room, we all know that by now.
posted by StickyCarpet at 5:46 PM on August 24, 2012


(I like the art project that johnnypayphone linked too: fill an apartment full of copper sulfate solution and grow moderately toxic blue crystals all over the walls and fixtures.)
posted by away for regrooving at 12:53 AM on August 25, 2012


Heh - "green" room.
posted by stevil at 4:56 AM on August 25, 2012




Johnny Payphone and his rat bike gang were profiled in this 2004 article from the Chicago Reader. I remember getting halfway through, where Payphone is unemployed and couch surfing and dumpster diving for his food, and wondering why he merited a cover story, but there's a great payoff at the end.
posted by hydrophonic at 7:32 AM on August 26, 2012


I first read about Digital Underground in Mondo 2000. There's something sort of similar about the smart drinks advertized in the magazines pages and the concept of Digital Underground's first album, Sex Packets. See also this interview with Shock G. where he talks about the various people who would double as Humpty Hump. Shades of JT LeRoy!
posted by larrybob at 3:36 PM on August 30, 2012


Just reading the title is going to make me hear that song in my head for the next 5 hours, lol.
posted by Chris Doran at 3:39 PM on August 30, 2012


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