When did doot doot come out?

In case you did not know, Doot Doot, is basically a skeleton playing the trumpet and making the “doot doot” sound, and it originated way back in the days of 1995 when windows was just starting to make 3d animations. However, what really made Doot Doot popular was a 2 second Youtube video of it SKULL TRUMPET. This video got over 2 million views and made doot a Halloween meme classic.

Anyways, without further ado, let’s get into the tutorial.

Step 1: Of course, since Doot Doot is a skeleton, you need the outline of the skull first. Note that this is pretty hard to get right the first time, but with a lot of erasing anything can be done!

There are some real oddities at Doot Doot Doot. For one thing, the name. Official explanation: a doot doot doot is the leader of a group of jackalopes, the giant horned jackrabbit of storybook myth. Amid the whirl of eccentricity that is the eye-wateringly expensive Mornington Peninsula inn the Jackalope Hotel, it registers as just one more thing to ponder over.

Rare Hare is the bistro, the tradesman’s entrance to this $40 million-plus complex that opened in April. A wood oven works overtime and the views over the Willow Creek vineyard (under the same ownership) are perfection. It’s great. Doot (you can fill in the rest) is the restaurant where menus come in only a four course à la carte ($85 a head) or eight-course degustation ($125) and the best view is upwards, to a ceiling where 10,000 softly lit amber globes mimic the fermentation process.

Oh yes, D3 takes your winery restaurant and raises the conceptual stakes. It’s a good-looking space, a dark stage-set with well spaced tables and wide banquettes and semi-opaque curtains (a strategic move, as it looks to the carpark, not the vines). It’s quite possible to pretend to be a bona fide master of the universe here, if only for the duration of a Sunday lunch.

It’s the duration of said lunch that might take the gloss off that godlike status. The time between courses drags. The service could step into the breach, of course, but doesn’t. It’s typical winery restaurant stuff. A mixed half-dozen of rushing waiters attends to each table, some brusque to the point of rudeness. One waiter might grab an empty wine glass off the table without asking about replacing it. Another might start pouring still water on top of your sparkling and still charge $16 for it (albeit taking it off the bill when it’s questioned). Ask about the Estate’s chardonnays and you’ll be told, cryptically, that “one is 2013, and one is 2015”. First world problems? You betcha. But as part of a boutique hotel where rooms start at $650 a night, you’d want a bit more silver to the service.

So, the food. The kindest thing to say about a couple of courses is that they capture the Jackalope eccentricities. Raw celery filled with goats’ cheese, scattered with pine nuts and crowned with raw discs of turnip and radish? It looks like a 1970s canapé that got way out of hand and tastes like the exact sum of its parts. Two-toned beetroot soup that sinks below its modern accoutrements (hay cream, crunchy coffee bits, sunflower)? It’s more like something found in a ye olde teahouse.

The dishes that really work are steeped in purest classical comfort. A froth of spanner crab meat meets its vegetal equal in a viscous pool of potato mash pimped with bottarga and furikake (a Japanese seasoning of sesame and seaweed, otherwise known as umami in a jar). The big-fisted flavour of lamb sweetbreads is matched by a rich and sweet-leaning jus; local abalone and shiitake and a walnut crumble tag along to make a triple textural statement. A whole-scallop “pie” served on the shell with puff pastry lid and celeriac remoulade is definitely a good idea; ditto skin-on kingfish, dovetailing with the colder weather in a golden sauce that’s a subtle meeting of bone marrow and tamarind, all tangily elegant. Dessert goes the deconstructed route, with crumbs, quenelles, bits and bobs of meringue and parfait and cake tripping a tight dark ale, honey and malt spectrum. It’s likely to please.

It’s funny that for all its outré design and searching concept, the Jackalope’s flagship restaurant finds its dining best when it coddles rather than challenges. There’s nothing wrong with that. With more attention to detail, Doot has the makings of a great winery restaurant. What it needs now, though, is time.

That twist on two hoary old clichÁƒ©s pretty much sums up the long struggle of Karl Hyde and Rick Smith, of techno band Underworld.Á‚  Sure, you know them now as the “Born Slippy”/Trainspotting soundtrack band, or perhaps the more geeky among you (hand up, me!) knew them as the New Wave-y Underworld that scored a minor MTV hit with “Underneath the Radar” in the late ’80s.Á‚  But Hyde and Smith tried for rock stardom years before…

Beginning life in 1981 as a band known as nothing other than a graphic design squiggle (take that, Prince!), the group got signed to CBS Records in the U.K., who demanded a “real” name for the combo.Á‚  Dubbing themselves Freur, their first single “Doot-Doot” (download) charted in the upper 50s of the U.K. chart in 1983.Á‚  Not quite a smash, but the song got some underground exposure here in the States via the more adventurous New Wave and college radio stations.

Freur tried a few other singles and a second full album (which got only limited European release) before dissolving.Á‚  Hyde and Smith regrouped as Underworld, who began life as a more pop-oriented dance/rock act before heading full steam into clubland with later releases.Á‚  “Doot-Doot” is interesting, since it reflects a consistent line from Underworld’s humble beginnings to the current day.Á‚  The single is a quiet, yet tense affair that presaged the combo’s later explorations in ambient techno.Á‚  The Doot-Doot album was released on CD twice, the most recent pressing from 2000 currently fetching $80+ on Amazon.Á‚  “Doot-Doot” the song got a new lease on life when it was featured on the soundtrack of the Tom Cruise vehicle “Vanilla Sky.”

“Doot-Doot” did not chart.

Get Freur music at Amazon

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Lost in the '80s, Music

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