WEEKEND | 3:48 am | November 17, 2012 | By

Harvard releases terrible video parodying Yale

Harvard tries (and fails) to mock Yale.
Harvard tries (and fails) to mock Yale. Photo by YouTube.

Harvard’s notoriously classless “comedy” group On Harvard Time released a parody video yesterday in anticipation of the upcoming Yale-Harvard game, which will take place this Saturday. But if the video was intended to intimidate any Yalies, it’s having the opposite effect: The video is terrible.

Based on the premise of “West Side Story,” the video features Muppet-like singing dubbed over students mouthing various sentences that are apparently supposed to make Yale look bad.

As someone who hasn’t seen West Side Story since high school, maybe I’m missing something. But this parody is the worst thing to emerge from Harvard since the class of 2012.

Maybe it’s the shaky camerawork, the inexplicable Instagram-esque lighting manipulation, the poor dubbing (I guess Harvard doesn’t have students who can both act and sing — or students who can act or sing at all), the silly props, the weak script, the out-of-date jokes or the unpracticed choreography, but this video was just terrible. It was a weak idea to begin with, but the high-schoolerish performance and postproduction made it that much more painful to watch.

You might say (and you’re completely right) that it’s not exactly news that Harvard has its share of smug twerps. But to make matters worse, according to two members of the Yale cheerleading team watching this video over my shoulder, these Cambrugians have the chutzpah to dangle a flag that they stole from our cheerleading squad at last year’s Game in their final shot. Coupled with the complete load of crap that “we haven’t [won] before” — the record’s 65-55, giving Harvard some catching up to do — this makes me want to punch these Harvard kids right in the mouth, to quote the poorly written dialogue of the video.

Watch it below. Or don’t — it’ll only stoke their egos.

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