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 Ninja Academy: Music From The Movie
The original songs were written and performed, the end credits helpfully inform, by
one Tom
Marolda and his Grease Band. No, I've never heard of them either. Chances are that
apart from this review, you're not going to be hearing of them in the near or distant
future. I don't recall a single mainstream song or in fact any song written by anyone other
than Mr. Marolda being featured in this movie. Some would blame the cheap budget the
producers were working with. Others would wonder why I've started talking about the movie's
budget when I'm meant to be reviewing the songs. Anyway! On with the musical fun!
Hokey Pokey. I have trouble working out what the lyrics of this song are meant
to signify. Sure, it's a lively enough tune, but it seems to be the story of a strange
woman who uses magic (the "hokey pokey" in question) to achieve what she wants. The bizarre
thing is that Mr. Marolda makes her out to be some kind of robot or Frankenstein's
monster, insisting that she
has "all the pieces, and all the parts are working". But, hey, if she can perform
magic tricks, who's
complaining? This song is used for the training scenes which to be honest would be rather
dull without this musical joy in the background. The song also has the
unique distinction of
possessing quite possibly the greatest
final line you'll ever hear. Then
again, possibly not.
It doesn't help matters that the music seems to come from one of those crappy keyboards
that came out in the early 90's. The type where you could press a button labeled 'Drum'
and hit a few keys, instantly experiencing a sound that was nothing like a drum, but
instead a solitary DAT noise. Combined with the wacky synthesiser nonsense going on in
the background, I can say with utmost confidence that the musical composition for this
song is none other than DAT DAT DOO DOO DOO DAT.
I Love You Baby. What I love about this song is that it plays straight after a
bad guy's been urinated on, so in a way it acts as a marker for one of the best scenes
in the history of cinema, ever. Click
here to hear the quality
of joke that's common in Ninja Academy - and with the added bonus of this Tom
Marolda hit playing in the background! All of the songs were written by Mr. Marolda, yet
performed either by him or jointly with the Grease Band. To tell you the truth, the
difference in styles isn't one you'll notice. That's because almost every song sounds incredibly
similar to the last one. The reason I'm mentioning this is because
I Love You Baby is the only
song from the entire movie that doesn't sound like something which was played five minutes
ago. It's still not very good though.
It also sounds like something the Barenaked Ladies would come up with, what with its
crazy fun chorus and upbeat jingle jangle style. I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad
thing, or that I hate the Barenaked Ladies. Well, in fact I saw the lead singer on
some news-based programme or other. Something about his smug moon-face and the fact that
his band have less range than Tom Marolda makes me want to injure them...I've lost track
of what I was talking about, so on to the next song.
Something's Happninja. The soundtrack continues its miraculous ability of having
absolutely nothing to do with the movie with this song. Sure, it's got the word 'ninja'
in the title, but that's as far as its relevance goes. They don't even say the word in
the
chorus!
Still it manages to become the
movie's signature theme. It's all over the place; little snippets of it when the mime
gets hit by a punch bag, when a couple of the students find a nudist colony (sure, right
in the middle of crowded Southern California woodland) or when the American actor playing
super-spy 007-11 spouts his ever-changing 'English' accent. With a soundtrack like this,
you have to wonder why Ninja Academy never got a theatrical release. It's a shame,
because almost all of the cast never made another movie. Not even a sequel!
Unfortunately, because it sounds much like that other Marolda gold-disc classic
Hokey Pokey, this song loses something in terms of quality. For some reason, in
Ninja Academy there's a heavy reliance on the montage scene. These tend be silent
jumbled-together shots of comedy fun, like the ninja recruits going for a jog. Such fun!
The reason the music plays over these scenes is because it's a lot more pleasant listening
to that than listening to a bunch of sweaty, unfit actors trying to jog. Or so you'd think.
One chord from the Grease Band and you'll be left in some doubt about which is the more
attractive option.
Fallin'. This song is used in the movie's big love scene. The only problem being
that the love scene is in fact just the wet dream of one of the students, who has his
mind set on wooing (yes, wooing) the daughter of the bearded one who runs the academy.
The scene involves a lot of twirling around in a swimming pool - with some particularly
gratuitous close-ups of both participants. To emphasise the fact that it's a dippy love
scene, Fallin', another classic Tom Marolda song, is played for the duration. Poor
Tom is so in love, it seems, that he "can't eat" and keeps
fallin' off "his feet". How is
this possible? Does he have detachable feet? I think the Grease Band need to sit their
leader down and have words with him about his lyrics. Alternatively, give him lead-soled
shoes to steady his balance.
The song isn't particularly memorable (then again, none of them are). It's just a slowed
down version of the DAT DOO DAT chord sequence pounded out on one of the Grease Band's
keyboards in Hokey Pokey. Marolda's not a crummy singer, but he is a crummy
song-writer and you can almost hear him choking back the tears as he sings; realising
what he's actually written and composed and forcing himself to perform out in public. I'm
not sure if he ever scored the soundtrack for another movie, but if he did it was probably
after a long spell of crying in his room, perhaps wearing a dunce cap and sitting facing
the wall.
The Night I Spent With You. It seems that neither Tom nor his Grease Band are very
adept at counting from one to seven. For this song, with the time span in its title, has
the chorus of
"the night I spent the week with you".
Sorry, Tom, but that's just not
possible. A day has twenty-four hours in it; one night even less. A week has 168 hours in
it. (I think. I'm from the Marolda School of Mathematics). So really, he should be singing
"the 168 hours I spent the week with you". But I suppose that's not as catchy.
On the upside, this is another song which is perfectly fitting for a movie of
Ninja Academy's quality. I'm not saying it's an unfunny movie, or even a bad one.
Everything's just been made very, very cheaply.
The biggest crime (other than murder one) is that the soundtrack doesn't have a single
memorable song. There's nothing along the lines of the
Super Mario Bros. movie's classic
Walk The Dinosaur to be found. And for that, I can never forgive Tom Marolda or
his Grease Band. Actually, I don't care either way. Instead, I suppose I
should go and find something more productive to do with the rest of the
day. With that said, all there is left for me to do is wonder whether I've obsessed
over every aspect of the movie enough. Coming soon: an overly pedantic
in-depth review of the
trees and plants found in the background of scenes in the movie. Maybe.
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