RATT — Round And Round

JUL 01 1984 · 12:00

RATT — Round And Round (1984) Director: Don Letts Era: Early MTV Era / Glam Metal Ascendancy (1984) - The year hair metal conquered cable television, with Atlantic Records and MTV forming a symbiotic promotional axis that launched Ratt from the Sunset Strip club circuit to mainstream American rock. An indispensable artifact of the 1984 glam metal breakthrough moment, combining theatrical narrative ambition, practical stunt work, and cross-generational celebrity casting in a format that helped define what an MTV-era rock video could be. Its inclusion on the New York Times list of Essential Hair-Metal Videos and its persistent cultural presence — referenced in Stranger Things, Cobra Kai, and a 2020 GEICO commercial — confirm exceptional longevity. Tier 1 preservation priority. Context: Released in June 1984, 'Round and Round' arrived at the precise moment MTV was transforming rock promotion. The video's theatrical narrative — a glam metal band invading a stuffy upper-class dinner party from above — literalized the genre's class-disruptive fantasy while delivering the visual spectacle that MTV's programming demanded. The casting of Milton Berle, a television institution from the 1950s, bridged generational audiences and gave the video a novelty factor that accelerated heavy rotation. The song reached No. 12 on the Billboard Hot 100, and its video was later named by The New York Times as one of the 15 Essential Hair-Metal Videos. The Sunset Strip scene it represented — bands gigging at clubs like the Whisky a Go Go before landing major-label deals — would define American hard rock for the remainder of the decade. Director notes: IMDB and Songfacts both credit Don Letts as director of this 1984 video. However, the specialist database IMVDb carries no director credit, and at least one secondary blog source (Through the Shattered Lens, unobtainium13.com) attributes direction to Marshall Berle — the band's manager and nephew of on-screen talent Milton Berle — though that blog's title may conflate managerial and directorial roles. The Don Letts attribution is the most widely circulated across reference sources but cannot be confirmed as 'confirmed' given the absence of corroboration from IMVDb and the existence of a competing attribution. The video was released June 1984 as a promotional clip for 'Round and Round' from the album 'Out of the Cellar' on Atlantic Records. Milton Berle appears in dual roles (husband and wife/female guest) owing to his relationship with band manager Marshall Berle, who secured the cameo. The video features a practical stunt in which a guitarist crashes through a dining room ceiling.