"
Original Prankster" is a
punk rockPunk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed the perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
song by
The OffspringThe Offspring is an American rock band formed in Huntington Beach, California in 1984. Since its formation, the band's line-up had included Dexter Holland , Noodles , Greg K. , and Ron Welty , who left in 2003...
. It is the third track on the band's sixth studio album
Conspiracy of OneConspiracy of One is the sixth studio album by the American punk rock band The Offspring. It was released on November 14, 2000 debuting at 9 on the US Billboard 200 with around 125,000 copies sold in its first week, and has sold more than 1 million copies worldwide...
(2000) and was released as the first single from the album in October, 2000. The song features additional vocals by Redman and was the ninth track on the band's
Greatest Hits album (2005).
Prior to the release of
Conspiracy of One, The Offspring distributed the track for free as a downloadable
MP3MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression. It is a common audio format for consumer audio storage, as well as a de facto standard of digital audio compression for the transfer and playback of music on...
file on their official
websiteA website is a collection of related web pages, images, videos or other digital assets that are addressed with a common domain name or IP address in an Internet Protocol-based network...
.
"
Original Prankster" is a
punk rockPunk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed the perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
song by
The OffspringThe Offspring is an American rock band formed in Huntington Beach, California in 1984. Since its formation, the band's line-up had included Dexter Holland , Noodles , Greg K. , and Ron Welty , who left in 2003...
. It is the third track on the band's sixth studio album
Conspiracy of OneConspiracy of One is the sixth studio album by the American punk rock band The Offspring. It was released on November 14, 2000 debuting at 9 on the US Billboard 200 with around 125,000 copies sold in its first week, and has sold more than 1 million copies worldwide...
(2000) and was released as the first single from the album in October, 2000. The song features additional vocals by Redman and was the ninth track on the band's
Greatest Hits album (2005).
Prior to the release of
Conspiracy of One, The Offspring distributed the track for free as a downloadable
MP3MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression. It is a common audio format for consumer audio storage, as well as a de facto standard of digital audio compression for the transfer and playback of music on...
file on their official
websiteA website is a collection of related web pages, images, videos or other digital assets that are addressed with a common domain name or IP address in an Internet Protocol-based network...
. A competition was held, featuring a prize of $1 million (in
U.S. dollarsThe United States dollar is the unit of currency of the United States. The U.S. dollar is normally abbreviated as the dollar sign, $, or as USD or US$ to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies and from others that use the $ symbol. It is divided into 100 cents .The U.S...
) which was awarded to a randomly selected participant who downloaded the song.
Version 1
Version 2
Music video
The song follows the prankster (the subject of the song), through his life, pulling various crimes on his superiors. As a child, he slips his dog's
fecesFeces, faeces, or fæces is a waste product from an animal's digestive tract expelled through the anus during defecation.-Etymology:...
into his father's sandwich. In his teen years, he uses a
bunsen burnerA Bunsen burner is a common piece of laboratory equipment that produces a single open gas flame, which is used for heating, sterilization, and combustion.- History :...
on a perverted science teacher. When sent to the principal's office, he sets up the principal to be photoed molesting two students. Throughout this part of the video, the band is shown to be playing at their hometown
Huntington Beach, CaliforniaHuntington Beach is a seaside city in Orange County in southern California, United States. According to the 2000 census, the city population was 189,594...
.
Finally, in the present, he switches off the whole city's power supply, though the band still manages to play in the dark and the crowd use flares to light the scene. As the song ends, the prankster is suddenly hit by a bolt of lightning and dissolves.
Some think that when he is hit by the lightning he becomes the new "Original Prankster".
DVD appearances
The music video appears also appears on the
Complete Music Video CollectionComplete Music Video Collection is an extensive DVD by The Offspring. It was created to accompany the "Greatest Hits" CD released a month earlier, and showed all of the bands' videos for all of their singles pre-Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace. The only music video not featured is "Million Miles...
DVD (2005).
Charts
| Chart |
Peak
position |
| U.S. Billboard Hot 100 The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday; while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...
|
70 |
| U.S. Billboard Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks |
7 |
| U.S. Billboard Hot Modern Rock Tracks |
2 |
| Australian Singles Chart The ARIA charts are the main Australian music sales charts, issued weekly by the Australian Recording Industry Association. The charts are a record of the highest selling singles and albums in various genres in Australia. ARIA commenced compiling its own charts in-house from the week ending 26 June...
|
5 |
| Mega Single Top 100 The Single Top 100 is a Dutch component chart , based on official physical single sales and legal downloads. The list is especially intended for the music industry. It is one of the three official single sales chart, the other two being the Dutch Top 40 and the Mega Top 50...
|
44 |
New Zealand ChartsThe Recording Industry Association of New Zealand is a non-profit trade association of record producers, distributors and recording artists in New Zealand. Membership of RIANZ is open to any record label operating in New Zealand.-Piracy:...
|
34 |
| Swedish Charts Sverigetopplistan, earlier known as Topplistan and Hitlistan and other names, is since October 2007 the Swedish national record chart, based on sales data from Grammofonleverantörernas förening. Since late 2006 the chart has included legal downloads.-The radio show:1976-2006 the sales chart was...
|
5 |
| Switzerland Charts |
20 |
| UK Single Charts |
6 |
Sales
The single went platinum in Australia in 2001. It was the third single by the Offspring to reach platinum after
Pretty Fly (for a White Guy)"Pretty Fly " is a punk rock song by The Offspring. It is the fourth track from their fifth studio album Americana and was released as the first single from the album. It achieved significant pop and alternative radio play and popularity, peaking at number 53 on the US charts, and reaching #1 in...
and
Why Don't You Get a Job?"Why Don't You Get a Job?" is a ska/punk rock song by The Offspring. The song is featured as the 11th track on The Offspring's fifth studio album Americana and was released as the second single from the album. The song also appears as the seventh track on the band's Greatest Hits album...
. It was the largest selling single from the album.
The band
- Dexter Holland
Bryan Keith "Dexter" Holland is the singer and rhythm guitarist for the Californian punk rock band The Offspring, who are known for singles such as "Come Out and Play" "Self Esteem", "Pretty Fly " and "Why Don't You Get a Job?"...
- Vocals/Guitar
- Noodles - Guitar
- Greg Kriesel
Gregory David Kriesel , best known by his stage name Greg K., is an American bass guitarist and backing vocalist for the punk band, The Offspring.-Biography:...
- Bass
- Ron Welty
Ronald "Ron" Welty was the drummer for the American punk rock band The Offspring from 1987 through to 2003. He had replaced their original drummer, and was only 16 at the time of his joining...
- Drums
Other personnel
- Produced and mixed by: Brendan O'Brien
- Engineered: Nick Didia
- Mastered by: Eddy Schreyer
- Track 4 and Track 5 Recorded by: Russ Fowler at Wembley Arena