Hot For Teacher

A song about being lustfully attracted to your teacher, this appealed to a new generation of Van Halen fans who could relate to the message and were enthralled by the video, which got lots of airplay on MTV when the network was just a few years old and showed lots of videos.

David Lee Roth co-directed the video, which explains all the babes (including Donna Rupert, first runner-up in the 1981 Miss Canada pageant). Between shots of ridiculously beautiful teachers in bikinis dancing for their students, the video shows the band doing choreographed dance steps under a disco ball. Despite numerous attempts, Alex Van Halen could not dance and was out of step most of the video.

The other co-director was Pete Angelus, who also worked on Van Halen's videos for "Panama" and "Jump." Angelus had the idea of using children to portray young versions of the band members.

This inspired the catch phrases: "Sit down, Waldo" and "I don't feel tardy." Waldo was the young man in the video who didn't fit in. The voice of Waldo was done by none other than the late Phil Hartman of Saturday Night Live fame.

In the video, David Lee Roth drives a yellow, 1932 Ford hot rod. He auctioned it off on his website in 2000.

For the layered effect at the beginning, Alex Van Halen strung together four bass drums. The rest of it he played using two. It is a great example of double bass drumming.

The album was the first recorded at Eddie Van Halen's 5150 studio. Eddie also has a line of amplifiers called 5150.

Guitar World magazine ranked Eddie's solo #46 of all-time.

Eddie used a Gibson flying V to record this, which allowed him to switch between pickups for the quiet and loud sections.

There is also a song called "Hot For Teacher" by a group called Thundertrain. Theirs came out in 1977, but it's a different song.

Norwegian Model Lillian Muller played the part of the sexy chemistry teacher in the song's music video. Muller also had a role as Rod Stewart's love interest in his "D'Ya Think I'm Sexy" clip. She followed her modeling with a career as a personal health consultant and inspirational speaker.

You won't hear any alternate versions of this song, since Van Halen didn't save any of the outtakes. This is what archivist Brian Kehew discovered when he worked on a proposed box set from the David Lee Roth years of the band.