There is never a bad time for 80s nostalgia, especially when it comes to recollecting the glory days of a now-dated franchise. So from the very first moments of L.B. Rayne’s ode to Indiana Jones, in which a cassette tape is slipped oh-so-carefully into a Japanese-made boom box, you know you’re in for something special.
A delicious “found artifact” from 1984, the myth of L.B. Rayne is as follows: “In the winter of 1984, Hal Lowenstein Productions produced a song and music video for rising star Laurence Butler Rayne. Familiar with an early draft of the screenplay for the second Indiana Jones film, Lowenstein and Rayne set out to create a hit theme song to be released with the upcoming summer movie. After it was finished, HLP pitched the music video and sent it off to Lucasfilms, just as Temple of Doom was wrapping principal photography. They never heard back.”
The whole package is a perfect recreation of the 80s music video scene, making it hard to pick a favorite part: the rhyming of “Jones” and “stones,” the off-the-shoulder 80s blouse, the Short Round stand-in with a violin. (Why does he have a violin? Why “not” is really the question.) However, claims that this video was made before the release of Temple of Doom are a little sketchy, given that it makes clear reference to major plot points from the second film of the series — geez, Rayne, would it have killed you to slap a SPOILER ALERT on this?
Of course, it’s a moot point, because L.B. Rayne is actually Joe Bresler, brother of Doug Bresler, who created the indie animation studio Doogtoons. And this video is about as real as Harrison Ford’s love for Calista Flockhart. “This is the first live-action project from Doogtoons,” Bresler said, originating as an inside joke between him and Joe: “Like all brothers, we called each other nicknames when we were kids — loser and loser brain, stuff like that…and one day, out of nowhere, I called him L.B. Rayne, and he said, ‘What the hell does that mean?’ And I said, ‘I have no idea, but it sounds like a failed 80s singer.’ So from there we started talking about this failed singer who did all these terrible songs in the 80s that never took off. This was years ago — we’ve been talking about this for a decade now.”
Whether or not it’s real, it’s still a delightful romp that makes you realize that if Temple of Doom had been made in the late 90s, it would have starred Will Smith and had a tie-in video. And you know what? It probably wouldn’t have been any better than this. More L.B. Rayne videos, including a “seduction ballad,” are in the process of being “discovered.” Bresler guesses that the next video will be revealed within the next two to three months — just in time to remind us again that the art of the music video has only come so far.
