Mr Oizo aka Quentin Dupieux, is a French Musician and Producer, as well as being a very established Filmmaker. His song Flat Beat took him around 2 hours to produce, and was made for an iconic Levi's advert which he wrote, directed, and puppeteered. Here's an excellent article from XLR8R on his career and how he felt about the bizarre success of 'Flat Beat':

Quentin Dupieux has at least one solid reason for being a complex, difficult character: He's a one-hit wonder with a body of work that far surpasses his one hit. If VH-1 ever ends up doing a "Where Are They Now: '90s Rave" segment, they'd be remiss not to mention Dupieux's first hit as Mr. Oizo, 1999's "Flat Beat." As dance music classics go, it's a big one: a milestone for the squelchy, farty bassline, and bedroom-produced minimalist charm. Aside from being a good track (and one that holds up nearly 10 years later), "Flat Beat" was also an award-winning commercial–one that Dupieux also wrote, directed, and puppeteered.

Dupieux's commercial, which advertised Levi's Sta-Prest jeans, was memorable for a yellow sock puppet named Flat Eric*, whose main shtick was personifying the squelches and wobbles of a Korg MS-20 synthesizer. He also happened to be incredibly cute.

"Right after 'Flat Beat' was the most confusing time for me," recalls Dupieux via phone from his Paris studio. "It was only my first step in electronic music, and it went way too big. So I had a lot of pressure after it, which is why I did Analog Worms Attack–I was angry, in a way. I wanted to prove to everybody that I was not just the guy that did this commercial with a stupid soundtrack."

 

The article is incredibly extensive and worth a look. In digging deeper into his career as a filmmaker, I discovered this piece in Maxim magazine, on 'The Best Puppets in Music Videos' which leads with Mr Oizo, but has a few others, shown below:

 

 

 

Creepiest Puppet: Interpol, "Evil"

 

And there's a further article on the same subject from The Dallas Observer - featuring Weezer, Alice Cooper, Coldplay, Elton John and Genesis...

 

 

 

 

My own personal addition, if I may, is a bit of a shoe-horned entry - Supergrass's 'Pumping on your Stereo'... perhaps this is classed as hybrid puppetry?! Still, bloody brilliant... 

 

 

And a notable mention

I think we can all agree, even after that, Mr Oizo is still number 1! 

More from Mr Oizo

 

 

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