Is This The World’s First Music Video?
It’s one of the great trivia questions about ’80s pop culture: What was the first music video to be played on MTV when it launched in 1981? The answer is The Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star,” but that was hardly the first music video ever made.
In the 1920s, a scientist named Theodore Case was experimenting with the process of merging sound with film. Up until that time, audiences saw only silent movies. Case made many test films beginning in 1921, most of which were destroyed in a storage building fire during the 1950s. However, one of Case’s films that survives features entertainer Gus Visser and his Singing Duck performing the song “Ma, He’s Making Eyes at Me” in 1925.
So is this truly the world’s first music video? It’s certainly one of the earliest musical performances ever to be captured on film. The short clip is considered to be such a significant historical achievement that it’s included in the National Film Registry at the Library of Congress. But another question remains: How exactly did Gus Visser get his duck to quack on demand?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05-dgkiUHj4