The Guitar — They Might Be Giants TMBG

JUL 01 1992 · 12:00

The Guitar — They Might Be Giants TMBG (1992) Director: John Flansburgh Era: Post-Flood Alternative / College Rock Breakthrough (1992) - Third single from Apollo 18, TMBG's fourth album on Elektra Records, released during their peak MTV-era visibility and International Space Year ambassadorship. High curatorial value as the first self-directed TMBG music video, marking a significant moment in the band's creative autonomy. The production synthesizes Flansburgh's graphic design background with performance documentation, producing a visually inventive artifact of early-90s Brooklyn indie culture. As a single from Apollo 18 — one of the first albums to leverage CD shuffle as an artistic feature — the video participates in a broader moment of format experimentation that carries archival and academic weight. Context: Released in 1992 as the third single from Apollo 18 — They Might Be Giants' fourth album and first on Elektra Records following the platinum success of Flood — 'The Guitar (The Lion Sleeps Tonight)' arrived at a pivotal moment in TMBG's career. The band had just been named Musical Ambassadors for International Space Year by NASA, connecting the album's space theme to a global cultural initiative. The video marks a transition point: Flansburgh stepping into the director's chair for the first time for TMBG, signaling increased creative self-determination within a major-label infrastructure. The Brooklyn DIY ethos of the production sits in deliberate tension with the Elektra major-label context, reflecting early-90s alternative rock's uneasy relationship with mainstream commercialism. Director notes: 'The Guitar (The Lion Sleeps Tonight)' was the first music video John Flansburgh directed for They Might Be Giants, released in 1992 as the third single from Apollo 18 on Elektra Records. According to the TMBW wiki and confirmed via the Direct From Brooklyn DVD commentary, the video was shot in multiple locations around Brooklyn. The chord diagram images seen in the video originated as an idea from an earlier director who worked with the band before Adam Bernstein; Flansburgh noted in the Direct From Brooklyn commentary that he was self-conscious about recycling the concept. Flansburgh is visibly playing two trumpets simultaneously in several shots — a performance technique he had previously employed live — though he did not play trumpets on the actual studio recording of the song. John Linnell appears playing bass guitar in the video, also not reflective of the actual recording. IMDB lists the video's release year as 1992 and confirms Flansburgh as director. IMVDb independently corroborates the directorial credit.