Dave Chappelle, ‘New Girl’ And So Many Pancakes: A Look At Prince’s Best Pop Culture Moments
Yes, Prince had a video game in the early '90s.
Prince was the greatest, but you already knew that. He made the coolest, sexiest, soul-enhancing music, but you already knew that too.
Today you’ll read lots of articles about his musical accomplishments (including the songs he wrote for other people, like Sinead O’Connor’s ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ and The Bangles’ ‘Manic Monday’), his refusal to adhere to restrictive gender norms, how he challenged what ‘masculinity’ meant, and how he could somehow make performing in a g-string look cool.
Even though you hear a lot about Prince’s eccentric rockstar moments (yes, apparently that story about him firing a crew member for looking at him is true) Prince was also a self-aware guy who didn’t mind poking fun at himself. Even though he tended to be elusive, Prince’s cameos in film and TV revealed him to be a very funny, self-reflexive performer.
Here are some of our favourite Prince pop culture moments:
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Purple Rain (1984)
Duh. It’s impossible to imagine who else but Prince could make a blatant vanity project (which should be cringeworthy and lame) into the coolest fucking movie ever. The film made $80 million in the US and won an Academy Award for Best Original Song, but more than that, it brought his brand of purple-drenched weirdness to suburban cinema screens around the world.
Purple Rain is about ‘The Kid’, who escapes an abusive household and finds solace in performing with his band The Revolution, but then must contend with music rivalries and a tortured relationship. The film was tied to the album of the same name, which meant that Prince could find new and exciting ways to make people weep during ‘When Doves Cry’.
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Under The Cherry Moon (1986)
Under The Cherry Moon was the first film that Prince directed (he also directed his concert film Sign O’ The Times and the sequel to Purple Rain, Graffiti Road) and it’s basically 98 minutes of Prince and Kristen Scott Thomas biting their lips and making sexy eyes at each other. It didn’t attract a huge audience (although it was pretty influential; you can see a lot of it in Baz Luhrmann’s Great Gatsby) but its soundtrack Parade, was a huge hit. Maybe you’ve heard of a little song called ‘Kiss’?
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Batman soundtrack (1989)
Prince did the soundtrack for the Tim Burton/Michael Keaton Batman film, and it was number one on the Billboard chart for six consecutive weeks. It also featured songs like ‘Batdance’ and ‘Partyman’, the latter of which inspired the best video of all time. Enjoy.
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Prince Interactive the video game (1994)
Prince had a goddamn video game! Eric Clapton and George Clinton were in it! The premise of the game was that after making “an emergency landing at Prince’s space villa” you explore, solve puzzles and find pieces of his symbol to fix your ship. In true 1994 style, the game was basically a way of unlocking “exclusive multimedia resources” which probably meant a few low-res videos and some killer wallpaper options.
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The Muppets Tonight (1997)
It is so adorable that Prince, one of the most mysterious and notoriously cryptic musicians on the planet, was like: “Sure, I’ll go hang out with some puppets”. He even lets them make fun of the Prince symbol! So silly and adorable.
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Chappelle’s Show… kind of (2004)
This is the best. On his sketch show, comedian Dave Chappelle did a bit where he would reenact stories told by Charlie Murphy (Eddie Murphy’s brother) one of which involved Prince and the Revolution beating the Murphys in a basketball game — while still dressed in costume — and then making them pancakes afterwards.
Funny anecdote, right? But it gets so much better. In 2013, Prince released a single called, ‘Breakfast Can Wait’. On the cover of the single was Dave Chappelle dressed as Prince, holding a plate of pancakes. A thrilled Dave Chappelle explained the meta move on The Tonight Show: “That’s a Prince judo move right there. You make fun of Prince in a sketch and he’ll just use it on his album cover. What am I going to do? Sue him for using a picture of me dressed up as him?”
Ah, Prince.
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New Girl (2014)
Usually when sitcoms feature very famous people as guest stars, it’s like a 30 second cameo over the closing credits. But when Prince was on New Girl, he was basically in the entire episode; performing, dispensing advice, eating pancakes. The episode features the gang attending a party at Prince’s mansion where Nick has just told an unsure Jess that he loves her. Then Prince is all “hey” and starts dispensing relationship wisdom. “Oh, how rude of me, I haven’t given you enough time to freak out yet. You may do so now,” Prince says, while Jess and Nick wail at the moon.
We’ll miss you, Prince!