The
music video, directed by
Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, starred
Tom Kenny and
Jill Talley, a married couple who were, at the time, cast members on the sketch comedy program
Mr. Show with Bob and David. The original idea for the music video was for a
Busby Berkeley-style video, complete with "people diving into champagne glasses". The band was set to begin production on the video when they discovered that the
Red Hot Chili Peppers had done a similarly styled video for their song "
Aeroplane", which was almost identical to what they had wanted to do. The third and final concept, inspired by
Georges Méliès's
silent film A Trip to the Moon, came from directors Dayton and Faris, whose inspiration for the video came from the album cover for
Mellon Collie, which reminded them of early silent films. Hence, the video was filmed much like a turn-of-the-century silent film using theater-style backdrops and primitive
special effects, Dayton and the production crew initially had problems locating costumes for the video because the movie
Titanic was being shot at the same time in
Los Angeles.
Titanic director
James Cameron rented nearly every turn-of-the-century prop and costume in the city, leaving the "Tonight, Tonight" production crew little to work with. The video, which debuted in May 1996, begins with a group of people celebrating the launch of a
zeppelin to the
moon. Kenny's character kisses Talley's character's hand as the two enter the zeppelin, which was being held to the ground by people dressed as
sailors using
rope. The zeppelin approaches the Moon, which has a
face like the Moon's face in
A Trip to the Moon. Shots of the band performing in similar, turn-of-the-century attire using older, acoustic instruments are interspersed. The two characters jump off the zeppelin and land onto the Moon's surface, slowing their descent using umbrellas. Suddenly, several hostile humanoid
aliens appear, surrounding the couple. Kenny's character gets ready to defend them, but Talley's character intervenes and hits a few creatures with her
umbrella, which vaporizes them, but the two are trapped and tied. The two form a plan, and then break free of the ropes and attack the aliens with their umbrellas. The couple escapes on a rocket similar to the one in
A Trip to the Moon and land in the sea, where a
merman resembling the sea-god
Poseidon puts on a performance for them, including an
octopus, singing
mermaids, and
starfish, before sending them back to the surface in a
bubble. In the end, the ship "S.S. Méliès", named after the movie director, rescues the couple. In addition to being heavily aired on
MTV, the video received positive reviews and won several awards. Corgan remarked that "I don't think we've ever had people react [like this]...it just seemed to touch a nerve." "Tonight, Tonight" was nominated for
Best Editing in a Video (Editor: Eric Zumbrunnen) and
Viewer's Choice, It is still considered one of the greatest music videos of all time, ranking number 40 on
Stylus Magazine's list of the top 100 music videos of all time. Though regular 6-string acoustic guitars and electric bass guitar was used in the original studio recording of the song, in the music video, befitting the turn-of-the-century theme, some interesting instruments were used as props: James Iha can be seen using a Gibson
harp guitar and D'arcy Wretzky is seen playing an instrument that resembles the 1924 Gibson
mandobass. ==Track listings==