One day after an early contender for most disturbing video of 2015 dropped, it’s already been usurped by something much more frightening than picturing Suge Knight rollin’ over two dudes. Enter Trisha Paytas, a plus-size entertainer seen on the seventh season of America’s Got Talent and prior to that on TLC’s My Strange Addiction for her compulsion to go tanning constantly. Paytas also fancies herself a singer, but the top-heavy songstress has taken things to a new level with the video release of her cover of Van Halen’s classic, “Hot for Teacher.”
The clip is below – along with the original – and is kinda-sorta NSFW. The song itself appears on Fat Chicks, a four song EP from Paytas which came out last Friday.
In the video, Paytas takes on the role of Waldo, who appeared in the band’s original treatment for the song in 1984, playing the dorky mama’s boy headed off to his first day at school where he’s tormented by insecurities about not fitting in, self-doubt not helped at all by the rowdy kids playing grade school Van Halen who are over-the-top excited about their teacher turning into a bikini-clad beauty queen.
Paytas is no nerd though, this time it’s the teacher, portrayed by Los Angeles based producer and comedian Jason Horton who gets to be the geek-in-glasses stressed out by the randy students, an all-female troupe intent on sexually harassing him in the classroom and the boy’s bathroom. It’s a fun bit of gender swapping from the original, and while an infuriated portion of Van Halen fans don’t get the joke, their anger only makes the clip more that much more amusing.
Most surprising of all is the introduction to the video, which is done by none other than current Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth who, in a dead on Twilight Zone/Rod Serling impression intones, “Get your cyber-legs ready; you’re about to lose your balance.” Roth is barely able to keep his composure, falling back at one point while laughing and saying, “As you can see, I’m a little bit distracted, because what you are about to see is going to blow your mind – mind roasting!”
See if you agree with Diamond Dave by comparing the two clips, and tune into The Voltage Factory tomorrow night on VanyaRadio at 8pm EST where this week’s Classic Album Spotlight will be on the third VH album, Women and Children First, which turns 30 later this month.
