Big Me

About

For the second Foo Fighters music video Dave Grohl received several potential treatments from directors all of which he felt were far too elaborate for a two-minute pop-rock song. He then received a treatment from Jesse Peretz, former bass guitarist of The Lemonheads who had left the band and transitioned to short-film production work. His premise was very simple - "You ever see those old Mentos commercials?", referring to a series of commercials from the early 1990s for the mint product which became very well-known for their corny style. “We instantly knew that was the one” recalled Dave Grohl when asked about the video in 2003.

The first part of the video is an almost shot-for-shot recreation of one 1993 Mentos commercial titled ‘The Car Movers’ which sees the band helping a lady move her car out of a gap after being blocked in by an inconsiderate businessman in a hurry. These scenes were all shot in and around Sydney, with the Harbour Bridge visible in the background of the initial shot of the band walking towards the camera.

The second commercial to be recreated was one from 1992 titled ‘The Freshmaker’ which saw a young man blocked from crossing the road by a car and taking a direct route through the car instead. Whilst the first scene was almost shot-for-shot identical this second scene took a few more creative liberties.

Peretz’ treatment for the video also called for each recreation to end “with the classic popping in the mouth of the Footos candies, followed by the shrug, smile and grin, with the out-stretched hand victoriously clutching the roll of Footos”, Footos being the Foo Fighters parody version of Mentos.

The final section of the video sees the band performing a faux concert which was filmed at the Annandale Hotel in Sydney. A young fan, portrayed by actor Mitchell McMahon, sneaks backstage, finds a guitar and gets on the stage pretending to be a guitar player in the band. Once again, he brandishes his Footos with a wide grin and is forgiven by all.

All parties were very happy with the final video was although it’s popularity soon led to an unusual problem at their live shows.

Soon after the video started airing around the world fans would begin bringing Mentos to the shows and threw them at the band when they played ‘Big Me’. Whilst the fans did this in a playful manner, rather than one of malice, Dave would recount in several interviews that nevertheless the hard candy really did hurt when they got pelted by them, particularly any that hit them in the face. The song was largely dropped from setlists after the year 2000, revived during their acoustic tour in 2006.