TBT: Adam and the Ants “Stand and Deliver” Music Video (1981)

This classic 1981 music video just came on, and I immediately said, “I need to Frock Flick this!” (Followed by “Trystan is going to be so pissed she didn’t think of this first”). Adam and the Ants are one of the most memorable of the early 1980s British New Wave bands, and their look (particularly associated with their album Kings of the Wild Frontier) was pivotal in creating the New Romantic fashion (and music) style of the early 1980s. And, clearly, it was a direct inspiration for Plunkett & Macleane (1999)’s New Romantic/18th-century mashup.

Stand and Deliver‘s video was apparently based on a Monty Python sketch “Dennis Moore,” in which an over-thinking-it highwayman pulls over a carriage and proceeds to rob them of their lupins (a flowering plant).

Adam and the Ants’s video begins with Adam fixing his makeup and looking VERY pretty:

Cut to Adam sitting in a tree aiming his pistols, supposedly at a passing carriage, but I don’t have much faith in his aim here:

Inside the carriage are Miss Goth Universe 1981 and some loser with bad hair and a Walkman (Editor’s Note: For the young ‘uns, that’s a primitive form of iPod):

Adam distracts them with a swishy dance:

Meanwhile Adam’s bandmates are ready for the local pirate festival, while they hang with a redheaded version of Nancy Spungen from the Sid and Nancy (1986) movie:

Suddenly it’s night, and Adam decides to taunt his victims with a shiny, shiny mirror:

Suddenly, we cut to a fancy party in which every Princess Di lookalike is waitressing, dressed as a St. Pauli girl:

Who comes crashing through the window?

Why, it’s our highwayman, armed with his fearsome mirror!

Apparently Adam isn’t a very good highwayman, because all it takes are two broody rocker boys to “catch” him:

Let’s hang him!

We get closeups of all of the contenders for Goth Prom King and Queen:

Mysteriously, Adam is able to just hop off the platform!

And we all scamper off to the local renfaire!

But wait! There are ominous Monty Python-esque monks portending … something!