The video for "Paranoid Android"
features Robin, an animated character, created by Magnus Carlsson,
a Swedish cartoonist who stars Robin in his own 5-minute episodes
of "Robin." Radiohead discovered Robin on Channel 4 and asked
Magnus to do a video for them with Robin in it.
Magnus' first choice after listening to Ok Computer was 'No
Surprises', but afterwards he was happy it turned out to be
'Paranoid Android'. Carlsson said, "when I first got the song
I spent a whole day listening to it in my office. I have a window
where I see a bridge with lots of streetlights. I tried not
to listen to the lyrics, and after spending eight hours looking
at the bridge, I started sorting out something. Later I got
a fax from Thom where he explained the song, and the viewpoints
matched."
Thom said, "Robin is great. He is so much more then that kid
who showers with the cap on. In him I see the totally innocents.
Defiance his bad habits and the tuff, big city he lives in,
he is soft and gentle. And what ever happens he never loses
his temper. Nothing affects him. He gets bossed and makes stupid
things. People convince him to swallow things and dance naked.
Next morning he wakes up anyway and feels rather okay and has
forgotten last night. I wish I could be like that. Just forget.
Never really bother. It never works in the real world. When
we record can I live like that. Just get drunk till I forget.
And when I get to the real world, there is nuclear weapon, unhappy
love, people who don't recycle their cans. Everything that can't
leave me alone, and things that always are going to disturb
me. " Magnus also said, "I can understand that Thom identifies
himself with Robin. He is rather an international figure. Me
and Thom understand each other. We have never met, the connection
is mostly by fax. Anyway I created the plastic Hollywood-world
for Robin as Thom wanted the figure for "Paranoid Android" to
move in." (from follow
me around)
Review by Karen Hands:
This animated video was made by the creator of the Robin cartoon,
Magnus Carlsson. Robin and his friend get up to many antics.
They pay a woman to flash at them, buy a fish from a pet shop
(where to two mice/rats are having fun), go to a dodgy bar where
Radiohead are being 'entertained' by a man with a head coming
out of his stomach, and Robin is escorted from the top of a
lamp post by an angel in a helicopter! Meanwhile, at the bottom
of the lamp post, a political figure dressed only in a codpiece
covered in spikes and a mask, is trying to cut the lamp post
down. The political figure eventually cuts both his arms and
legs off and is taken away by some mermaids that are in the
river his parts fall in. In America, being the strange place
that it is, the violence of the man cutting himself to pieces
is allowed to be shown, but the topless mermaids had to be covered
up. To get the idea for the video, Carlsson locked himself in
his apartment all day and listened to Paranoid Android all day.
A bit extreme I think, but it resulted in a mighty video that
reflects the greatness of the six and a half minute epic.
