The find of my evening, courtesy of Mark Evanier’s blog and the husband who was reading it, wondering why is it we never knew this existed?

Quoting Mr. Evanier:
“In 1967, writer-musician Mason Williams released a song called “Classical Gas” and the following year, it became quite a big hit. Part of its popularity no doubt flowed from what we would now call a “music video” though at the time, that was not a term in the common lexicon. Working with a filmmaker named Dan McLaughlin, Williams made a film that set his song to the visual of 3000 great works of art, each of them on the screen for but a fraction of a second.

Williams was then the Head Writer for The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour on CBS and the video debuted on The Summer Brothers Smothers Show, which was a summer replacement series that filled Tom and Dick’s time slot for a while in the summer of ‘68. Glen Campbell was the host.

This, uploaded to YouTube by Mason Williams himself, is that 3 minute and 10 second video. If you are familiar with the tune from its frequent radio play, you may notice that this is a different recording of the song. There are several. If you go to Spotify to listen to “Classic Gas” by Mason Williams, there’s a version that’s 2:36, another that’s 3:08 and one that’s 3:31 and I don’t think any of them are this one. My thanks to Maggie Thompson who discovered this was online…”

Classical Gas - 3000 Years of Art

SERIOUS WARNING: This is entirely composed of very fast-flashing images, do NOT watch if you have problems with that.