‘What Does the Bobcat Say’ parody video ‘might be the best one’ out there
At 8:15 on Halloween morning, a new status on the college’s Facebook page shared a link to a Bates student parody of the uber-viral “What Does the Fox Say?” video.
Thousands of views later, “What Does the Bobcat Say,” exemplifies the big lesson about creating a successful video parody, says the blog Social Media for Colleges.
Through Nov. 10, views of “What Does the Bobcat Say” total more than 17,700.
“You can do it, but you damn well better do a fantastic job,” writes Joe Kuffner.
Among the many “Fox” parody videos in circulation, he concludes, the Bates version “might be the best one!”
What Does the Bobcat Say
While the Bates Communications Office provided the lyrics and production, all the talent came from students: the a cappella Crosstones and Bates Dance Company dancers.
The Crosstones created the musical arrangement, a challenge that fit the “you better do a fantastic job” category.
“It was a daunting task to take such a recognizable song and reproduce it with only 13 voices,” says the group’s musical director, Catherine Strauch ’14 of Exeter, Maine. “It’s such a popular song, so lots of people would notice if it’s not done correctly.”
She did the arrangement of the “popular, ridiculous song,” but the group deserves most of the credit, Strauch says. “The Crosstones are a cohesive and incredibly talented group, so I didn’t feel limited by what I could or couldn’t put in the arrangement.”
Strauch presented the arrangement two days before recording the song, “and we had it down by the end of rehearsal that day.”
Bates Communications writer Tory Stanton, who coordinated the project, tells the Portland Press Herald that “we just wanted to showcase the fun, spirit and talent of our students. They work hard, but they know how to have fun. We basically asked them ‘Can you do this?’ But we had no idea how far they would take it.”
The fun, says Stauch, “was to create something that could benefit Bates as a whole.”
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