Parties are a classic choice for music videos — after all, nothing says that a band is fun like having them turn a house full of dullards into bacchanalian pleasure seekers. But only the most awesome gatherings turn the phrase "party animal" into a literal description, so any music video director worth his salt knows that if you're filming a drunken party you have to put at least one person in an animal suit. Bonus points if they start a fight with some ordinary revellers. Even more bonus points if they're actually in a fursuit instead of cheap looking rental costumes!
Note that this doesn't have to be based around house parties. As the number of people having fun in a non-club area increases, so does the probability that someone will somehow turn up in a fuzzy costume.
Music video examples:
- Macklemore's "And We Danced", "Can't Hold Us", and even "Thrift Shop" all fit this to a T. They all even feature the rapper himself dancing around in an awkward fur coat.
- Metallica's video for their cover of "Whiskey in the Jar" features the band performing in a destructive house party, as two women dressed as snakes rip up a bedroom.
- Women wearing giant rabbit heads in Marilyn Manson's "Tainted Love".
- A man in an animal suit gets punched in Christina Aguilera's "Dirrrty".
- Moby's "Beautiful" takes this to the logical extreme by having the entire party be composed of people in animal suits.
- DJ Format's "We Know Something You Don't Know" is a true classic of the genre.
- Teletubby-like costumes in "Sour Girl" by the Stone Temple Pilots.
- "Clothes Off!" by Gym Class Heroes. This one features a dance-off with the suitors, who turn out to be Panic! at the Disco.
- "I Could Be An Angle" by The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster has animal-suited entertainers at a kids' party, while the band rock out in front of a 10-year old audience
- Wig Wam's (the Alex James/Betty Boo collab, not the old Finnish prog band) video for their title song and its band/party composed of animal costumers.
- "Dear Maria, Count Me In" by All Time Low has two animal-suited people in a strip club (along with a chimp and a guy in what appears to be a clown suit.)
- The video for Groove Armada's "Song 4 Mutya" features a British music festival with about a half dozen people dressed in various animal costumes, one of which ends up hooking up with one of the main charecters.
- German band OOMPH! have a man in a creepy rabbit suit in their video "Labyrinth".
- In Michaël Youn's parody rap music video "Trankillement", there is a guy in a white rabbit suit. Youn punches him in the end with boxing gloves.
- Arcturus' live DVD Shipwrecked in Oslo has a gaggle of weird backup dancers as part of the band's circus-of-the-damned atmosphere, including a man in a polar bear suit. The singer of the band dances with him at one point.
- Cobra Starship's "The Church of Hot Addiction" has the lead singer falling in love with the dude (well, girl) in a rabbit suit. They eventually get married and have little bunnies.
- Subverted in Lady Gaga's "Just Dance": the fursuiter at the party is never seen moving for the duration of the video.
- Jamie Foxx appears in a panda costume in his "Blame It" video.
- Master P's video for "Make 'em Say Uhh" involves someone on a basketball court in a gorilla costume.
- brokeNCYDE's pig mascot, Bree.
- The video for Micro Pop's "I Smell Your Bacon" involves someone in an owl mask.
- Beck's "1000 BPM" video has people in bear costumes. And a rather bizarre concert performance of "High Five" has people in horse masks.
- Wiley's "Wearing My Rolex" is a fairly strange example: The whole video consists of female dancers in fox costumes roving the city streets at night... and, at one point, raiding trash cans for food. Supposedly the artist himself was supposed to be in there somewhere, but he hated the concept so much that they had to film it without him.
- The video for The Pains of Being Pure at Heart's "Higher than the Stars" features a woman who gets invited to a party that turns out to be full of fursuiters.
- One of the rare cases where the partiers are actual furries rather than just generic rental mascots.
- The video for "Savior" by Rise Against has a mosh pit filled with people in animal suits, and a heartwarming-ish scene on a bus late at night with a couple of the participants.
- "Hey Baby, Here's That Song You Wanted" by Blessthefall has a video that's kind of a take off of The Hangover, and has a guy in a moose costume who doesn't speak English.
- Related — LMFAO's videos always include a guy in a cardboard box robot costume, called the Shuffle Bot.
- Even a Taylor Swift video ("We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together") has this.
- The Butthole Surfers' "Shame Of Life" seems to be set at what is either a house party or just some sort of seedy underground night spot — among all the dancing girls is a man in a creepy pig mask, and at one point some of the dancers are depicted wearing squirrel makeup. It's also sort of inverted in that humanoid squirrels dressed as FBI officers come in to drag people away and stop the party.
- The video for C'mon by Kesha has her quit her job at a diner and ride away in a van (which has cat ears and a tail) and partying with fursuiters.
- Animal by the Neon Trees features the band painting people's faces with animal paint after the fall asleep at an art gallery. After they get done, each person turns into the animal they were painted as.
- The video for "The Fox" by Ylvis starts at a house party where everyone except the singer is dressed up as an animal. From the verse, one can infer that he intended to dress up as well, but is stymied by his lack of knowledge of the creature. Then the chorus happens.
- The video for Train by Goldfrapp has female dancers in skimpy outfits wearing deer heads.
- Miley Cyrus wears one in her "We Can't Stop" video. Not to mention the little people dancing in teddy bear costumes.
- The video for Hobo Johnson's "Typical Story" has Derek wearing a dog suit for much of the video, which takes place at a bizarre house party. He may represent the "dog who wanted to run away".
- The Front Bottoms' video for "West Virginia" features a girl dressed as a bunny and a guy in a whole-body Panda fursuit. The video seems to take place at a Halloween party as there are a number of other oddly-dressed people in attendance, providing some justification for this.
- Parodied in the music video for "Goodbye, Oh Goodbye" by AJJ. It's the most bare-bones video possible, consisting of just the band members dancing badly in an empty warehouse, but there's still a guy in a turkey suit off in the corner, who shows up in the periphery of a couple of clumsily-framed shots.
Examples outside music videos:
- The dog suit from the novel and movie The Shining.
- Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas has a wonderful scene where Raoul Duke has an LSD hallucination, in which the people in the bar of his hotel all turn into lizards.
- "Hey, look. There's two women fucking a polar bear."
- Later on, that polar bear hits a party in San Andreas.
- "Hey, look. There's two women fucking a polar bear."
- In the Eddie Murphy/Dan Aykroyd movie Trading Places, there's a guy in a gorilla suit at the New Year's Eve Party on the train.
- In Hot Tub Time Machine, a music-driven montage showing the main characters enjoying the titular hot tub while getting hammered. At some point the increasingly fragmented and spinning shots start showing a guy in a large bear suit partying with them.
- The Pink Panther (1963) has a costume party where two guys dressed as gorillas try to rob the title diamond. A pair of undercover police are in a zebra costume.
- In Turning Red, Tyler's birthday party features Mei initially in a cardboard red panda costume and later in her giant red panda form.
Literature
- Bernard Samson Series. Bernard and another British agent are waiting for a signal that a double agent is about to cross the East German border. To blow off some steam they attend a fancy dress party where the other agent dresses as a gorilla, only to go apeshit when the signal arrives and he doesn't have the time to get out of his costume. When things go wrong a member of the opposition is rather confused to see a man dressed as a gorilla waving a gun.
- In adverts for UK teen drama Skins, a house party featured people in animal suits.
- Promos for comedian George Lopez's new series consist of hordes of people gathering when they hear he's having a party. Among the crowds are someone in a bunny suit, and a man with feathered wings strapped to his back (who flies to the rumored party!).
- In the Nickelodeon crossover special iParty with Victorious, there is a man in a panda suit smacking people on the butt with a tennis racket at a party.
- According to Tosh.0, the best internet video in the world involves a guy in a Godzilla-type suit stomping around in the middle of the street... and then getting accosted and dry-humped by two black man.
- WWE party animal Adam Rose's entourage includes a guy in a bunny suit, known only as "Bunny". Wrestlers and fans often joke on the internet that Bunny is actually Zack Ryder.
- Furry Fandom: Kinda goes without saying, but...
- The Sims 2: University actually has guys running in llama suits at parties. If someone in a cow suit shows up, they're there to cause a ruckus and flirt with male Sims.
- The llama and cow are referenced in other places as school mascots — the ruckus is implied to be college sports rivalry.
