Friday Afternoon Videos: Atomic Dog

Since George Clinton is headlining this weekend's International Festival downtown, we thought we'd feature one of his videos. At first, we thought about uploading one of his Parliament/Funkadelic live performances from the 70's, but the quality isn't that great. Then, we took our brains on a trip back to grade school (as if our brain isn't always there, anyway) and remembered how much we loved his first solo outing, the #1 R&B hit from 1982 "Atomic Dog."

Even though it was an MTV staple that year, "Atomic Dog" never made the pop charts. However, a quarter of a century later, it's considered one of the greatest funk songs of all time, and has been sampled and played in movies many times since.

Some students from Waltrip High School were so inspired by the song, they created an art car out of it. Unfortunately, the art car is stranded in Germany, and they're hoping to raise the $16,000 needed to get it back to Houston. "The mothership is stranded," as Clinton recently said about the car, and he's doing his part to help raise funds for the car's return. All we can say about the car is: "futuristic bow-wow."

UPDATE: There will be a fundraising event this weekend to help bring back the Atomic Dog car to Houston. The benefit concert begins at 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, April 21st and 22nd. Many bands will be performing -- come out and support this good cause, and help the kids at Waltrip High School get their Atomic Dog art car back in time for the parade. More details at Dan Electro's website.