When MTV first flickered to life in 1981, most classic rockers were terrified. They looked like deer in headlights. Not Tom Petty. While his peers were awkwardly lip-syncing in front of bedsheets, Petty was busy turning the three-minute pop song into a cinematic event. He didn't just make promos; he made "music movies."
Honestly, he had to. Petty famously said that the television had become the biggest radio station in the world. He was savvy enough to know that if he didn't control the visuals, some director with a bad perm would do it for him. He leaned in. He got weird. He ended up winning the MTV Video Vanguard Award in 1994, proving that a guy from Gainesville could out-weird the art-school kids.
The Alice in Wonderland Nightmare You Can't Unsee
You’ve seen it. Everyone has. The top hat. The sitar-playing caterpillar. "Don't Come Around Here No More" is basically the gold standard for 1980s surrealism. But there’s a lot of weirdness behind the scenes of that 1985 classic.
First off, the song wasn't even supposed to be Petty's. Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics originally wrote it for Stevie Nicks. She passed, Petty grabbed it, and the rest is history. The video, directed by Jeff Stein, took the Alice in Wonderland theme to a dark, almost uncomfortable place.
Remember the cake scene? Petty, dressed as the Mad Hatter, carves into Alice—who has literally turned into a giant cake—and starts eating her. It’s bizarre. It’s borderline "cannibalism-lite." People actually complained. But that was the point. Petty wanted to jar people out of their living rooms. He wasn't interested in being "the cool guy" in every shot; he was fine being the villain if it meant the video was memorable.
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When Eddie Rebel Met Hollywood
By 1991, Petty was a superstar, and he used that clout to hire the best. For "Into the Great Wide Open," he brought in director Julien Temple and a young actor named Johnny Depp.
The video is a six-minute tragedy about "Eddie Rebel," a kid with a guitar who gets chewed up and spat out by the L.A. machine. It’s basically a short film. Petty actually lengthened the song for the video version because the album cut was too short to tell the whole story. You don’t see many artists doing that today.
- Faye Dunaway plays the manager.
- Matt LeBlanc (pre-Friends) makes a cameo.
- Chynna Phillips shows up as the girlfriend.
It’s a perfect time capsule of the early '90s, but it’s also a biting critique of the industry Petty spent his life fighting. He was always the outsider, even when he was the biggest name on the marquee.
The Gritty Beauty of "Mary Jane's Last Dance"
This one is heavy. Released in 1993, "Mary Jane's Last Dance" is arguably Petty’s most cinematic and controversial work. He plays a mortician who takes a corpse—played by a very still Kim Basinger—home for a final date.
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It sounds creepy because it is. But in Petty’s hands, it’s strangely poetic. Basinger reportedly stayed limp and "dead" for hours to get the shots right. There’s a fan theory floating around that the video was a nod to Tim Burton’s Batman (since Basinger was in it), but really, it was just Petty exploring the macabre.
He won another VMA for this one. It’s a masterclass in tone. You’re watching something that should be a horror movie, but because the song is so soulful, it feels like a dream.
Animation and Post-Apocalyptic Deserts
Petty didn't just stick to live action. "Runnin' Down a Dream" took a hard left into the world of 1900s comic strips. Inspired by Winsor McCay’s Little Nemo in Slumberland, director Jim Lenahan hand-drew a world where Petty journeys through a black-and-white dreamscape. It’s gorgeous. It’s also a reminder that Petty was a nerd for art history.
Then you have "You Got Lucky." Long before Mad Max: Fury Road was a glimmer in George Miller’s eye, Petty and Mike Campbell were wandering a post-apocalyptic desert in a hover-car. They find an old tent filled with 1950s technology—radios, TVs, junk. It was Petty’s way of saying that even in the future, the "old stuff" is what matters.
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Why He Still Ranks
Why do these videos still get millions of views? Because they aren't "content." They’re stories. Petty understood that a music video shouldn't just repeat the lyrics back to the viewer; it should add a new layer of meaning.
If you’re looking to dive back into the Petty catalog, don't just listen. Watch.
Start with the "Refugee" video for a masterclass in 1970s "cool," then jump straight to the neon-noir of "You Got Lucky." You’ll see a man who wasn't afraid to change his skin every few years.
Next Steps for the Petty Fan:
Check out the 4K restorations of his videos on YouTube. The detail in the "Don't Come Around Here No More" set is much more impressive when you can actually see the textures of the mushrooms. Also, look for the documentary Somewhere You Feel Free, which shows the raw 16mm footage from the Wildflowers era—it gives a whole new perspective on how he viewed the camera.