For five time-traveling seasons on NBC from 1989 to 1993, Quantam Leap’s beleaguered scientist Sam Beckett, portrayed by current NCIS: New Orleans star Scott Bakula, bounced hither and yon from one body to another, always hoping against hope to return home to his own corporeal vessel and resume his former life. And Blue Velvet’s Dean Stockwell was in there, too, as some kind of wisecracking hologram dude who was the only one who could see Sam as he really was. One can easily imagine how the process of occupying one body after another, changing gender, ethnicity, and age at every turn, making utter hash of the time-space continuum, could take its toll on a guy like Sam over the course of 97 episodes. After a few dozen leaps, he’s bound to go a little batty. And now, YouTube song parodist Bonecage has given Sam the paranoid anthem he has long deserved: a reworking of Rockwell’s 1984 smash, “Somebody’s Watching Me” (most recently heard as a Geico jingle), called “I Always Feel Like (I’m Gonna Quantum Leap).”
Bonecage is sympathetic to the fictional doctor and allows him the chance to vent his frustrations through song. “Looking in the mirror, trying to see just who I am,” Sam laments. “Maybe I’m a lady. Maybe I’m an elderly black man. Never in the future, always in the past. Starts to feel like God is trying to punish my ass.” The video that accompanies the song is a terrific Quantum Leap highlight reel as well, showing the truly astonishing assortment of outfits, both men’s and women’s, Scott Bakula was forced to don over the years. Dean Stockwell was no slouch in the fashion department either, as evidenced by the matching trenchcoat and fedora he rocks at the 1:33 mark. Despite being number 19 on TV Guide’s list of the top cult series ever, Quantum Leap doesn’t always get the attention lavished on shows like Star Trek and The X-Files, so it’s nice to see the series honored in this way. Bonecage’s love of the series seems genuine. “If I was 12 years old, and you asked me to go outside and play on Saturday, I’d probably tell you to get lost,” he writes. “Not because you’re a bad person but because I need to watch Quantum Leap. I need to watch all the Quantum Leaps.”