Synopsis

In a stark performance setting, They Might Be Giants play beneath a giant "ROCK MUSIC" sign while surreal animated sequences transform John Flansburgh and John Linnell into cartoon investigators. The animated Johns dash through corridors, pursue clues, and inhabit a strange noir world that only loosely reflects the song's hotel-security premise. Live-action footage and hand-drawn imagery collide in a deliberately homemade, eccentric presentation, with Linnell's saxophone and Flansburgh's angular guitar work adding to the video's nervous, offbeat energy.

Factoids & Trivia

• The video uses the single mix of the song rather than the album version. This version has a different opening, alternate drum parts, added backing vocals, and a more prominent saxophone.

• Animation was created by Joey Ahlbum. More than a minute of the roughly two-minute video consists of full animation, an ambitious amount for its reported $7,500 budget.

• The animated sequences were later reused in the first episode of the 1991 Nickelodeon sitcom "Clarissa Explains It All." The cartoon John Linnell appears as Clarissa's crush, identified as "the John without the glasses."

• The guitar played by John Flansburgh was a custom instrument made for Bo Diddley by a New York luthier in the early 1980s. Flansburgh borrowed it from a collector for the shoot and reportedly had it for only one day.

• The instrument's pickguard had been removed, flipped over, and taped into place for the video.

• The song was the second single from They Might Be Giants' self-titled debut album, following "Don't Let's Start," and the video helped keep the band in MTV's early alternative-rock rotation.

• The band later expressed dissatisfaction with the finished video, despite the animation and its low-budget visual inventiveness becoming part of the group's early video legacy.

• The title belongs to a small "Hotel Detective" series. Later songs called "She Was A Hotel Detective" and "(She Was A) Hotel Detective In The Future" are separate, stylistically different entries rather than direct musical continuations.