Um...

[Mr. Cohen]

Can someone explain the plot to this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vg6yMCz2G_w&list=FLEPcmp9VIOGj-0X1J4IC9EA&index=2&feature=plcp

So, we have Mike clearly in love with his shoes. He shines them and eats out of them, but will never wear them. Meanwhile, the rest of the Beach Boys are poking out from behind trees wearing gremlin masks. Dennis randomly falls from a tree.

Then, a couple of kids steal Mike's shoes, only for Mike to still have the shoes. After, the Beach Boys are seen without the masks poking from behind the same trees. They decide to play a card game, which Mike unsuccessfully tries to join. He sulks off and meets up with a gremlin. The two shine shoes together.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? Is this the answer to SMiLE? Can the Zen guy come and explain this, please?

[Mr. Cohen]

Now I'm envisioning Brian's idea for a video for "Barnyard". He says in an interview that he has an idea about filming chickens in tennis shoes.

Maybe the Boys could try and reconstruct firewood back into trees while Mike Love rolls around dirt, occasionally getting up to take his hat off.

[stack-o-tracks]

It's a shame that back then there wasn't the kind of video recording equipment we have now. We probably would have gotten that chicken in tennis shoes video....

[Wrightfan]

It's a shame that back then there wasn't the kind of video recording equipment we have now. We probably would have gotten that chicken in tennis shoes video....

Brian would've forcibly put them in the shoes 

[keysarsoze001]

Wow. I'd never seen that one. Almost certainly makes sense if you're tripping on acid.

[SamMcK]

I can't believe i've never actually seen that before, seeing footage of Brian and the boys in the 60's is really cool I wish there was more of it around.

[Zach95]

I saw this once before and was beyond baffled, and decided that the Beach Boys are just way too hip for me to comprehend. 

[Wah Wah Wah Ooooo]

That video is is "Endless Harmony" or "Amercian Band" or some documentary. I don't remember which one.  Very, very odd.

[Rocky Raccoon]

That video is is "Endless Harmony" or "Amercian Band" or some documentary. I don't remember which one.  Very, very odd.

In "Endless Harmony," it plays over "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times."

[Aegir]

At first watch I thought it was about one boy who wasn't accepted into the other people's society because of his abnormal behavior, e.g. drinking some beverage (tea) from the shoe or sliding down the grass as if it is icy around.

But, as it turned out, other people were also "normal". Let's face it, they wore ritual-type masks and each of them looked strange: some shook his head endlessly, some tossed back shoe to abnormal human himself and so on. There are many variations on this footage, it is very intriguing imo.
And what are your thinkings of it? Can someone explain me correctly the meaning of that BBs video gem? 

Brian Wilson smokes a lot of pot.

[I. Spaceman]

People are JUST NOW seeing the Pet Sounds promo film? Weird.

[anazgnos]

This is the best movie ever made.

[Magic Transistor Radio]

I am convinced that this guy had something to do with it

http://www.youtube.com/user/terminalpictures

[SG7]

I believe it was also on the Sounds of Summer DVD that came with the CD!

[onkster]

I hereby request Van Dyke Parks to question Mike Love on this piece of film, and demand what it means.

[guitarfool2002]

This film has turned up in several documentaries since the 80's (not always edited to the same music), and at least on one Pet Sounds reissue.

I have a few theories on the plot, but I'll leave that one go. If the song which was playing under that film had been the same in every appearance that footage has made, it might be easier to connect a few dots. But hearing, say, "Sloop John B" versus "I Just Wasn't Made For These Times" with that film can radically alter the way you perceive it.

Interesting to note that the cover photo used for "Greatest Hits Vol. 2" shows a color shot of the Beach Boys taken on what would appear to be the same day and place this film was made:

[18thofMay]

The plot is pretty straight forward.

[guitarfool2002]

The Badman diary book has an entry on this where he reports Derek Taylor - not Brian - wrote and directed this film for the BBC. Brian's film creation from 1966, on the other hand, can be seen in the Good Vibrations promo film, but that one is easier to dissect and analyze the imagery. In that film, there is no plot whatsoever to get in the way of our speculation and analysis...

Is the Lake Arrowhead location for this accurate? Anyone?

Unfortunately, unless he was asked about this film before he died, Derek Taylor may have been the only person who could have said exactly what the film was about.  

[guitarfool2002]

As I often do, I'll temporarily take this out of the analysis realm and into the historical nit-picking detail stuff, namely:

Lake Arrowhead.

This film (and the cover photo of Greatest Hits 2) is said to have been done at Lake Arrowhead in April '66, with Derek Taylor having scripted and directed the scenes. Around the Smile Sessions releases there were photos of the 'Boys (with Bruce) wearing winter coats shown among the trees and snow of Lake Arrowhead - and that would be backed up by no less an authority than the folks who administer Lake Arrowhead, who have shown that same photo of the band.

Bill Tobelman made a fascinating case that Arrowhead - not Big Sur as reported by Anderle - was where Brian had his third LSD experience, the one which led to the concepts he'd envision and use on Smile. That suggestion also included the time when this photo and film shoot would have been done - April '66 - as the date of Brian's Arrowhead LSD experience, suggesting that particular week in April '66 was the date of all of it happening...at Arrowhead.

Notice in the film/photo we're discussing, Bruce is not there, yet he is in the series of Arrowhead photos in the snow.

Has anyone ever pinned down the dates and situations which led to both the snow photos with Bruce and the ones without him in the woods? Are those cover shots and promo film taken in the woods Arrowhead, or is it really Big Sur, where Anderle said Brian had that LSD experience? Did one or more of the 'Boys have a place on Lake Arrowhead back in '66, where they would go often as a getaway, or were the photo shoots and film specifically one-time deals? Did Brian's LSD experience have any connection at all to the week when they filmed this promo and took that cover photo, or was he there another time?

Bill's centering the dates of the film and the trip all to Arrowhead April '66 does fit well and would make perfect sense, in speculation, but has it ever been proven or disproved beyond being speculation which fits the timeline very well? Comparing this film to scenery of Lake Arrowhead, they would seem to match going on nothing but my eyesight and thinking a campground like Arrowhead looks like the scenery in the film.