a-ha - Take on Me - Toonstalgia

a-ha - Take on Me

Released 1984

MTV

The earliest memory I have of watching television is seeing this music video. It's my favorite song. There was nothing about it that didn't obsess me. The animation, the comic book setting, the supernatural plot, a classic pop song and a happy ending.

Rotoscoping

The Fleischer studio, famous for Betty Boop, Bimbo and Koko, innovated animation with the creation of rotoscoping. They used it to create cartoons with films of dancers as models. Two stand out examples are Snow White with the song St James Infirmary Blues and Minnie the Moocher with the titular song. They used rotoscoping to capture Cab Calloway's dancing. If you haven't seen these cartoons, I highly recommend them. 

The music video uses rotoscoping to create the world of a comic book the protagonist is reading and pulled into by the lead singer. There is a follow up to the storyline in the video for The Sun Always Shines On T.V.

Way Too Much Detail Recap

A woman is sitting alone in a café reading a comic book about racers. The character in the comic book winks at her and invites her into his world. She's pulled into the comic book. In the real world, the waitress finds the woman gone and assumes she skipped out on her bill. She crumbles the comic book and throws it in the trash. In the comic, the joy of the pair is disrupted by the attack of pair of comic book characters. He helps her escape. She reads further in the comic to see they attacked him. Just as she has given up hope, he appears in he hallway and becomes human. Happy ending. At least in this video.