It is not unusual for a House to ridicule its rivals in video form, as payback for being made fun of in previous years. And this week has seen much of the same. With just days to spare, more videos from Leverett, Cabot, Currier, Winthrop, Kirkland, Quincy, Dunster, and Pfoho have joined the list that is 2012's Housing Season. Here's a recap of the new additions.
It seems that spoofs are in vogue this year, at least in Winthrop. Inspired by the old classic "Stop in the name of Love," Winthrop's first video, "Throp In The Name of Love" features their lion mascot dancing to lyrics like: "JFK walked these halls." The second video "Throp Gun" is an adaptation of the "Top Gun" trailer, and brags about Winthrop's four years of Straus Cup glory.
Following the trend, Cabot released "House Like You," a rendition of Adele's hit song "Someone Like You." It tells a sad tale of two unfortunate freshmen lotteried into River Houses, who still dream of someday, somehow, making it into Cabot.
Dunster makes its season debut with "Now That's What I Call Housing," a medley of nine clips of popular songs whose lyrics have been rearranged to insult the other Houses. On the House's YouTube page, Henry Dunster Moose promises to release longer versions from the collection, which currently includes: "Because I Got Lowell," "It Sucks in Quincy," and "Lev Stinks."
The weekend also saw the return of Quincy, Leverett, Kirkland, and Currier to our screens. A series of short "This is Quincy House" videos were released, giving us brief 30-second glimpses of the Quincy House mascot, the penguin, in various aspects of House life such as laundry, parties, and dining.
Kirkland has put out two new unofficial offerings: this video, which co-opts Jimmy Kimmel's Halloween prank, using clips of adorable children throwing tantrums to the news that that they have been placed in other Houses, and this one, which riffs off of Dunster's past Old Spice spoofs.
Leverett's official video, "Lev Solo Cup," was described in the House's e-mail to freshmen as an "ode to Toby Keith," and is modeled after Keith's "Red Solo Cup." With its country music instrumentals, the song's lyrics boast of Lev's favorite famous alum, Jeremy Lin.
This unofficial video, a short film from Currier, follows two scientists and their unidentifiable accents, as they measure the hallways of each of the twelve Houses. In the end, using an extremely complicated mathematical and scientific argument in which long hallways are equivalent to greatness, the video postulates that Currier = longest hallways = best House.
Finally, Pfoho just came out with a Housing Day music video, a riff off ABC by the Jackson Five, featuring five adorable polar bears.
Flyby is still waiting for a video from Lowell. In the meantime, the House has released two songs, "I Believe in a Thing Called Lowell" and "Baby Got Bells" on its tumblr blog.