Synopsis

Poison turn the video into a fast-moving showcase of their early glam-metal image. Bret Michaels answers a suggestive phone call before the band launches into a colorful performance filled with oversized hair, leather, dramatic poses, synchronized moves, and stacks of guitars. The setting shifts between backstage-style corridors, a rehearsal space, and a smoke-filled stage, with rapid editing matching the song's carefree energy. Rather than following a conventional narrative, the clip presents Poison as a brash, playful, and visually outrageous live attraction.

Factoids & Trivia

• The video was filmed in approximately November 1986, before the single's February 18, 1987 release. It was intended to help revive sales of the band's debut album, which had initially struggled.

• MTV quickly placed the clip into regular rotation and then heavy rotation. Its exposure helped turn "Talk Dirty to Me" into Poison's first major breakthrough and contributed to the rapid rise of *Look What the Cat Dragged In*.

• The clip's visual formula is deliberately simple: performance footage, flamboyant styling, comic attitude, and extremely rapid editing. That direct, high-energy approach became closely associated with Poison's MTV-era identity.

• The song was the band's second single from *Look What the Cat Dragged In*, and it reached No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1987.

• C.C. DeVille had begun writing the song before joining Poison, and the riff was part of what he brought to his audition for the band.

• Classic Rock later ranked the video No. 7 on its list of the best hair-metal videos, reflecting the clip's lasting status as an emblem of the genre's MTV peak.