Comments on: The Man in Humpty Hump's Nose

The Man in Humpty Hump's Nose

jonp72 — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 09:20:33 -0800

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.

By: inturnaround

inturnaround — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 09:28:28 -0800

He's really funny lookin'. But that's odd, right? Cause clearly he gets things cookin'.

By: stifford

stifford — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 09:28:50 -0800

never have I felt "WANT" so strongly...

By: Faint of Butt

Faint of Butt — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 09:39:32 -0800

If this thing doesn't make an appearance at Burning Man and/or the Gathering of the Juggalos, I will be very disappointed.

By: feckless

feckless — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 09:44:35 -0800

I like my oatmeal lumpy ...

By: ariel_caliban

ariel_caliban — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 09:45:59 -0800

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.

By: Blue Meanie

Blue Meanie — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 09:46:18 -0800

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.

By: Naberius

Naberius — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 09:47:52 -0800

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?

By: rocket88

rocket88 — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 09:52:58 -0800

This is looptid.

By: Big_B

Big_B — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 09:53:17 -0800

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...

By: Afroblanco

Afroblanco — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 09:56:37 -0800

"It turned out The Humpty Dance would be their only chance to do The Hump"

By: Apocryphon

Apocryphon — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 09:57:44 -0800

There's really something very cyberpunk about this. Or at least some other genre of darkly ironic dystopian sci-fi.

By: cashman

cashman — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 09:57:56 -0800

This is looptid. I am laughing so hard I'm crying.

By: neroli

neroli — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 10:11:56 -0800

Can we all chip in and make it the Official MetaFilter clubhouse?

By: cavalier

cavalier — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 10:19:34 -0800

A-do-reeeeeer do ree, a-do-reeeeer do-ree.

By: dortmunder

dortmunder — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 10:26:45 -0800

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.

By: infinitewindow

infinitewindow — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 10:28:26 -0800

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.

By: xbonesgt

xbonesgt — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 10:31:49 -0800

this is even better than the giant Eddie Murphy head.

By: to sir with millipedes

to sir with millipedes — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 10:37:18 -0800

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

By: Fig

Fig — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 10:38:40 -0800

Mr. Fig and I are currently shopping for a new home....and I think we just found the perfect one!

By: inturnaround

inturnaround — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 11:05:11 -0800

WAIT! That's the guy who said "Let's Grab 'em in the Biscuits"!

By: gofargogo

gofargogo — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 11:08:29 -0800

Holy Geeze. 22 years since he ruined the image and style that I was used to.

By: chrchr

chrchr — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 11:09:08 -0800

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.

By: djseafood

djseafood — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 11:36:02 -0800

"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.

By: blucevalo

blucevalo — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 11:38:31 -0800

What a story. Only in Oaktown, holy shit.

By: gofargogo

gofargogo — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 11:49:16 -0800

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.

By: Flunkie

Flunkie — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 11:51:33 -0800

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.

By: dortmunder

dortmunder — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 12:10:00 -0800

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.

By: mintcake!

mintcake! — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 12:41:40 -0800

Grandpa Humpty

By: mintcake!

mintcake! — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 12:42:59 -0800

Also: 'Hip Hop Doll' - best b-side ever, or best b-side of all time?

By: gofargogo

gofargogo — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 12:47:07 -0800

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!

By: phaedon

phaedon — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 12:59:49 -0800

Are you joking? If only my apartment was big enough.

By: StickyCarpet

StickyCarpet — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 13:04:33 -0800

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.

By: gofargogo

gofargogo — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 13:10:26 -0800

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?)

By: StickyCarpet

StickyCarpet — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 13:14:43 -0800

Stay off the main roads and drag it with a chain at night.

By: Strange Interlude

Strange Interlude — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 13:26:21 -0800

I think we can all agree that Ridley Scott missed a grand opportunity by not including the giant Humpty Hump head in Prometheus.

By: Horace Rumpole

Horace Rumpole — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 13:26:23 -0800

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.

By: gofargogo

gofargogo — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 13:42:21 -0800

Metafilter: Stay off the main roads and.....oh, nevermind.

By: ShutterBun

ShutterBun — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 14:27:01 -0800

He looks like M.C. Hammer on crack

By: jennybento

jennybento — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 15:44:08 -0800

If you get busy in the Humpty nose green room does the universe implode?

By: Ad hominem

Ad hominem — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 17:45:26 -0800

I gotta say I didn't expect much, but that is a truly awful song.

By: StickyCarpet

StickyCarpet — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 17:46:45 -0800

There is no sex in the Humpty nose green room, we all know that by now.

By: away for regrooving

away for regrooving — Sat, 25 Aug 2012 00:53:48 -0800

(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.)

By: stevil

stevil — Sat, 25 Aug 2012 04:56:12 -0800

Heh - "green" room.

By: box

box — Sat, 25 Aug 2012 15:22:44 -0800

"If my parents come in, just tell 'em the Burger King story"

By: hydrophonic

hydrophonic — Sun, 26 Aug 2012 07:32:13 -0800

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.

By: larrybob

larrybob — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 15:36:31 -0800

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!

By: Chris Doran

Chris Doran — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 15:39:17 -0800

Just reading the title is going to make me hear that song in my head for the next 5 hours, lol.