Smash Mouth - I'm A Believer

What this video is

Released in 2001 as a promotional single tied to the DreamWorks animated blockbuster Shrek, Smash Mouth's cover of the classic Monkees track became one of the defining pop-culture artifacts of the early 2000s. The song was chosen for its opening lyric matching the film's fairy-tale theme, and the music video directly leverages the Shrek IP through integrated film-clip inserts and theatrical signage. The Smash Mouth…

Why it matters

This video represents a textbook example of early-2000s animated-film soundtrack synergy, a marketing model pioneered aggressively by DreamWorks. It also exemplifies the pop-rock cover revival trend of the period, wherein legacy songs (here, originally a 1966 Monkees number-one) were repackaged…

The director

Scott Marshall (born January 17, 1969, Los Angeles, CA) is an American film and television director, son of director/producer Garry Marshall and nephew of Penny Marshall. He trained at the AFI Conservatory, earning a Master's degree in directing, and also…