Paranoid Android

Paranoid Android is a song/music video by the band Radiohead. The music video for the song, which got released in 1997, was created and directed by Swedish animator Magnus Carlsson. He is best known for his work on a animated series known as Robin. Coincidentally, Robin also plays the main character alongside Boris Yeltsin in the music video.

The music video uses very simple cel animation. It is remarkably similar to the animation used during the 1960s Saturday Morning Cartoons, which is often referred to as "illustrated radio". One can see the use of this animation from the beginning of the song when Robin wakes up from his sleep and moves around the room; while walking around the room the background stays exactly the same. Another ploy which Magnus uses at his disposal is the involvement the video has with the music.

The overall speed and pace of the animation in comparison to the music is strongly correlated. Often as the music strengthens in pace, the animation properly follows in its quickness of movement with characters or scene changes. Conversely, as the pace of the song slows, so does the animation. An example of this is seen during slowest part of the song when Thom Yorke is singing "Rain down". At this time the animation focuses on the other main character (Boris Yeltsin) attempting to get Robin, whom is sitting on top of a light pole, down. He attempts to get Robin down by swinging an axe at the light pole. There is a large break in between each swing of his axe.

To end this segment of the song Thom sings, "God love his children" and then the song breaks into a harder and more aggressive tone. The animation follows in another strange way. Magnus, just like the rest of Radiohead are extremely liberal and anti-war. As OK Computer came out Boris was more so harming rather than helping the Russian nation who had growing debt. As a sign of his disapproval toward Boris, Magnus depicts him as a type of demon who in the end is rid of his evil ways by cutting off his own arms and legs and falling off of a bridge due to his missing limbs. This is followed by him falling to the bottom of a river where he is "rescued" by two topless mermaids. They wrap him in sheets like a small baby and place him into a tree as if he were an orphan.

Animation in Paranoid Android attempts to execute radical messages that the video (with a lot of help from the music and lyrics) is appeal to convey. This message claims (figuratively) that if you are bad to the world there are some forces out there which will make you cut off your arms and legs and fall to the ocean floor.