Pandemic Isolation and the Chiefs YouTube Rabbit Hole

It's been nearly half a year of staying at home and I'm now at the "watching unaired Kansas City Chiefs promo videos from the '90s" stage of isolation.

Rather than create my own stuff during this half-year of isolation, I’ve spent a lot of the pandemic falling even deeper into YouTube rabbit holes than I ever have in the site’s 15 years of existence. My go-to genres these last six months have been home movies from any era, skateboard videos from the '80s and '90s, and tutorials on how to build different types of tables because I’ve decided I’m going to be one of those people who builds tables.

I have, of course, also fallen down a Chiefs rabbit hole a few times. I usually focus on old games. Like the one against the Seahawks in 1998 when Arrowhead was basically flooded for half the game. Or the one against the Bears in 2003 that remains the only Chiefs game I’ve attended live.

There’s one video I found only recently, though, that has become one of my favorite Chiefs videos on the internet. I’m not sure how I missed it for so long, as it’s been on YouTube since Jan 2, 2010. Its title, “OLD Chiefs Promo (Never Aired) Early 90s,” doesn’t tell you much about the video’s content outside of its era. Its description is as follows:

“Chiefs promo that never aired. KC Wolf stunk up the studio in his sweaty outfit. I did the music, Max, Jaisson, and Debra sang, and an overbearing deaf know-it-all executive producer insisted on this incredibly lame mix.”

The only decent article I can find online that brings up this video was posted on Arrowhead Pride over a decade ago. Combining that with the video’s meager view count of just over 11,000, I think it’s safe to say most Chiefs fans haven’t seen this masterpiece.

The video opens on a brick wall with a vault door shaped like the United States built into it. The vault door opens to reveal a Chiefs helmet chained to a second brick wall with the “CHIEFS” wordmark painted above it. The helmet breaks the chain and flies away.

Within the first few seconds, I already have questions. Why has the Chiefs helmet been imprisoned? More importantly, why has it been imprisoned in a room secured by a door shaped like the United States?

Is this some sort of symbolism for the miserable, soul-crushing, endless cycle that is the pursuit of the mythical American Dream? Is it a commentary on how the generational wealth obtained as a professional athlete is one of the very few ways lower-class Americans can break out of the oppressive-by-design structures of capitalism? It couldn’t, after all, simply be hapless shoehorning of American iconography into a video promoting a football team.

After the Chiefs helmet makes its escape from the America-shaped prison, the music kicks in as KC Wolf howls and plays guitar. At one point, he’s standing in front of a microphone in a way that implies he’s also singing the song here. This is interesting, since as far as I’m aware KC Wolf has never been known to speak and seems to only have formal training in mascot buffoonery.

Lyrically, the song is basically every cliche of its era’s sports rally songs:

“With the shoutin’ and the yellin’ and the screams and such, the opposing team can’t take too much”

“Ahh-oooooooooh, the Chiefs are gonna get ya riiiiiiiight now.”

The music plays over cuts of early-90s Chiefs game action and shots of the most midwest, impossibly early-90s fans. Lots of mullets, mustaches, big glasses, sweaters, and Zubaz.

There’s even a really short sequence of a very ugly CGI Chiefs logo flying around and mowing “CHIEFS” into the Arrowhead Stadium turf. The CGI helmet from the start of the video didn’t look great either, but there’s something especially funny about the attempt to create a 3D approximation of an arrowhead’s texture in, like, 1993 or whatever. On a side note, if you enjoy old-school bad CGI as much as I do, the Arrowhead Stadium pregame Jumbotron animation from 1997 is a goldmine.

In the early 90s, this video would have been cheesy and awful and mostly hated. Today, with the lens of nostalgia and irony, it’s beautiful. You could remake this video today and it’d kill. Some goofball early-90s pastiche would be extra-funny juxtaposed against the typical hype videos of today that shoot for aggressive, cinematic, or fierce.

There have been a lot of words here just to tell you I’ve been very bored and watching a lot of dumb videos. Hopefully, though, I’ve provided you with enough links to fall down your own rabbit hole and kill a couple hours. Thank you, have a nice day.