What Became of Mr. 2:46?

So I was driving home from work one day, and I happened to have the radio on and heard All-4-One’s version of I Swear from back in the mid 1990s. I had not heard the song in some time, but I can remember liking it for some reason all of those years back. But as I was driving, it occurred to me: maybe I should go check out the video for this song on YouTube. You see, growing up we did not have cable television in my household and thus I was never able to watch the MTV. And what I found in the video was truly disturbing. Here, take a look: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fF-Y4vdVV1k

Okay, so I’m going to do an analysis of this video. Why? Well, because I have nothing better to do right now, and I wish that I had access to the MTV years ago so that I could have done this sort of thing when these videos were actually in circulation. Okay, so coincidentally enough there are four members of All-4-One. Who would have guessed? So I’m sure that they all have real names, but I’m too lazy to search for what those names are. Instead, I have decided to nickname them Mr. Singer #1 (or Singer #1 for short), Mr. Singer #2 (Singer #2), Mr. Glasses (Glasses), and Mr. 2:46 (2:46).

The video starts with the four on top of a building, kicking an empty box around like a soccer ball. Does this seem strange to you? Four grown men, on top of a building, and kicking an empty box around like a soccer ball… This seems a little strange to me. At some point, these four grown men seem to become inexplicably bored with kicking the empty box around on top of the building and so they run off. And so while Singer #1 and Glasses are discussing whatever, Singer #2 and Mr. 2:46 are perusing the streets from the top of the building. But what should happen as Singer #2 and Mr. 2:46 are peering over the side of the building? Well, lo and behold they see some girl walking across the street. Of course the pair is about twenty-five stories up from street level, but it does not matter, this girl has to be hot. So they call over Singer #1 and Glasses who have looks as well and then the next step becomes crystal clear: the four must go down to meet this girl. I mean four guys and one girl; those are outstanding odds for the guys.

So, they get down to street level, and somehow they are still able to find this girl after whatever length of time their trek must have taken them. And then something magical happens. Somehow as these four guys stalk this one girl, she does not run away to get help from the police, none of the four are maced, and none of them are pepper sprayed. Miracles do happen apparently.

Well obviously as all of this craziness is going on there is some actual singing that is being done. Singer #1 finishes his verse while the stalking is purely in the planning stage, while the foursome is still atop the building. But almost at the precise moment when they make contact with the girl Singer #2 begins his verse. Really this verse is a great vocal achievement as great vocal achievements go, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It just really is inconceivable that whatever conversation that this girl had with these four guys lasted as long as this second verse. There’s no possible way this happened. What happened to the whole women’s intuition thing? She didn’t get the sense that these guys had just been on top of a building kicking around an empty box? I mean, this whole video is just so irritating, but I guess if you’re making the video you can have any number of implausible elements within that you desire.

But eventually during the video we come to my favorite moment, and that’s the two minute, forty-six second point of the video (or 2:46). This is my favorite moment in the video because this is the only point where it appears that Mr. 2:46 actually says anything in the song. Is this guy really just in the group because All-3-One really wouldn’t have made any sense? In reality, Glasses does not appear to do much singing during the song either, but there doesn’t seem to be an analogous point in the video for him where the intent seems to be just to show that he actually sings in the group.

However, in the very end this video wraps up nicely with perhaps the only thing that does make sense in its entirety. The girl gets on a bus and goes off somewhere, hopefully to a location where these guys won’t follow. Presumably they go back up to the top of the building to kick the box around some more when this is over. Well I’m pretty much done talking about this video. I’m going to go watch The Hills now.