Vivian Leigh

But instead of getting the crap kicked out of him, everyone breaks into spontaneous dance.

In one surreal video for the song Israelites by Desmond Decker, a man in shirtless overalls uses a pickaxe to turn a lump of salt into bread, while small children attempt to hoist him into the air with a play parachute.

Which is so David Lynchian, I half expected Laura Dern to show up.

While several of these music videos were insane or cheesy or just aged poorly, like don't get me started on the video for David Bowie's China Girl, a lot were actually made well.

Many were shot on film stock, well-lit, and you could tell that the people who made them took this as an opportunity to practice a craft.

And because Pioneer hired production companies from all over the country, lots of different types of people had the opportunity to try this work on for size.

There were camera people, production designers, grips, makeup artists, actors, and some of them eventually went on to do big things in entertainment.

Not Dermott.

One producer on a ton of karaoke videos named Paris Barkley was eventually elected as president of the Directors Guild of America.

And Nori Niven, who you've been hearing from, has been a successful commercial director for around 30 years now.

Brian Raftery also spotted a pretty prominent name listed on the credits on a couple of these videos.

This is Jay Roach.

As Brian mentioned, he directed the Austin Powers films, also The Roses, as well as Meet the Parents.

It's kind of funny because he would actually go from directing a Barbra Streisand karaoke video to later directing Barbra Streisand herself.

He was still a grad student at the time when he was given the chance to make a couple of these videos.

And apparently, these karaoke videos are some of the very first short films he ever directed.

He says that he had always seen himself as more of a cinematographer, the technical person who hid behind the camera.

But because the stakes and the budget of these music videos were so low, he was kind of forced to give directing actors a try.

Can we say that if it weren't for karaoke videos, we wouldn't have the Austin Powers films?

Of course.