Van Halen’s “Hot for Teacher“ was one of the biggest music videos of the 1980s. Not only did it star bandmates David Lee Roth, Michael Anthony, and Eddie and Alex Van Halen, but it featured their “kid” counterparts, which included a child actor from one of the most beloved holiday movies of all time.
Fresh on the heels of playing schoolyard bully Grover Dill, the sidekick to yellow-eyed Scut Farkus ( Zack Ward) in the film A Christmas Story, Yano Anaya was cast as the child version of Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony in “Hot for Teacher.” At the time, the young actor couldn’t believe his luck.
In an interview with Classic Rock magazine, Anaya, now 54, revealed the wild session for the wild music video.
“I was thirteen years old, and Van Halen was one of my favorite bands at the time,
he shared. “I’d done some commercials and a movie, A Christmas Story, before that, so when I got a message from my manager on the answering machine that I had an audition to play the part for Michael Anthony Jr. in an upcoming Van Halen video, I swear to God I was so excited. In my mind, I was thinking, ‘Holy crap, I look just like Michael Anthony – this is my job.’”
“I went to an audition in Hollywood, then I got a callback two days later, then two days after that I got the call that I actually got the job,” he recalled.
Anaya noted that the video shoot, which took place at John Marshall High School in Los Feliz, California, spanned four days and that he spent time with the band in their trailer after boldly knocking on the door. He recalled that when Roth questioned why there was a kid in the trailer, Alex Van Halen told him, “Don’t worry about it, man, he’s part of the cast, he’s hanging out with us.”
The 5-minute and 32-second “Hot for Teacher” video told the story of nerdy Waldo and his unruly classmates, who were younger versions of the Van Halen band members. It included some provocative scenes that sparked controversy.
In the Classic Rock interview, Anaya admitted to being embarrassed when a director instructed him to grab the leg of one of the bikini-clad “teachers” who was dancing on a table in one scene.
“I looked at my mom: ‘Should I actually do that? Is that okay?’ And my mom was like: ‘Do your job, son,’” he recalled. “I was so embarrassed to do that.”
Despite the awkward moments, Anaya has said that the “Hot for Teacher” video was the job of a lifetime.
In an interview posted by J. Dun’s Video Nasties, the actor recalled, “When it came out, man, you know, for me personally, Van Halen was like the number one band on in the world to me, at 14 years old. And you know they were a garage band, there they were rough, they were cool, and I loved their music, and when I got the job as Michael Anthony Jr. it was like a dream come true.”
“I mean, when I got that message that I was going on an audition for Van Halen ‘Hot for Teacher, oh my God, I was like, ‘No way.’ So I was super excited about going on the audition, and I rocked it, and I got hired.”
Of hanging with the band behind the scenes, Anaya recalled, “We played card games and money games and coin games and beer games, and it was just, I mean they made they made my experience with them last a lifetime, man.”
Described as “one of the most famous and creative clips to ever air on MTV, “ the “Hot for Teacher” video was ranked the No. 1 Van Halen video of all time by Ultimate Classic Rock.
Check out Anaya in a classic scene from A Christmas Story below.
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