" Dick in a Box " is a Saturday Night Live digital short featuring Justin Timberlake and Andy Samberg that aired on December 16, 2006.
Following its debut on network television, the sketch became an example of viral video after massive exposure on sites such as YouTube. The song featured was written and produced by Timberlake and Samberg, Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone of The Lonely Island, with associate music director Katreese Barnes. The video is a parody of R&B sex ballad videos from the early 1990s. The song won a Creative Arts Emmy for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics. After being notified of his Emmy win, Timberlake performed the song at his concert at the Tacoma Dome in Washington.
Plot and style
The music video portrays two Casanova-type men (played by Samberg and Timberlake) singing about giving Christmas gifts to their lovers (played by Maya Rudolph and Kristen Wiig, respectively). Each man has a gift-wrapped box attached to his waist. The lyrics include step-by-step instructions on how to create the "gift" (1: "Cut a hole in a box", 2: "Put your junk in that box", 3: "Make her open the box... and that's the way you do it!"). They also sing about how a "dick in a box" is better than other gifts, and suitable for any holiday or occasion. At the end of the film, they are both arrested and taken away by the police, presumably for indecent exposure, after they bring their boxes "backstage at the CMAs".
The style of the video and the musical performance is inspired by early-1990s R&B/new jack swing acts like Color Me Badd, Jodeci and R. Kelly; The Lonely Island and Timberlake were fans of such acts while growing up. The premise also resembles a scene in the 1982 Barry Levinson film Diner , in which Mickey Rourke places his penis inside a box of popcorn at a movie theater to win a bet, and a scene in the 1980 Claude Pinoteau film La Boum , in which a junior high school student performs an identical act for fun.
Response
An uncensored version was made available on the Saturday Night Live website after the show was aired. It features the same audience response track, as the short was aired uncensored to the in-studio audience.
NBC added the video to YouTube, where it received more than 28 million views. Over 18 additional copies were also posted to various YouTube and Google Video accounts, bringing the total views to over 35.3 million, making it the 24th most viewed video on the Internet (as of September 2007). On October 21, 2007, NBC took down its YouTube channel in preparation for the launch of Hulu.
On December 22, 2006, the Parents Television Council called on NBC to "rethink its decision to post an uncensored version of a Saturday Night Live sketch on both its own website and YouTube". When the sketch aired on SNL , NBC bleeped out the word dick a total of 16 times.
Some radio stations played the edited version (called "Junk in a Box") as an unofficial single by Timberlake. The version used was recorded from the SNL broadcast.
The song won a Creative Arts Emmy for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics.
Sequel
On May 9, 2009, the day before Mother's Day, Saturday Night Live aired another digital short featuring Samberg and Timberlake, called "Motherlover", showing their characters emerging from a New York City jail five months after the events of "Dick in a Box". In the new song, the pair agree to present each other as sexual partners to their mothers (played by Susan Sarandon and Patricia Clarkson) as a Mother's Day gift, which they think is their second best idea ever.
Parodies and homages
The band Incubus covered the song while on their 2006 Light Grenades Tour. The band Umphrey's McGee covered the song, complete with box props, as their first encore of their New Year's Eve show in Chicago, with percussionist Andy Farag contributing vocals in the Andy Samberg role and Brendan Bayliss singing Justin Timberlake's part. The multi-camera video is available on YouTube.
On an episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show , DeGeneres performed a jingle for AQUA2GO water drink boxes to the tune of "Dick in a Box". Facebook created a virtual gift shop for Valentine's Day that included a box with a bow on top and a hole cut into one of its sides.
A parody from the female perspective, Leah Kauffman's "My Box in a Box", appeared on YouTube and has since been viewed over 5 million times. On January 8, 2007, on Countdown with Keith Olbermann , Olbermann called "My Box in a Box" the "#1 most viralest video" in the world. The video received press coverage in a wide variety of media, including Rolling Stone and Cosmopolitan .
Charts
References
- ^ "YouTube - Dick in a Box" . http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhwbxEfy7fg . Retrieved 2008-07-09 .
- ^ Steinberg, Jacques ( 2006-12-21 ). "Censored 'SNL' Sketch Jumps Bleepless Onto the Internet". The New York Times . http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/21/arts/television/21sket.html . Retrieved 2004-12-30 .
- ^ a b Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (2007-09-08). "2007 Creative Arts Emmy winners" (PDF). Press release . http://www.emmys.tv/downloads/2007/CTA59themmywinners.pdf . (page 10)
- ^ Hilton, Perez (September 9, 2007). "He's A Winner Too!" . http://perezhilton.com/?p=5250 . Retrieved 2007-09-09 .
- ^ Kaufman, Gil ( 2006-12-20 ). "'SNL' Star Behind Timberlake's Raunchy Hit Hopes To 'Box' Up Full LP". MTV via VH1.com . http://www.vh1.com/artists/news/1548607/20061220/timberlake_justin.jhtml . Retrieved 2007-01-27 .
- ^ Gordon, Devin ( 2007-08-13 ). "Is It Too 'Hot' In Here?". Newsweek : 53. ()
- ^ "Dick in a Box - Uncensored Version". Saturday Night Live . NBC . http://www.bestviral.com/video/3523/dick_in_a_box . Retrieved 2008-02-03 .
- ^ "NewTeeVee - Where to Find Good Video". NewTeeVee . http://newteevee.com/2007/01/02/where-to-find-good-video-vidmeter/ . Retrieved 2007-01-22 .
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