Dragnet Music Video City of Crime — Dragnet Music Video City of Crime

JUL 01 1987 · 12:00

Dragnet Music Video City of Crime — Dragnet Music Video City of Crime (1987) Director: Marty Callner Era: Late New Hollywood / MTV Golden Age (1987) - Peak period of Hollywood blockbuster promotional music videos; rap crossover into mainstream pop culture; movie-tie-in videos as standard studio marketing practice. High curatorial value as a multi-layered primary document: simultaneously a record of 1987 Hollywood promotional strategy, an early career artifact of Paula Abdul, a Marty Callner directorial work within his peak MTV-era output, and a comedic cultural time capsule of mainstream rap crossover. The video's heavy MTV rotation made it a genuine shared viewing experience of the summer of 1987, granting it significant pop-culture memory value beyond its intrinsic artistic merit. Context: Released in the summer of 1987, 'City of Crime' sits at the precise intersection of three significant cultural currents: the Hollywood blockbuster promotional video boom (exemplified by Ray Parker Jr.'s 'Ghostbusters' in 1984), the mainstream crossover of hip-hop into pop and film culture, and the peak of MTV's cultural dominance as a tastemaking platform. Universal Pictures deployed the video as a marketing instrument for the Dragnet film, which opened at No. 1 at the US box office. The choreography by a then-unknown 25-year-old Paula Abdul marks this video as an inadvertent document of her pre-solo-career trajectory. The song's rock/hip-hop hybrid structure—pairing actor-rappers Aykroyd and Hanks with rock veterans Glenn Hughes and Pat Thrall—typifies the genre-blending commercial instinct of mid-80s Hollywood soundtrack strategy. Director notes: Directed for Universal Pictures as part of the promotional campaign for the 1987 buddy-cop comedy film Dragnet. The video features Dan Aykroyd and Tom Hanks performing 'City of Crime,' a rock/hip-hop hybrid written by Peter Aykroyd, Dan Aykroyd, and Pat Thrall, and produced by J.B. Moore and Robert Ford. Choreography in the video was designed by Paula Abdul, then age 25, who was simultaneously building her reputation as a choreographer for Janet Jackson. The video received heavy rotation on MTV during the summer of 1987 and was later cited in EMPIRE Magazine's list of '15 Gloriously Awful 80s End Credit Songs' (2013). Callner's theatrical, performance-driven visual style—developed through his extensive HBO comedy and concert special work—is evident in the stage-bound ensemble staging and comic performance framing.