Although the early days of MTV were the Wild West in the music video realm, they weren't that wild. By the mid-1980s, heavy metal music, videos, and imagery had caused a stir among mainstream parents, leading a group of senator's wives to form the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) that sought to censor pop and rock music they deemed to be salacious and offensive. In the end, their efforts just made kids want that stuff even more.
Heavy metal in particular faced a backlash by 1985, with most of the heavier bands being banished to late-night viewing or a weekend show called Heavy Metal Mania, hosted by Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider. His group drew some fire for their two big videos "We're Not Gonna Take It" and "I Wanna Rock," both of which featured bandmembers engaging in cartoon violence against a blustery authority figure portrayed by Mark Metcalf of Animal House fame. It was appropriate that Snider would host the new show, and two years later Headbangers Ball was born.
In late November 1985, Twisted Sister released their fourth album Come Out and Play, the follow-up to the eventual Triple Platinum album Stay Hungry, which made them one of the biggest rock bands of 1984. The album was actually heavier and more aggressive than its predecessor, which had a more polished production from Tom Werman. Rather than go with one of the more anthemic tracks on Come Out and Play, Atlantic Records chose to go with Twisted's poppy cover of The Shangri-Las' 1964 tune "Leader of the Pack."
For a band known for being antiauthoritarian, to do a gender-swapped girl group cover -- albeit one with a tragic story but given cutesy onscreen humor -- didn't really play well with the masses that had anointed them as rebellious hard rock heroes -- even if the the band members rode on motorcycles throughout the video. Something needed to be done, or Twisted was going to lose the great momentum they had built up the previous year and after over a decade of slugging it out in the New York club scene.
The solution was unusual. The '50s-inspired song on the album, "Be Chrool To Your Scuel," featured guest appearances from shock rock singer Alice Cooper, Stray Cats guitarist Brian Setzer, Bruce Springsteen's sax player Clarence Clemons, and Billy Joel on piano. The accompanying video would be gnarlier than all its predecessors. Director Marty Callner created a gory video in which a zombie apocalypse overtakes a high school, and students want to feast on flesh. Featuring gruesome effects from the now legendary Tom Savini -- who cameoed in the teachers lounge scene and was known for his work on George Romero's zombie movies -- Twisted Sister did an about-face and used horror humor to sell what was to some an unsettling clip.
The group's star had fallen enough that an open casting call for extras failed, thus Callner had to hire them for the shoot. The opening and closing featured the popular caterwauling comedy of Bobcat Goldtwhait, who journeys to the teachers' lounge where he and Savini transform into Snider and Cooper, and other educators turn into the rest of the band. The two singers emcee the undead party overtaking the school. (Fun find: A young Luke Perry appears in the opening classroom scene, four years before Beverly Hills 90210 would make him a TV star.)
While the video was certainly fun for blood-loving horror movie fans, it was too much for the executives at MTV, who decided to ban the clip outright. This dealt a major blow to the band monetarily, and while the track was also more commercial than the rest of the album, the clip was raw and gritty and could have helped the band regain credibility with fans who thought the quintet had sold out on the last album.
It also could have boosted them because Snider, along with Frank Zappa and John Denver, had testified at the PMRC Senate hearings the year before. Snider's appearance drew the ire of both fans and metal musicians who felt he should not be the one to speak for their community, and because the Twisted singer also admitted to adhering to Christian values, which made him seem un-rock 'n' roll to some. (Let's not forget the Satanic panic of the '80s that freaked parents out but many kids loved.)
Thanks to the YouTube universe, Twisted fans have been able to watch the video for years now and see what they missed out on. It's a shame that "Be Chrool To Your Scuel" did not make it to air because it certainly would've built quite a buzz around them and the controversial imagery. That would've kept them in the spotlight longer and potentially boosted sales past the Gold status that Come Out and Play achieved. Selling half a million records is not bad, but when your previous album sold over four times that, it's a cause for concern.
Twisted Sister's next album, Love Is for Suckers in 1987, was meant to be a Snider solo album. However, Atlantic Records did not feel hopeful about the sales potential and turned it into a Twisted Sister record despite the presence of many other musicians on it. The album flopped and led to the dissolution of the band the next year. Twisted Sister would reunite onstage in 2001 for a 9/11 benefit concert that sowed the seeds for renewed touring in 2003 that would last for over a dozen years. The death of drummer A.J. Pero led them to calling it a day after one final tour in 2016 with drummer Mike Portnoy.
These days, horror-themed videos -- including the bloody Sabrina Carpenter clip "Taste," featuring her and Jenna Ortega killing each other like the ladies in the movie Death Becomes Her -- have become far more accepted. Of course, YouTube has filters to keep younger viewers from seeing anything too bloody. What's interesting about MTV's ban of "Be Chrool To Your Scuel" is they had shown Michael Jackson's "Thriller" clip with no problem (although it was bloodless), and they used to play George Romero's 1968 classic Night of the Living Dead late-night every Halloween. They probably could've shown the Twisted Sister video at that time as well, but back then it was probably easier to sell a black-and-white zombie-fest than one in full blood-red color.
It sounds like meager consolation now, but at least Twisted Sister can say they were far ahead of the curve of horror-themed videos that are commonplace today.
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