Music video for Nightmare on My Street turns up after 30 years

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

In 1988, New Line Cinema took DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince (yes, that is Will Smith) to court to stop them from releasing a music video for their song "A Nightmare on My Street", which was very obviously inspired by the New Line franchise A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET. New Line had been looking for a rap group to record a song for the latest ELM STREET movie, A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 4: THE DREAM MASTER, and while the VP of marketing and operations at Jive Records had been in contact with the studio to try to get the recently recorded "A Nightmare on My Street" onto that film's soundtrack, New Line opted to work with The Fat Boys on the song "Are You Ready for Freddy?" instead.

"A Nightmare on My Street" was released on the DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince album He's the DJ, I'm the Rapper, but when a video was shot for the song New Line hit the record label with a copyright infringement lawsuit, fearing that having "A Nightmare on My Street" out in the world at the same time they were releasing THE DREAM MASTER would confused people and make them think DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince were actually associated with their sequel in some way.

A disclaimer sticker was added to the album packaging to notify buyers that "A Nightmare on My Street" was not part of the THE DREAM MASTER soundtrack and not officially connected to the NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET films, and the music video directed by Scott Kalvert was destroyed…

But a copy did survive, and thirty years later is has been uploaded to the internet so we can study how they tried to make a video for a song that's definitely about Freddy Krueger without actually being able to put Freddy in the video. They found a way and created their own monstrous character, but the video was still too close to actual NIGHTMARE imagery for New Line's liking.

Check out the video below, which comes from a beat-up old VHS tape that someone accidentally recorded a couple seconds of Growing Pains on early in the video. If you're interested in knowing more about the New Line lawsuit, the legal files can be read HERE.