When Jamie Foxx made Ron Howard the new R&B video accessory of choice, various theories arose as to how Foxx got Howard to agree to appear in "Blame It." Some form of blackmail, perhaps. Or maybe Foxx lured Howard to the club with a trail of torn pages from a new Dan Brown manuscript. Or perhaps Howard just couldn't resist the pure animal magnetism of Bill Bellamy. He is human, after all.
But the truth, it seems, was much simpler. Jamie Foxx took advantage of the heady air of optimism surrounding Obama's inauguration, and basically tricked Ron Howard into it.
From The Huffington Post:
As Tom Hanks teared up laughing beside him following a video clip they played, Howard explained.
"We were at the inauguration, and there's this whole spirit of brotherhood, and I thought it was going to be some We Are The World thing."
So Howard arrives on set, still on that inauguration optimism high, expecting some humble risers and a celebrity collective committed to making a difference™ with some kind of Jamie Foxx-led charity single. Instead he's led past a filthy, discarded panda costume, through a gauntlet of dozens of hungry-eyed video hos, and to the makeshift VIP section of a red-filtered autotune nightmare club, where he is made to watch Jamie Foxx lip-synch all 48 syllables of "Blame it on the a-a-a-a-a-a-a-alcohol/ blame it on the a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-alcohol" over and over again.
As Hype Williams yells out meaningless terms like, "Party face" and "bottle service," and Samuel L. Jackson smokes cigar after cigar near the boob-lined wall, Howard, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Forrest Whitaker take turns stomping on each other's feet to keep from laughing.
That Ron Howard, he's a good sport.