Hello Skinny (video)

"Hello Skinny" is a 1980 short film/music video directed by Graeme Whifler and co-written by Whifler and The Residents, for the song of the same name from the group's 1978 album Duck Stab!/Buster & Glen. 
The video (which is derived from an unsuccessful attempt to create a feature film based around the songs from Duck Stab!) stars Bridgit Terris as "Skinny", and consists mostly of still images, with a small amount of color film footage of Terris. 
== History ==
"Hello Skinny" features the song of the same name from The Residents' 1978 album Duck Stab!/Buster & Glen. It was created by the group with Graeme Whifler, who had previously collaborated with them on a number of promotional photo sessions and on their abandoned feature film Vileness Fats. 
The video was intended to be part of a film project based around numerous songs from the Duck Stab! album, but ultimately "Hello Skinny" was the only result of this effort. It stars Bridgit Terris, a disabled man Whifler had chanced across who lived under the impression that he was the actress Bridget Bardot. Terris had just been released from a local mental institution as a result of then-Governor Ronald Reagan's budgetary cuts. 
Terris left San Francisco part way through filming, so much of "Hello Skinny" was completed using montages of black and white photographs taken by Whifler at the bus stop shortly before Terris' departure, and a small amount of color film footage, which was originally intended to accompany the song "Birthday Boy".
== Release and legacy ==
The "Hello Skinny" film was a critical success on college campuses in America and in Europe, but MTV didn't go on the air until a year later and wasn't overly interested in The Residents' work. As a result, the video never got much air time in the United States. It was, however, shown regularly on Canada's MuchMusic, and a copy is held in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art. 
In 1987 it was included in the VHS compilation Video Voodoo, and in 1992 on the laserdisc Twenty Twisted Questions. It was remastered and released on Icky Flix in 2001, for which The Residents also recorded an entirely new version of the song. 
"Hello Skinny" (alongside The Third Reich 'n' Roll, "One Minute Movies" and "Songs for Swinging Larvae") was restored in HD in 2019 by Peter Conheim for the Cinema Preservation Alliance."Hello Skinny" 2019 restoration on Graeme Whifler's YouTube channel (unlisted) This restored version appears within the collection Ears, Eyes and Throats: Restored Classic and Lost Punk Films 1976-1981. 
== See also ==
* The Residents videography
* "Hello Skinny"
* Duck Stab! (film)
* Graeme Whifler
* Bridgit Terris
== Watch online ==
* "Hello Skinny" (Icky Flix remaster) on YouTube
== External links and references ==
* "Hello Skinny" at RZWeb (archived via archive.org)
Category:Film and video
Category:Duck Stab!/Buster & Glen