Pachacutec, you will rue the day you saw fit to challenge me!   I see your silly parody song and raise you Cameo’s Word Up!  Puny earthling!  You are no match for my powaaaaaaahhh!!

Yes, Word Up, one of the most breezily, effortlessly funky songs of the 80′s, and yet one of the most deeply wrong sartorial moments of that same decade!

Yes, dear firedogs.  In spite of the fact that this one throbbing bass-line touched off a thousand imitators, the likes of which we are still hearing today…in spite of the fact that this song single-handedly introduced the phrases, "Word up!" and "Word to your mother!" into the vernacular…There is one thing that this video was unable to do.  And that was to launch the codpiece as a modern male fashion accesory.

cameo

(Cameo lead singer Larry Blackmon says, "I’ll get you, evil stylist!") 

Ay, yes, the bright red codpiece.  See, this is how we know that people were doing lots of cocaine in the 80′s.  When you’re about to go on stage and you grab a red leather codpiece and put it on and think, "Yeah!!  I look good!", well, if you don’t seek help with Charter hospitals, please, seek help somewhere.

And that was it for the codpiece in America.  Nobody else was ever quite dumb or drugged-up enough to think, oh, well, there was this guy:

 smile, chimpy!

But everybody knows he’s an idiot.  Who would ever do anything he says?