Pinheads in Plimsolls: Parsing the Footwear of the Ramones

I spotted the video below on Facebook this morning and was left on the fence

On the one hand, The Ramones never made a great deal of money when they were a going concern, so I get it, and this clip is certainly cute -- dutifully adhering to the band's familial, one-for-all/all-for-one, cartoony mystique (when, in truth, they were bitterly dysfunctional), but there is still a lingering aftertaste to this.

I am somewhat reminded of an abortive ad campaign for Doc Martens back in 2007 that featured the late Joey Ramone wearing a pair of Docs, when it's universally acknowledged the great man never wore anything but sneakers.

Also, not to totally become Johnny Pedantic, but I don't know that the Ramones actually wore Converse. I mean, yeah, they wore plimsolls (i.e. canvas sneakers), but were they Converse? Might they have actually been Pro-Keds?

I posed this question on Facebook, and my old MTV News colleague Brian Wallace weighed in with a truly exhaustive website devoted to the Ramones' preferred footwear (short answer: While they frequently sported Sperry "boating shoes," they were known to rock the odd pair of Converse). So, there you have it.

Gabba, Gabba...