Oh hey, 1995 called and it wants its retro intro to Breaking Bad back.
March 7, 2013 9:11 AM   Subscribe

Oh hey, 1995 called and it wants its retro intro to Breaking Bad back. (SLYT)

Intro to Breaking Bad restyled as a 1995 broadcast network family drama. With the requisite soft rock theme song too.
posted by fuse theorem (47 comments total) 20 users marked this as a favorite
 
For those of you concerned, this is spoiler-free, unless you somehow didn't know that Bryan Cranston shaved his head.
posted by phunniemee at 9:15 AM on March 7, 2013




I would watch the HELL out of that sitcom.
posted by SPUTNIK at 9:19 AM on March 7, 2013 [1 favorite]


Here's another version of this general idea with some added laugh track. It's also worth pointing out that one of the best things about Breaking Bad is how it's often pretty funny, like anytime Badger's around or half of Saul's scenes.
posted by Copronymus at 9:34 AM on March 7, 2013 [12 favorites]


Love it.
posted by Mister_A at 9:34 AM on March 7, 2013


This seems more Late-80's than Mid-90's, but otherwise it's spot-on, down to the VHS artifacts. Amazing.
posted by KGMoney at 9:35 AM on March 7, 2013 [8 favorites]


This is sweet... exactly what the Internet is all about.
posted by crapmatic at 9:36 AM on March 7, 2013


This is fandom done right!*
*Not Jesse/Badger fanfic.**
**Or, lord help us, Jesse/Walt Jr.
posted by fiercecupcake at 9:42 AM on March 7, 2013


Needs more Claire Danes.
posted by Sreiny at 9:43 AM on March 7, 2013 [1 favorite]


Here's another version of this general idea with some added laugh track

That comes off like the weird Rodney Dangerfield scene in Natural Born Killers. The laugh track doesn't change the obvious seriousness of the scene (as I assume it thinks its doing here), it just makes the viewer uncomfortable.
posted by dgaicun at 9:45 AM on March 7, 2013 [2 favorites]


*Not Jesse/Badger fanfic.**
**Or, lord help us, Jesse/Walt Jr.


These are things that, had you asked me, I would have assumed existed.

However, they are also things I would not ever have thought about had you not brought them up.
posted by infinitywaltz at 9:47 AM on March 7, 2013 [3 favorites]


I agree--the time warp is a little off (7 years maybe), but otherwise, these seem pitch perfect.
posted by Admiral Haddock at 9:47 AM on March 7, 2013


OK if Simon & Simon (1981-1989) gets cancelled, I'll watch Breaking Bad.
posted by surplus at 9:53 AM on March 7, 2013 [3 favorites]


Instead of Bryan Cranston it totally would've been William Daniels (aka George Feeny from Boy Meets World.)
posted by naju at 9:53 AM on March 7, 2013


Is there a Breaking Bad/MacGyver Theme intro somewhere?
posted by BeeDo at 9:56 AM on March 7, 2013 [1 favorite]


Must be accessed by going to AOL Keyword: Breaking Bad and using the Realplayer plugin.
posted by fizzix at 9:57 AM on March 7, 2013 [20 favorites]


More than anything it reminds me of late 90s dramadies like 7th Heaven. Which is a weird thing to compare BB to.
posted by spamguy at 9:57 AM on March 7, 2013 [5 favorites]


BeeDo: "Is there a Breaking Bad/MacGyver Theme intro somewhere?"

Thankfully, yes (SLYT)
posted by fizzix at 10:04 AM on March 7, 2013 [9 favorites]


William Daniels (aka George Feeny from Boy Meets World.)

Don't try and bamboozle me with your modern references, you really mean William Daniels: VOICE OF KITT
posted by biffa at 10:08 AM on March 7, 2013 [7 favorites]


Don't you mean Simon & Simon (2012)?
posted by leotrotsky at 10:17 AM on March 7, 2013 [5 favorites]


They would have called it "Breaking Badly" in the 90's.
posted by blue_beetle at 10:27 AM on March 7, 2013 [6 favorites]


My day is made.
posted by BeeDo at 10:30 AM on March 7, 2013


I saw a comment recently (though can't now remember where) that said, more or less: "The final episode of Breaking Bad will be where Brian Cranston gets put into witness protection as the dad in Malcolm in the Middle." This intro is the bridge that makes that idea possible.
posted by hot soup girl at 10:32 AM on March 7, 2013 [21 favorites]


I remember the mid-90's as not being so late 80's. But it was so long ago...
posted by Chuffy at 10:49 AM on March 7, 2013


I'd say this is more of a late 80's early 90's style of intro. By '95 the networks were experimenting with either getting rid of the theme song intro entirely or cutting it way down and doing something a little less literal (think of the Friends intro, for example -- I think that was '94 or '95).

Also, like most fan-made spoof material, it is waaaaaaay too long.
posted by Sara C. at 10:56 AM on March 7, 2013 [3 favorites]


I was going to complain that while the retro BB intro does a great job with the VHS look and the titling, the pace is way too slow for the upbeat music, even by ancient ‘90s standards. Then I watched the original Simon & Simon intro surplus linked to and, damn, if that thing doesn’t just crawl along. As a video editor, it’s particularly frightening to me how popular culture has distorted my sense of “appropriate” pacing by incrementally speeding everything up over the years.
posted by Cheezitsofcool at 10:56 AM on March 7, 2013 [9 favorites]


Isn't this more mid 90's?
posted by The Power Nap at 10:59 AM on March 7, 2013 [8 favorites]


Cheezitsofcool, I've noticed that with my recent marathonning of Star Trek: TNG. Especially the early seasons which were made in the late 80's. There are episodes where the first 15 minutes is just aimless riffing with no connection to the plot. At first I thought, "Oh no, TNG was a terrible show..." but then I realized that attention spans are just a lot shorter now.
posted by Sara C. at 11:01 AM on March 7, 2013 [1 favorite]


Metafilter: This video is so "1992", not "1995".
posted by RhymesWithToaster at 11:02 AM on March 7, 2013 [3 favorites]


(Oh god I just watched that Simon & Simon intro and I changed my mind -- the Breaking Bad homage is not too long and slow, AT ALL. Holy shit, they don't even tell you the name of the show till 17 seconds in! It's a full 40 seconds till they finish introducing the two leads! And then there's another 20 seconds of nothing much!)
posted by Sara C. at 11:04 AM on March 7, 2013


2007 called and wants to restrict videos from mobile devices back.
posted by birdherder at 11:42 AM on March 7, 2013 [3 favorites]


blue_beetle: "They would have called it "Breaking Badly" in the 90's."

Winston tastes good, like a cigarette ought to.
posted by boo_radley at 12:08 PM on March 7, 2013


Hey, in the 80s we didn't have the siren call of Internets to make us get impatient. It was watching the rest of the Simon and Simon intro or...getting off our butts and doing something productive.

Though mostly I think it was a "crap, better go pee NOW!" cue for most people.
posted by emjaybee at 12:49 PM on March 7, 2013 [1 favorite]


as a cigarette ought to.

Sheesh.
posted by IndigoJones at 12:50 PM on March 7, 2013 [4 favorites]


For those of you concerned, this is spoiler-free, unless you somehow didn't know that Bryan Cranston shaved his head.

Or ran around in his underpants.
posted by SpacemanStix at 1:05 PM on March 7, 2013


Or ran around in his underpants.

Considering that Walt in his underpants is literally the first character shot you see S01E01, I suppose I probably could have said: "spoiler alert: this is a show that exists."
posted by phunniemee at 1:11 PM on March 7, 2013 [7 favorites]


The song choice is inspired.
posted by Catchfire at 1:20 PM on March 7, 2013 [1 favorite]


Oddly, this video linked to one of Vince Gilligan telling Conan what a "terrible idea" the show was in retrospect (at least as a pitch), and Conan replies "Well, I'm glad it's not a multi-camera sitcom, with an audience!"
posted by dhartung at 1:20 PM on March 7, 2013


Holy shit, they don't even tell you the name of the show till 17 seconds in! It's a full 40 seconds till they finish introducing the two leads! And then there's another 20 seconds of nothing much!

You need time to get your Lunchablez ready, man.
posted by dhartung at 1:35 PM on March 7, 2013 [3 favorites]


Or ran around in his underpants.

"The final episode of Breaking Bad will be where Brian Cranston gets put into witness protection as the dad in Malcolm in the Middle."



Hmmm. Come of it, Hal (from Malcolm) often ran around in his underwear, too.
posted by MoxieProxy at 2:32 PM on March 7, 2013 [3 favorites]


This definitely replaced the Shining one for me.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 4:02 PM on March 7, 2013 [1 favorite]


At first I thought, "Oh no, TNG was a terrible show..." but then I realized that attention spans are just a lot shorter now.

I mainlined a lot of Max Headroom episodes a while ago on a weekend binge, and realized that a lot of programming now is closer to Blipverts than the actual Max Headroom show.
posted by Shepherd at 4:14 PM on March 7, 2013 [2 favorites]


Man, nostalgia is hitting people my age hard.
posted by shortyJBot at 4:22 PM on March 7, 2013


Wait until you're in your 40s, shortyJBot, and you're watching nostalgia just start to hit people in their 30s, and you're nostalgic for the first time you were nostalgic.
posted by gingerest at 5:08 PM on March 7, 2013 [3 favorites]


Argh. Why does YouTube allow people to block their videos from being played on mobile devices? What purpose does that serve?
posted by sevenyearlurk at 8:32 PM on March 7, 2013


Thanks for this, MetaFilter -- I turned right around and went and taught this to my media literacy class, in lieu of the Shining edit, which they didn't get last semester (kids these days don't even have The Shining through cultural osmosis, it seems).
posted by gusandrews at 8:54 PM on March 7, 2013


My prediction is that Walter White ends up in the witness protection program as a dentist in New York City.

Anyone who disagrees is an anti-dentite.
posted by 4ster at 3:03 PM on March 8, 2013 [1 favorite]


« Older Air Pollution in Asia: Real-time Air Quality Index...   |   In Memory of Paul Bearer Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments