The Bad Touch

"The Bad Touch"
Song

"The Bad Touch" is the first single by the Bloodhound Gang off their 1999 album Hooray for Boobies. It was released in 1999 internationally and, a year later, in the US and UK. The song was also remixed by God Lives Underwater and Eiffel 65. The music is based on the Pet Shop Boys song "In the Night" (the B-side of the "Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money)" single from the album Please), and was supposedly written in 1986 by then-fourteen-year-old Jimmy Pop, despite the song's reference to The X-Files, which premiered in 1993.

Like much of the Bloodhound Gang's other music, the song contains a wide variety of sexual colloquialisms.

The sleeve for the single features a photo of two zebras in sexual intercourse.

Music video

The song's video, shot during the summer of 1999, features the band dressed in "MonkeyRat" costumes with oversized ears, in various locations in Paris (including the Place de l'Estrapade, Avenue de Saxe, and Champ de Mars), and the Eiffel Tower is visible in many shots. During the video, the band uses blowguns to shoot tranquilizer darts into the buttocks of four passing young women who are dressed in black with short skirts and stockings, then carrying them away. They then use a fishing rod to dangle a croissant in front of a group of French chefs, enticing them to follow. The band members dance around for a few seconds and then lure three chefs into following them. The band members swallow several mealworms, before finding two stereotypically effeminate gay men in a café, who are then beaten over the head with baguettes and knocked unconscious. A dwarf mime artist (Peter Dinklage) is captured in a net and then thrown into a cage with the four women, three chefs and the gay couple in a clear parody of animal collectors capturing frightened specimens. The band leap around the cage taunting their captives. As the song draws to an end, the prisoners are released and all dance together in formation in the street. The mime artist escapes and is run over by a speeding Renault 5 car driven by Lüpüs Thünder.

The uncensored version of the video shows the band playing with and eating a brown semi-liquid food, with the implication that it is feces, and a beginning which features them feigning sex in a doggystyle position rather than dancing as in the clean version. The violent capture of the gay couple is also missing from some versions.

The video reached #11 on MuchMusic's 50 Most Controversial Videos for references to zoophilia, furry fandom, sexual lyrics, insulting French people, gay people and chefs.

Track listings

Promo Single

• 1 The Bad Touch 4:20

Canada Promo

• 1 The Bad Touch [Radio Version] 3:37
• 2 The Bad Touch [Eiffel 65 Remix] 3:34

Europe Promo

• 1 The Bad Touch [Radio Version] 3:37

Europe Single

• 1 The Bad Touch [Album Version] 4:19
• 2 The Bad Touch [Eiffel 65 Remix]3:33
• 3 Along Comes Mary [BHG Mix] 3:23

Europe Single

• 1 The Bad Touch [LP] 4:23
• 2 Along Comes Mary [The Bloodhound Gang Mix] 3:20

Australia & Europe Maxi-CD

• 1 The Bad Touch [LP]
• 2 The Bad Touch [The God Lives Underwater Mix]
• 3 The Bad Touch [The K.M.F.D.M. Mix]
• 4 Along Comes Mary [The Bloodhound Gang Mix]
• Video Kiss Me Where It Smells Funny (Video)

Europe Maxi-CD

• 1 The Bad Touch [The Bloodhound Gang Mix] 4:20
• 2 The Bad Touch [The Eiffel 65 Mix] 4:28
• 3 The Bad Touch The Rollergirl Mix 5:59
• 4 The Bad Touch [The God Lives Underwater Mix] 4:23

UK Promo

• 1 The Bad Touch [The Bloodhound Gang Mix] 4:20
• 2 The Bad Touch [The K.M.F.D.M. Mix] 4:19
• 3 The Bad Touch [The God Lives Underwater Mix] 4:23
• 4 The Bad Touch [The Eiffel 65 Mix] 4:29
• 5 The Bad Touch [The Rollergirl Mix] 6:00
• 6 The Bad Touch [The Eiffel 65 Acapella Mix]

Spain Vinyl 12"

• A1 The Bad Touch [Eiffel 65 Extended Mix] 4:30
• A2 The Bad Touch [12" Rollerblade Remix] 6:02
• B1 The Bad Touch [Eiffel 65 Instrumental] 4:30
• B2 The Bad Touch [Album Version] 4:20

[1]

Charts performances

Chart (1999–2000)	Peak Position
Australia Singles Chart	2
Belgian Ultratop 50 Singles (Flanders)	1
Canadian Singles Chart	9
German Single Charts	1
Italy Singles Chart	1
Irish Singles Chart	1
Latvia Top 40 Charts	1
New Zealand Top 40	4
U.S. Billboard Hot 100	52
U.S. Billboard Hot Modern Rock Tracks	6
UK Singles Chart	4

Cultural references

The song contains many cultural references. These include (in order):

• Prince, an American musician
• Siskel and Ebert, a popular movie-review duo
• Two-Hand Touch, a gentler variant of American football
• Waffle House, a Southern and Mid-Western United States restaurant chain
• FedEx
• Coca-Cola
• Daylight Saving Time
• The Discovery Channel
• Small craft advisory, an advisory saying that the seas are too rough for small craft
• Battleship, a popular paper-and-pencil game. The line "You sunk my battleship" is drawn from a memorable television commercial that ran in the 1970s for the commercial version of the game.
• Mr. Coffee
• Tool Time, a show-within-a-show on the sitcom Home Improvement
• Lyle Lovett, an American singer-songwriter
• The X-Files

In popular culture

• The song made a brief appearance in the 2005 film Farce of the Penguins, when various species of animals were having sex.
• The song was remixed by Italian dance group Eiffel 65, also known as "Discovery Channel" and released by The Bloodhound Gang on the album The Bad Touch [#2]. Sirius XM Radio channel Alt Nation plays the remix instead of the original.
• Although the song was released in the United States in 2000, the Siskel & Ebert reference in the lyrics refers to Gene Siskel, who died in February 1999 of brain surgery complications. By that time, Siskel's place was taken by Richard Roeper.
• The song plays in the background at a party during the movie Loser (2000).
• The song is broken down during a scene of the movie Eurotrip.
• The song is notably used in the film Kids in America in a segment where a large group of students kiss a member of the same sex to protest another student's suspension for the same reason.
• The song can be heard in an episode (Season 2, Episode 4, "Dinner Out") of Malcolm in the Middle during a party that gets out of hand.
• The song was sampled in the Danny Lohner remix of Deathclub by Aiden singer, William Control.
• The song is used in a overview of Society, one of the "games" featured in the movie Gamer (2009)
• Referenced in Detroit rapper Eminem's song "The Real Slim Shady" from his second album, The Marshall Mathers LP.
• Russian singer Natali uses the chorus on her song Cherepashka