Nothing like a good spanky!
Hanky Panky was the second single released from Madonna‘s Dick Tracy inspired ‘I’m Breathless‘ album. A surprising choice perhaps, considering the strength of the Sondheim penned ballad ‘Sooner Or Later‘ which featured so prominently in the film and which was infinitely better. Still, it is testament to Madonna’s popularity in 1990 that she could get away with such a cheeky, saucy track as the follow up to her mega-hit Vogue and still have yet another hit on her hands!
But how to follow up one of the most iconic videos of all time? The song wasn’t featured in the movie, so Mads couldn’t use any film footage from Dick Tracy. The subject matter of the song did not lend itself to the sort of video MTV were likely to put on heavy rotation, and besides, Madonna was too busy to film a promo clip especially for the track.
What to do? Well, considering she was performing the song every other night on stage the answer was all too obvious. The location whose footage would be used was Toronto’s enormous Skydome
A venue which found itself notorious during the tour for other reasons I’m sure I don’t need to mention here (*cough*’what’s considered mast**bation? when you stick your hand in your crotch’*cough*). Anyway, the video was created from footage filmed at the Skydome on May 28th, 1990, the very same night as the cause of all the “Canuck Controversy”. Lucky they got the video in the can that night otherwise we might never have got one had the events of that very evening ended differently!
However, the eventual video which was released didn’t feature the live vocal as recorded that night, but the album version horribly dubbed over the live footage. Why Sire chose to do this is not known for certain, but it is likely Madonna’s vocal that night was not of repeated broadcast quality. A quick glance at the Blond Ambition schedule shows Toronto came directly after the final planned show in Chicago which was cancelled due to Madonna’s throat problems.
The people of Canada thanked Madonna for filming her video there by shooting her single all the way up to the No.2 position in their chart. The UK also powered the single up the chart to the No.2 position, where is was cruelly held off the No.1 spot by the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles of all things!
That’s a hanky between her boobies btw, not shrubbery. The US fared slightly differently – the song received relatively little airplay, but the strong sales of the single helped it reach the Top Ten where it peaked at the No.10 spot. After all that, however, it would appear the video, filmed just across the border, received very little or even no airplay on the music networks at all!