Michèle Mouton

Michèle Hélène Raymonde Mouton (born 23 June 1951) is a French former rally driver. Competing in the World Rally Championship for the Audi factory team, she took four victories and finished runner-up in the drivers' world championship in 1982.

Mouton debuted in rallying as a co-driver but quickly moved to the driver's seat, steering an Alpine-Renault A110 in national rallies. In 1975, she competed in circuit racing and won the two-litre prototype class in the 24 Hours of Le Mans. After being signed by Fiat France for 1977, Mouton finished runner-up to Bernard Darniche in the European Rally Championship. She went on to win the 1978 Tour de France Automobile and record consistent results in her home events in the WRC; the Tour de Corse and the Monte Carlo Rally. For 1981, Audi Sport signed Mouton to partner Hannu Mikkola. In her first year with the Audi Quattro, she took a surprise victory at the Rallye Sanremo.

In the 1982 World Rally season, Mouton finished a close second overall to Walter Röhrl, after wins in Portugal, Brazil and Greece, and helped Audi to its first manufacturers' title. Her campaign the following year resulted in fifth place. With the team having four top drivers for 1984, Mouton's participation on world championship level became part-time. In 1985, she won the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb in the United States, setting a record time in the process. In 1986, she moved to Peugeot and won the German Rally Championship as the first female driver to win a major championship in rallying. Soon after securing the title, Mouton retired from rallying due to the ban of Group B supercars. In 1988, she co-founded the international motorsport event Race of Champions in memory of her former rival Henri Toivonen. Mouton became the first president of the FIA's Women & Motor Sport Commission in 2010 and the FIA's manager in the World Rally Championship in 2011.

## Career

### Early life and career

Michèle Mouton was born 23 June 1951 in Grasse, a town on the French Riviera, close to the mountain stages famously featured in French rallies. Her parents grew roses and jasmine on their large property. After graduating from high school, Mouton began law studies, but would soon drop out and concentrate on a career in rallying. Although Mouton began driving her father's Citroën 2CV when she was 14 years old, she did not turn her interest to rallying until 1972, when her friend Jean Taibi asked her to practise the Tour de Corse with him. Mouton later co-drove for him in the 1973 Monte Carlo Rally, the first-ever World Rally Championship (WRC) event. After a few more rallies, Mouton's father suggested a switch to driving if she wanted to continue in rallying, and promised to buy her a car and give her one-year to prove herself. Driving an Alpine-Renault A110, she debuted at the Rallye Paris – Saint-Raphaël Féminin and then tackled the Tour de France Automobile. In the Île de Beauté, a complementary event to the Tour de Corse at the end of 1973, Mouton finished eighth overall.

In the World Rally Championship, Mouton made her driver debut in 1974, finishing 12th in the Tour de Corse in an Alpine A110. It was rumoured her good performances were the result of a special engine, however her car passed inspection by WRC scrutineers. At the end of the year, Mouton was crowned both French and European ladies' champion. Re-entering the Tour de Corse the following season, she took seventh place. Mouton successfully defended her ladies' titles, and also competed in circuit racing: In an all-female team with Christine Dacremont and Marianne Hoepfner, she won the two-litre prototype category of the 1975 24 Hours of Le Mans. Recalling the race in 2008, Mouton said: "It started to rain I remember, and I started to pass everybody. I was running on slicks. In the pits they were saying 'Michele you must stop', but I did not want to because I was passing everyone." Her results attracted a major sponsor in the form of the French oil company Elf. In 1976, Mouton drove the A110 to 11th place in Monte Carlo and retired at the Rallye Sanremo. At the Tour de Corse, her debut in the newer A310 also ended in retirement.

### Fiat

For the 1977 season, Fiat France signed Mouton to partner Jean-Claude Andruet. She was not impressed by the handling of the Fiat 131 Abarth, stating it was "like a big truck, not a car" and "terrible to drive". However, the car would prove successful and Mouton put in very consistent results, finishing eighth in the Tour de Corse in 1977 and fifth three years in a row from 1978 to 1980. In 1980, she had been running as high as second before her engine died for a time. In Monte Carlo, she drove the car to seventh place in 1979 and 1980, equalling the result she had achieved in the event in a Lancia Stratos HF in 1978.

Outside the World Rally Championship, Mouton drove a Porsche Carrera RS to victory in the 1977 RACE Rallye de España and to second place in the 1977 Tour de France Automobile. She also finished runner-up to Bernard Darniche in the overall European Rally Championship (ERC). Mouton went on to win the Tour de France with the 131 Abarth the following year. At the Rallye d'Antibes, she finished third behind the Stratos drivers Darniche and Attilio Bettega. She placed fifth in the ERC standings and fourth in the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) Cup for Drivers, the predecessor to the drivers' world championship. In 1979, Mouton finished second in the French Rally Championship, behind Porsche 911 SC driver Bernard Béguin.

### Audi

#### 1980

In 1980, Audi Sport, Audi's new factory team, called Mouton and signed her for a World Rally Championship programme for the 1981 season. Mouton described Audi's call as "a complete shock". Audi's decision to nominate her instead of established male rivals attracted a great deal of publicity. As the Audi Quattro, the first rally car to have over 300 bhp and both a turbocharger and four-wheel-drive, had not yet gained FIA homologation, Audi could only enter rallies as zero cars and not as competitive entries. Hannu Mikkola debuted the car in the Algarve Rally in October, and would have won by about thirty minutes had his times been officially registered. Mouton joined Freddy Kottulinsky for the final round of the Finnish Rally Championship, the Northern Lights, and also showed encouraging pace on the slippery surfaces. Mouton initially found the car understeering, but became more comfortable after switching to left-foot braking, as advised by Mikkola who was in charge of developing the car. Audi announced their participation in eight events in 1981, although Mouton would not be entered in the Swedish Rally due to her lack of experience on driving on ice and snow.

#### 1981

Mouton's first competitive run in the Quattro in Monte Carlo ended before it had even begun. She withdrew from the event before the start due to apparent engine problems. The team later discovered that dirt had got into the fuel system. At the Rally Portugal, she started her long partnership with the Italian co-driver Fabrizia Pons. Mouton won seven stages and took a career-best fourth place, despite suffering from electronic problems. This ended criticism of Audi for signing a female driver. After a retirement due to a broken camshaft in the Tour de Corse, Mouton set several fastest times at the Acropolis Rally in Greece. While Mikkola was leading and Mouton fifth, the stewards excluded the Quattros citing homologation infractions. Although Audi protested, the stewards upheld the decision. In her debut in the high-speed 1000 Lakes Rally in Finland, Mouton found it hard to get used to the rhythm changes. She recorded a few top-ten stage times and finished 13th. She was satisfied with her performance, and the local newspaper Keskisuomalainen described her debut as successful. At the Rallye Sanremo in Italy, a mixed surface event with tarmac and gravel, Mouton took the lead when the local star Michele Cinotto crashed and held off Henri Toivonen and Ari Vatanen to take the victory. This marked the first time a female driver had won a world championship event in rallying. Mouton's male rivals were left speechless. Earlier during the weekend, Vatanen had been confident: "Never can nor will I lose to a woman." Mouton recalled her debut win in a 2008 interview for RallySport Magazine:

> I remember not just because it was a win, but also because it was a big fight right into the last night. Fabrizia reminded me the other night that we had a problem with the brake pads, so we lost a lot of time. We finished three days rallying (with one day to go), night and day, 32 seconds in front of Ari Vatanen. We drove the last special stage for the night, came back to the hotel and I could not sleep at all, four hours in front of me and no sleep. Then I arrive at the special stage, it's about 42 km long, and I look at Fabrizia and I said "OK, we forget everything, and we are at the first stage of the rally again, because one of us will crash." And so Ari hit a rock, and we won the rally.

In the season-ending RAC Rally in Great Britain, Mouton continued her good performances by running third at half distance, despite having been uncomfortable about competing in a rally where pacenotes and practice are not allowed. However, her Quattro later incurred gearbox problems and she retired from fifth place after sliding off the road into a snow-filled ditch. Mouton would later state: "For me, rallying is England. No pacenotes – just you in the car having to do the fastest time. This, to me, is rallying. OK, it was not easy for me because I did not have experience there of the British championship, but it is really rallying. I like it very much." Mouton finished the season in eighth place in the drivers' championship, while Audi was fifth in the manufacturers' standings.

#### 1982

Mouton's 1982 season started with a big accident at the Monte Carlo Rally. On stage twelve in the small town Briançonnet in Provence, she hit a patch of ice and slid off the road, crashing into the stone wall of a large house at 110 km/h (70 mph). Mouton injured her knee while Pons suffered a concussion. She had been in third place, and had set the fastest time for the difficult Col de Turini mountain pass. The pair's injuries were not serious and Mouton went on to make her debut in the Swedish Rally. She was running third when she slid into a snow bank, and crashed into the Quattro of teammate Hannu Mikkola who had gone off at the same place. She eventually finished fifth. In Portugal, Mouton recorded 18 stage wins on her way to a clear victory ahead of Toyota's Per Eklund. She once admitted that to be competitive in the rally, she tried to think of the large crowds right by the side of the route as trees. At the Tour de Corse, she could not match the pace of the leaders and finished seventh. At the Acropolis Rally, Mouton won ahead of the Opel duo Walter Röhrl and Henri Toivonen, and closed to within 20 points of the championship leader Röhrl. The event was overshadowed by two serious accidents, one of which killed a spectator. Mouton had commented: "I'm afraid that something might break in my car and I can no longer avoid hitting a spectator."

In New Zealand, Mouton continued her good performances and traded the lead with Mikkola, Röhrl and Björn Waldegård. Soon after regaining the lead on stage twelve, she retired with a broken oil pump. After seven rounds, Mouton was second in the championship, 32 points behind Röhrl and 12 ahead of Eklund. The Rally of Brazil was marred by the fatal accident of Brazilian driver Thomas Fuchs, and featured chaotic conditions as parts of the course were not successfully closed for competition. Although only five teams made it to the finish, Mouton improved her title hopes by winning her duel with Röhrl after the German lost a wheel on the last day. At the 1000 Lakes, she clocked in the eighth fastest time for the famous Ouninpohja stage and placed seventh after the first day. On the following leg, Mouton drove too fast into a jump and damaged her Quattro while landing. After the next jump, her front wheels locked up and she rolled the car. Mouton was next locked in a tight battle for the win in Sanremo. Although she recorded nine stage wins and Audi took a one-two, she had to settle for fourth behind Röhrl.

Audi had not originally planned to participate in the African marathon events, but now found it necessary to enter the penultimate round, the Rallye Côte d'Ivoire, due to their title battles with Opel. Just before the start of the event, Mouton received news that her father had succumbed to cancer in his house in Nice. His last wish was that Mouton start the rally. After a first day of over 1,200 kilometres (750 miles) of racing in temperatures over 30 °C (86 °F), she was eight minutes clear of Mikkola and nearly half an hour ahead of title rival Röhrl. Mikkola said that he had never been in such a hot car, and Röhrl estimated that the temperature inside his car reached an "almost unbearable" 70 °C (158 °F). With just over half of the 5,000 km (3,100 mi) behind, Mouton led from Röhrl by over an hour despite losing 25 minutes due to transmission problems. On the third day, both Mouton and Röhrl struggled with several reliability issues and her lead over Röhrl shrank to 18 minutes. The Toyota Celica GT2000s of Eklund and Waldegård were still over two hours behind. Should Mouton go on to hold off Röhrl, she would reduce Röhrl's lead in the championship to just two points. As a driver's seven best results counted towards the championship at the time, Mouton would only need a third place in the RAC Rally to take the title even if Röhrl would win. On the final day, she continued to suffer from mechanical problems and had the complete fuel injection system changed. For the next time control, Röhrl and Mouton arrived almost simultaneously. With only 600 km to go, Mouton went off the road and rolled her car. She drove the severely damaged Quattro for five more kilometres before giving up.

Röhrl inherited the win and became the first two-time world champion in rallying. Having lost her father, Mouton did not dwell on losing the title. Röhrl had earlier conceded that he "would have accepted second place in the championship to Mikkola", but not to Mouton: "This is not because I doubt her capabilities as a driver, but because she is a woman." He believed that defeat would have devalued his performances. At the RAC, Mouton edged out Toivonen to take second place behind Mikkola. This result made Audi the first German marque to win the manufacturers' world title. At the inaugural Autosport Awards gala, Mouton won the International Rally Driver of the Year award.

#### 1983

The 1983 season started the Group B era of the WRC and Mouton was now at the wheel of the Audi Quattro A1. She also had a new teammate; Audi had signed Stig Blomqvist as their third regular driver. For the third year in a row, Mouton had a bad start to her season in Monte Carlo. She went off the road on a stage not far from her home town, and again hit a stone wall at over 100 km/h (60 mph). The car was destroyed, but Mouton and Pons were unharmed. Mouton explained to her team boss Roland Gumpert, later of Gumpert supercar fame, that she had had to dodge a photographer. Mouton went on to record successive points finishes. She finished fourth in Sweden in a quadruple win for Audi, after an early driving error that had sent her Quattro into a snow bank. In Portugal, Mouton finished second to Mikkola, ahead of Lancia's Röhrl and Markku Alén. After the first section of the Safari Rally, totaling over 1,600 km (1,000 mi), Mouton arrived to the finish on three wheels and said she was "totally exhausted" from the effort. She eventually placed third behind Opel's Ari Vatanen and her teammate Mikkola. After four events, Mikkola and Mouton were first and second in the drivers' championship.

At the Tour de Corse, Audi debuted the Quattro A2, which was 70 kg (155 lb) lighter and had an engine producing 30 more horsepower. Mouton's rally ended when her engine caught on fire. On the first stage in Greece, she rolled her car on a hairpin turn 18 km (11 mi) from the start. Rally New Zealand was for Mouton a repetition of the previous year; she took the lead on the seventh stage and held on to it until her A2's engine failed, with only six of the 33 stages to go. The three retirements in a row dropped Mouton to fifth place in the championship. She then finished third behind Mikkola and Blomqvist at the Rally Argentina, but this would remain her last podium finish of the season. At the 1000 Lakes in Finland, Mouton finished the first day in seventh place after setting two top-five stage times. Her car later caught on fire, but she was able to continue in the event by following Mikkola's advice and driving into a lake. With a string of top-ten times, she eventually finished 16th. In the Rallye Sanremo, the tarmac stages were dominated by the Lancia 037 and Mouton finished seventh after suffering from fuel injection problems. In the season-ending RAC Rally, she started well and held second place after the first twelve stages. An Audi mechanic later accidentally refilled Mouton's fuel tank with pure water which resulted in time-consuming repairs. She eventually retired after crashing out, and placed fifth overall in the drivers' championship. Although Mikkola beat Lancia's Röhrl and Alén to the drivers' title, Audi had lost the manufacturers' title to Lancia after the latter's triple win in Sanremo.

#### 1984

For the 1984 season, Audi added two-time world champion Walter Röhrl to their star line-up and Mouton now had a part-time role, competing in five WRC events. For the first time in nine years, she did not enter the Monte Carlo Rally. However, Mouton signed up to commentate the event for Radio Monte Carlo. She started her year well by finishing second at the Swedish Rally behind teammate and home favourite Blomqvist. Mouton later stated that "finishing second was fantastic. When you are out rallying on ice or snow in country like that it is like dancing. From one side to the other side. My dancing background helped my rallying. As soon as I started on gravel I liked it because of that. It was so nice to feel and move the car like that. Sweden, in ice and snow, like ballet!" This would remain her last podium position in the World Rally Championship.

In the Safari Rally, a rotor arm in Mouton's Quattro failed and caused the turbo to break down as well. She retired after falling victim to the team's ranking order; as the repairs were expected to take too long, Gumpert ordered championship leader Blomqvist's Quattro to be fixed by using Mouton's sister car as spares. Her debut in the new Sport Quattro at the Acropolis Rally ended with engine overheating problems. In the 1000 Lakes, Mouton placed ninth after the short first day. She later crashed and continued without a windscreen, but the damage to her Quattro could not be repaired in service. Mouton retired and left Finland pointless for the fourth year in a row. In late October, she signed a contract extension with Audi. At the RAC Rally, a slight mistake led to a puncture and Mouton dropped from third to fifth. She went on to narrowly lose the final podium spot to Toyota's Per Eklund. Mouton's results placed her 12th in the drivers' world championship, a point behind Röhrl. Outside the WRC, Mouton debuted in the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb in the United States, driving an Audi Sport Quattro together with her usual co-driver Fabrizia Pons. After her main opponent Martin Schanche got hampered by a flat right front tyre she won the open rally category (now known as unlimited) in a record time and placed second overall, leaving behind several specialised V8 single-seaters that had normally dominated the race.

#### 1985

Audi's WRC programme was limited for the 1985 season due to the recent defeats to Peugeot Talbot Sport, Peugeot's factory team headed by Jean Todt. Mouton and Mikkola were assigned to testing and development duties. She drove both the Sport Quattro and its follower, the Quattro S1 (Sport E2). Mouton considered the S1 the most difficult rally car she had driven: "For rallying on asphalt, I agree the limit had gone too far. We did not have the reflexes to control it properly. It was tough to drive the car, but not the short Quattro before."

Although Mouton competed in only one world championship event during the season, she contested a full six-round British Rally Championship. Her campaign was plagued by reliability problems and she recorded only one finish. In the National Breakdown Rally, Mouton stopped after damaging her Quattro in a jump. After technical problems led to an early retirement at the Circuit of Ireland, she finished second at the Welsh Rally behind Malcolm Wilson in another Quattro. At the Scottish Rally, Mouton had been closing in on the leading Wilson until a transmission problem forced her to retire. At the Ulster Rally, she set the fastest time for the first stage but then dropped out with a mechanical failure. In the season-ending Manx International Rally, Mouton struggled to start her Quattro and then crashed out five stages later.

Mouton's only WRC event of the year was the long-distance Rallye Côte d'Ivoire. She was co-driven by Arne Hertz as Pons was ill at the time of the start. Mouton started well and tied the lead with Toyota's Juha Kankkunen after the first day. Her Quattro incurred severe engine problems on the next day, but was seemingly repaired by Audi mechanics off the route in the jungle. At the same time, the Sport Quattro "chase car", a high-speed service car, retired and Audi faced accusations of swapping the cars. The team withdrew Mouton just before the finish and the controversy remains unresolved; the stewards did not find proof but the media published evidence afterwards. Although her rallying year was a disappointment, Mouton made a successful return to the Pikes Peak, winning the event overall in her Sport Quattro. Despite slippery conditions caused by a hailstorm, she broke Al Unser Jr.'s 1982 record by about thirteen seconds. The Frenchwoman's win irritated some of her male rivals. Bobby Unser was reputedly quite vocal about his loss, to which Mouton is said to have replied: "If you have the balls you can try to race me back down as well."

### Peugeot

Mouton broke off her contract with Audi in late 1985 to join Peugeot for the coming season. She contested the German Rally Championship and two WRC events in a Peugeot 205 Turbo 16, with which the marque had captured the previous year's world titles. To replace the newly-wed Pons, Mouton recruited Terry Harryman who had been left jobless after Ari Vatanen's accident. Mouton, nicknamed "der schwarze Vulkan" (The Black Volcano) due to her temperament and long black hair, won six of the eight events in the German championship, including the Rallye Deutschland. Although the Hessen Rallye was stopped after the severe accident of Formula One driver Marc Surer, which claimed the life of his co-driver Michel Wyder, Mouton was declared the winner. She secured the German national title on the seventh and penultimate round, the Sachs Baltic, after taking her fifth win of the season. She became the first female driver to win a major championship in rallying.

Mouton's WRC outings were her home events: Monte Carlo Rally and Tour de Corse. In Monte Carlo, she was running in eighth place after eleven stages, but soon retired with oil pump problems. For the Tour de Corse in May, Mouton was given the second evolution of the car. She quickly showed good pace and held third place behind Lancia's Henri Toivonen and teammate Bruno Saby. However, she ran into gearbox trouble on the tenth stage and was forced to retire. During the next day, Toivonen and his co-driver Sergio Cresto crashed out from the lead and died in their seats. Mouton was still in Corsica and remarked to her boyfriend that "if they stop the Group B now, it will be the end for me." Within days, FISA announced new regulations and banned the Group B supercars for the following year.

In October, two weeks after securing the German Rally Championship title, Mouton announced her retirement from rallying. She cited the end of the Group B era as the reason behind the decision, and stated that it was "a good time to stop". Later in the same month, Mouton crowned her career by winning the last event of the German championship, the Drei-Städte-Rallye (Three Cities Rally), ahead of Armin Schwarz's MG Metro 6R4.

### Later career

In 1988, Mouton co-founded the international motorsport event Race of Champions with Fredrik Johnsson, in memory of Toivonen and to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the world championship for rally drivers. The event originally included the world's top rally drivers, but now features stars also from other disciplines, such as Formula One, NASCAR, Le Mans and MotoGP, competing against each other in identical cars.

In 1988 and 1989, Mouton participated in rally raids as part of Peugeot's service team for Ari Vatanen and Jacky Ickx. At the 1988 Rally of Tunisia, Mouton drove a 205 T16 Grand Raid chase car and transported spare parts for Vatanen and Henri Pescarolo, but also classified sixth overall. She later took part in the Dakar Rally as a press driver in 2004 and 2009. In 2000, Mouton finished second in the London–Sydney Marathon driving a Porsche 911, behind former teammate Stig Blomqvist. After 22 years, Mouton and Fabrizia Pons reunited to compete in the 2008 Otago Classic Rally in New Zealand. In 2010, Mouton competed with a 911 in the Rallye du Maroc and finished second to Grégoire De Mévius.

In 2010, Mouton became the first president of the FIA's Women & Motor Sport Commission. She stated that "for many years people have asked me why there have been no women following in my footsteps. I really hope the Commission can help answer that question and that we can attract and support women in all areas of our sport." Having already headed a working group on the future of rallying, Mouton was appointed FIA's manager in the World Rally Championship in 2011. Mouton also serves in the nomination committee of the Rally Hall of Fame. In March 2012, she recused herself after becoming a candidate for nomination. Mouton was inducted into the Hall of Fame along with two-time world champion Carlos Sainz.

## Personal life and legacy

While announcing her retirement from rallying, Mouton stated her intention to start a family with Corsican sports journalist Claude Guarnieri. She had her daughter Jessie (Jessica) in 1987. Mouton credited her father Pierre's support as the secret for her success: "He loved driving. He loved fast cars. And I think he would have loved to do what I did. He was a prisoner of war for five years and when he came back he never had the opportunity to compete. But he came to all the rallies I did. And my mother came, too."

Mouton states that in her mind she did not try to beat her male rivals, but to be at their level. She noted that in rallying, time is the most important thing. David Evans of Autosport described her as "motorsport's most successful ever female driver". Rally journalist and historian Graham Robson credits Mouton, along with Pat Moss, as "the driver by whom all other females measure their skills and achievements". Mouton and Moss were of different eras and did not compete directly against each other, although they both appeared at the 1973 Monte Carlo Rally where Mouton co-drove. In 1985, they swapped cars in a private test session with Moss driving the Quattro and Mouton an Austin-Healey 3000. Stirling Moss regarded Mouton as "one of the best", and Niki Lauda described her as a "superwoman".

In 2011, Mouton was made knight of the Legion of Honour (Légion d'honneur) by French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

At the 50th International Emmy Awards in 2022, the documentary Queen of Speed about Mouton's rise to the top of rallying in the 1980s was awarded an Emmy for the Best Sports Documentary.

## WRC victories

## Complete WRC results

## See also

- List of female World Rally Championship drivers

French rally driver (born 1951)


Night Trap

Night Trap is a 1992 interactive movie developed by Digital Pictures and published by Sega for the Sega CD. Presented primarily through full-motion video (FMV), Night Trap tasks the player to observe teenage girls having a sleepover visiting a house which, unbeknownst to them, is infested with vampires. The player watches live surveillance footage and triggers traps to capture anyone endangering the girls. The player can switch between different cameras to keep watch over the girls and eavesdrop on conversations to follow the story and listen for clues.

The Night Trap concept originated in a 1986 prototype game developed by Axlon to demonstrate their Control-Vision game console to Hasbro. The system used VHS tape technology to present film-like gaming experiences. With the system picked up by Hasbro, the production of Night Trap commenced. The video footage was recorded in 1987, followed by six months of editing and game programming. Hasbro suddenly canceled the Control-Vision in 1989, which prompted the game's executive producer, Tom Zito, to purchase the film footage and found Digital Pictures to complete Night Trap. Night Trap was eventually released in October 1992 as the first interactive movie on the Sega CD.

Night Trap received mixed reviews; critics praised the B movie-esque quality, humor, and video animation, but criticized the gameplay as shallow. The game was one of the principal subjects of a 1993 United States Senate committee hearing on violent video games, along with Mortal Kombat. Night Trap was cited during the hearing as promoting gratuitous violence and sexual aggression against women, prompting toy retailers Toys "R" Us and Kay-Bee Toys to pull the game from shelves that December, and Sega to cease producing copies in January 1994. The Senate hearing led to the creation of the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), the North American video game ratings board still used today.

After the controversy subsided, Night Trap was ported to other consoles, including the 32X, 3DO Interactive Multiplayer, MS-DOS, and Mac OS. It was re-released in 2017 and 2018 for eighth-generation consoles to mark its 25th anniversary. Retrospective reviews of Night Trap were negative, owing to FMV's aging appeal as a game medium, and it has been cited as one of the worst video games of all time.

## Gameplay

Night Trap is an interactive movie video game that uses full motion video (FMV) to present the story and gameplay. The player is instructed by the in-game police squad to watch live surveillance footage of the Martin household and trigger traps to capture anyone that is seen endangering the house guests. Cameras are situated in eight locations in and around the house: the entryway, living room, kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, driveway, and two hallways. A map is available as well so the player can see how the rooms are connected. The player can freely switch between viewing the different cameras to keep up with house activities and pick up clues from conversations. Kelli, an undercover agent, will also provide clues to the player. The player must avoid trapping her, any other agent, or the house guests.

When someone is within range of a trap, a sensor bar will move into a red zone. Activating the trap at this moment will capture them. If the trap is activated when the bar is not in the red zone, the trap will not work and will become disabled for a short period of time. The traps will also only work if the access code is correct. There are six possible access codes, and the player can eavesdrop on conversations to find out when the Martins change the code. When a new code is learned, the player must wait until the speaker leaves the room before changing the access code to the correct color to maintain control of the traps. Counters on the screen indicate how many perpetrators have entered the house and how many have been captured.

## Cast

- Dana Plato as Kelly
- Tracy Matheson as Cindy
- Debra Parks as Lisa
- Allison Rhea as Ashley
- Christy Ford as Megan
- Jon Rashad Kamal as Victor Martin
- Marion "Molly" Starr as Sheila Martin
- Suzy Cote as Sarah Martin
- Andras Jones as Jeff Martin
- Giovanni Lemm as Tony
- William Bertrand as Eddie

## Plot

The opening exposition to Night Trap is presented to the player by Cmdr. Simms of the Sega Control Attack Team (S.C.A.T.) on Sega CD, or Special Control Attack Team in other versions. He explains that the team was alerted to the disappearance of five teenage girls who were last seen at the Martin winery estate. The Martin family consists of Victor Martin, his wife Sheila, their children Jeff and Sarah, and cousin Tony. The missing girls were reportedly invited to stay for the night. Police questioned the Martin family, but they claimed the girls had left safely, and they refused to let the police search the property. The police then handed over the case to S.C.A.T., which investigated the house and discovered a series of traps, security cameras, and an operational unit in the basement to control the apparatus. The S.C.A.T. agents spliced an override cable onto the control system and connected it to a control panel in the back hallway of the house. The player is given the role of an internal S.C.A.T. operative charged with controlling the traps and cameras from this back hallway.

Five more teenage girls head towards the estate, Kelli, Ashley, Lisa, Cindy, and Megan. S.C.A.T. has placed agent Kelli Medd within the group as an undercover agent. The girls are not aware of her true identity. Also with the girls is Danny, Lisa's younger brother. The house is invaded by Augers, vampiric beings that need blood to survive. The Martin family themselves are full vampires. The following events and the ending vary widely depending on which characters the player saves from the Augers.

## Development

### Concept

Rob Fulop, developer of Demon Attack (1982) and other Atari games, began working with Atari founder Nolan Bushnell at his company Axlon shortly after the video game crash of 1983. James Riley was also working with Bushnell at the time on a series of interactive retail advertising campaigns. Riley received a call from Fulop, his neighbor, who explained that an engineer presented an interesting device to another one of Bushnell's employees, Tom Zito. The system used VHS technology to create movie-like gaming experiences and allowed four video tracks to be played simultaneously. The team dubbed this system "NEMO" (Never Ever Mention Outside).

Zito wanted to put together some demos to present the technology to Hasbro. Riley wanted to create an environment the player could move freely about, leading to the idea of surveillance cameras. Fulop and Riley were inspired by the play Tamara (1981) which ran parallel stories running in 13 different rooms. The audience would need to decide for themselves which stories they wanted to follow. Fulop and Riley watched the play three times over the course of a weekend in 1985. Fulop and Riley liked the design model and thought it would make a good basis for an interactive media experience. A prototype game titled Scene of the Crime was produced to demonstrate the new technology to Hasbro and test the surveillance camera gameplay. It was a short five-minute demo where the player follows suspicious characters around a house to find who stole a stash of money. The player switches between cameras to observe the characters and eavesdrop on their conversations; all the characters have a plot to steal the money. At the end of the game, the player must guess who stole the money. In December 1986, the team flew to Hasbro headquarters in Pawtucket, Rhode Island and pitched the technology to Hasbro CEO Stephen Hassenfeld and a boardroom of 22 executives who liked the system and gave funding to support further development for the technology and games.

Ready to begin work on a full game, the NEMO team returned to the idea of surveillance cameras but wanted to make a more interactive and engaging experience. Zito originally had a plan for an interactive movie based on the A Nightmare on Elm Street film series. After negotiations with the film studio fell through, Zito hired Terry McDonell to write an original script. A cross-functional team of writers, directors, game designers, and programmers discussed how to blend the art of film with the interactivity of video games to create a compelling interactive narrative. The initial idea was to take the basis of Scene of the Crime to an extreme with a billionaire leaving an extremely large sum of money alone in a large house, guarded by a state-of-the-art security system. In this concept, the billionaire's daughter is staying at the house with her teenage friends when the house is attacked by ninja burglars who are attempting to steal the money. Through much deliberation, the game evolved into the final vampire concept seen in Night Trap. Hasbro was concerned that the game may feature "reproducible violence". As a result, Hasbro did not want the vampires, later dubbed Augers, to bite or move too quickly. In addition, the device used by the Augers to drain blood from their victims was purposely designed to pass Hasbro's non-reproducible violence requirements.

### Production and release

Night Trap was developed over six months and was part movie shoot and part programming. The film was shot on 35 mm film in Culver City, CA across 16 days in 1987, with editing taking another few months. The film was directed by James Riley. The director of photography was Don Burgess, who later went on to shoot the award-winning Forrest Gump (1994). Originally the set was going to be darker, but it was made brighter for fear the footage would pixelate in-game. The script was unusual because it was built around the multi-linear gameplay. Riley was focused on timing the shoots correctly to sync the movement of actors among the rooms. There were four scenes occurring simultaneously at any given time, although there were eight rooms (the other four being still images). Dana Plato was the most famous actor involved, known for her work on the American sitcom Diff'rent Strokes (1978–86). Plato's career was spiraling downward at the time, partially due to her personal problems with drugs and alcohol. Fulop recounted that at first, she was very professional, but later she began showing up late and did not want to rehearse. The Augers were played by stuntmen. They developed a hobbling walk so that they would always be prepared to fall when the traps dropped under their feet. The software was developed concurrently with the filming and editing. Through developing Night Trap, Fulop and his team came to realize their old-fashioned development methods did not always work with interactive movies. The team could not go back and "tweak" on-screen elements and other assets, such as inserting new scenes or changing the time an actor comes into view. They had to work with the video footage they were handed over.

Night Trap was ready for the launch of the NEMO in 1989 alongside another interactive movie, Sewer Shark. Both games had a combined budget of about US\$4.5 million (\$1.5 million for Night Trap, and \$3 million for Sewer Shark) making them two of the most expensive video games of the era. However, just before the launch of the NEMO in early 1989, which was now called the Control-Vision, Hasbro canceled the system release. The company cited high hardware costs as the reason. The system was originally intended to sell for \$199, but the high manufacturing costs of the system's DRAM drove it to US\$299 (equivalent to \$705.88 in 2022). In contrast, the market-leading Nintendo Entertainment System sold for around \$100 in 1989. Riley also cited the high cost of filmmaking for deterring Hasbro. Fulop went on to form PF Magic, which later created the Petz virtual pet simulation series.

Zito purchased the rights to the abandoned Control-Vision games, and after learning that Sony was considering Sewer Shark for a release on its forthcoming Super NES CD-ROM, he founded his own company to bring them to the system, Digital Pictures. When the Super NES CD-ROM failed to materialize, Zito began working with Sega for a release on the Sega CD. Night Trap transitioned from VHS to CD-ROM and was released in 1992 for the Sega CD, five years after it was originally filmed. In May 1993, British censors banned the game from being sold to children under 15 years old in the United Kingdom, which led to Sega creating the Videogame Rating Council (VRC) age rating system. Sega also released the Sega CD version in Japan on November 19, 1993.

## United States congressional hearings

On December 9, 1993, a United States Senate committee held a hearing on the subject of video game violence. The hearing was led by senators Joe Lieberman and Herb Kohl and was covered in major newspapers including USA Today, The Washington Post and The New York Times. At the hearing, the committee scrutinized Night Trap along with Midway's Mortal Kombat (1992). Lieberman claimed Night Trap featured gratuitous violence and promoted sexual aggression against women. One game over scene considered particularly offensive involved the nightgown-clad character Lisa being captured by Augers attempting to drain her blood. Tom Zito attempted to explain the context of the nightgown scene in defense of the game, but he claims he was silenced.

In the short documentary Dangerous Games (included with PC versions), the producers and cast explained the plot was to prevent the trapping and killing of women. In addition, the blood draining device was intended to look unrealistic to mitigate the violence. There are scenes in which the girls are grabbed or pulled by enemies, but no nudity or extreme acts of violence. Fulop was irked that Night Trap was compared to Mortal Kombat, which features ultraviolent gore, such as a character ripping the heart out of an opponent. During the hearings, Nintendo of America senior vice president Howard Lincoln testified that Night Trap would never appear on a Nintendo system because it did not pass its guidelines. Fulop believed Lincoln was referring to technical guidelines—Night Trap could not run on a Nintendo system due to the lack of a CD-ROM drive—but Lincoln made it sound as if the game was unworthy of Nintendo's moral standards. Critics noted this as a deliberate move from Nintendo to distance itself from the scandal and make Sega look unfavorable.

As a result of the publicity generated by the hearings, retailers sold 50,000 copies of Night Trap the following week. Two weeks before Christmas, the game was removed from store shelves in the United States' two largest toy store chains, Toys "R" Us and Kay-Bee Toys, after receiving numerous complaints that were suspected to be part of an organized telephone campaign. Both stores continued to stock Mortal Kombat. The Night Trap box art was also criticized by interest groups for what many believed to be a sexist depiction. In January 1994, Sega withdrew Night Trap from the market. Bill White, Sega Vice President of Marketing, stated that Night Trap was pulled because the continuing controversy surrounding it prevented constructive dialogue about an industry-wide rating system. He also stated that the game was misunderstood and was developed as a parody of vampire melodramas. Sega also announced in January the upcoming release of a censored version. The hearings led to the creation of the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) in 1994, the video game ratings board in North America still used today. After the controversy subsided, the game was ported to the 3DO, Sega 32X, MS-DOS, and Mac OS, each with a different cover from the original. Virgin Games released the 3DO version in Japan on June 25, 1994.

## Reception

Initial reviews for Night Trap on the Sega CD were mixed. It was the first interactive movie on the system and was thus seen as breaking new ground in both genre and technology. Critics were quick to point out the game's B movie qualities that were reminiscent of teen horror movies. The staff at Sega Force said that playing the game was like "directing your own B movie. Night Trap makes you feel part of the game." Critics identified the "warped" and "tacky" sense of humor as helping the game's appeal and adding to its charm. From a technological perspective, the video was praised for being high-quality and smooth, although the Sega CD's low color capabilities were identified as a weakness. The most common point of complaint was the gameplay. Some critics cited it for being boring and shallow because it mostly involved pressing one button at the right time to trap the enemies. The staff at Computer and Video Games said Night Trap was reminiscent of Dragon's Lair (1983) and Space Ace (1984) and shared the same issues those games had with gameplay just being a matter of hitting buttons in the right moments. Reviewing the game in Wizard magazine, Glenn Rubenstein said that Night Trap "could be called the best game ever. Well maybe not the best, but it certainly is the most entertaining, that's for sure." He particularly praised the use of live actors and the need to play through the game multiple times in order to see everything.

Ports of Night Trap to other platforms received more harsh reviews; critics said the game did not age well. Staff at GamePro said it was "innovative at one time, but Trap's graphics and sounds now play like standard stuff." Reviewers at GameFan blamed the game's extensive publicity for making it seem better than it truly was, saying "it's a so-so game that got a lot more attention than it deserved." Critics overwhelmingly found the game to be boring and dull. Next Generation called it "one of the most crashing bores ever released...this is a nongame." Critics agreed that the 3DO and 32X provided a larger color palette and higher-quality video than the Sega CD original. Night Trap was a commercial success, with sales totaling 400,000 copies by 1998.

In retrospect, Night Trap is viewed negatively and is mostly remembered for the controversy it stirred. It was ranked the 12th worst video game of all-time by Electronic Gaming Monthly editor Seanbaby in 2001. He and other game journalists also featured the game in a 2007 episode of Broken Pixels, a comedy web series that covers bad and obscure games. Yahoo! Games listed it among the most controversial games of all-time in 2007, saying: "If it weren't for controversy...this throwaway Sega CD game would have drifted into obscurity as merely another failed attempt at marrying gameplay with live-action video." Game Informer listed the game among the worst horror games of all time in 2008. It was ranked number 59 on GamesRadar's 100 worst games of all time in 2014, in which they believed it was "less of a game and more a test of patience". In 1996, Computer Gaming World listed Night Trap at number six of 50 worst games of all time, saying that it was "the ultimate experience of FMV gone bad".

## Re-release

In May 2014, Night Trap designer James Riley announced that he was in talks to re-release the game with improved resolution and gameplay. That August, a Kickstarter campaign appeared for the game's original creators, who formed a company titled Night Trap LLC. The developers said that if the campaign was successful, they would be looking into re-releasing other Digital Pictures titles. Furthermore, the company was also considering making a sequel to the original game. The Kickstarter failed, only gaining \$39,843 of its \$330,000 goal.

Two years later, in May 2016, game developer Tyler Hogle created a tech demo of Night Trap being played on a smartphone. Hogle had previously worked on official ports for two other Digital Pictures games, Double Switch (1993) and Quarterback Attack (1995). He posted a short video of his Night Trap demo online anonymously, and some gaming websites published stories on the video and contacted Tom Zito to ask if he was involved. Hogle got into contact with Zito, and the two began working towards a full release. The original source code and 1987 master footage are lost. Riley, however, possessed a copy of the timed master footage and provided it to Hogle. Because the footage was already timed, it was easier for Hogle to develop; however, he had to replay the original game multiple times to learn what actions triggered which scenes.

Night Trap: 25th Anniversary Edition was announced in April 2017 to commemorate the game's 25th anniversary. The game was released on PlayStation 4 and Windows on August 15, 2017, with an Xbox One release planned for the future. The game was developed and published by Hogle's Screaming Villains, and a limited-edition physical release by Limited Run Games was made available for the PlayStation 4 with three different cover art variations available that mimic the packaging of the original Sega CD release, the later Sega CD release, and the 32X version. The ESRB gave the re-release a "Teen" rating, a grade lower than the original's "Mature" rating. The anniversary edition of Night Trap uses the full uncompressed video footage with various new additions: deleted scenes including an introduction and a death scene featuring Danny, a behind-the-scenes developer commentary, a "theater mode" to watch all the story-related videos, a "survivor mode" which places Augers randomly in the house, and a playable version of Scene of the Crime.

The anniversary edition was released on the Nintendo Switch on August 24, 2018. Some journalists found the Switch release ironic, given Lincoln's statement that "Night Trap will never appear on a Nintendo system" during the 1993 congressional hearings. A version for the PlayStation Vita was also released.

1992 interactive movie

Video games developed in the United States


Heart-Shaped Box

"Heart-Shaped Box" is a song by the American rock band Nirvana, written by vocalist and guitarist, Kurt Cobain. It appears as the third track on the band's third and final studio album, In Utero, released by DGC Records in September 1993. It was one of two songs on In Utero remixed by Scott Litt prior to the album's release, due to the band's dissatisfaction with the original mixing by producer Steve Albini. The Litt remix also featured additional vocal harmonies and guitar by Cobain, which were the only elements on the album's 12 main tracks not recorded during the original sessions with Albini in February 1993.

"Heart-Shaped Box" was released as the In Utero's first single on August 30, 1993. Although the single was not released in the United States, to avoid competing with album sales, the song generated considerable American radio airplay, reaching number one on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart. The physical single reached the top 10 in several countries, including Portugal, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Finland, and New Zealand. It was the final song performed at Nirvana's last concert, on March 1, 1994, in Munich, Germany. "Heart-Shaped Box" was also the final Nirvana song to receive a music video before the suicide of Cobain in April 1994. The video, directed by Anton Corbijn, won two awards, including Best Alternative Video, at the 1994 MTV Video Music Awards.

## Origin and recording

### Early history

"Heart-Shaped Box" was written by Cobain in early 1992 at the apartment in the Fairfax district of Los Angeles, California he shared with his wife, the American musician Courtney Love. In a 1994 Rolling Stone interview with David Fricke, Love recalled hearing Cobain work on the guitar riff for the first time:

> The only time I asked him for a riff for one of my songs, he was in the closet. We had this huge closet, and I heard him in there working on 'Heart-Shaped Box.' He did that in five minutes. Knock, knock, knock. 'What?' 'Do you need that riff?' 'Fuck you!' Slam. [Laughs] He was trying to be so sneaky. I could hear that one from downstairs.

Cobain forgot about the song for a while, then resumed work on it after he and Love moved to an apartment in Hollywood Hills, Los Angeles. Nirvana's first attempts to work on it were unsuccessful; Cobain said he waited for bassist Krist Novoselic and drummer Dave Grohl "to come up with something but it just turned into noise all the time". Eventually, during one jam session, Cobain said he "came up with the vocal style instantly and it just all flowed out real fast. We finally realized that it was a good song."

"Heart-Shaped Box" was first performed live on January 16, 1993, at the Hollywood Rock Festival in São Paulo, Brazil. It was first recorded in the studio a few days later, at BMG Ariola studios in Rio de Janeiro. Producer Craig Montgomery recalled hearing the song during the band's soundcheck in São Paulo, saying that "even then Kurt knew this was the single ... All the other [new] stuff they had was way more noisy and abrasive than this. Even the other sound guys that were out there on the platform with me were going, 'Yeah, this is a good song.'" The band's guitar tech, Ernie Bailey, also had a positive initial reaction to the song in Brazil, saying that "you could tell this was an important song, in a lot of ways. You knew that it just had a lot of weight to it, even the first time you heard it."

Two versions of the song were recorded at BMG Ariola, with the initial take being done to test the studio's equipment. The second take was posthumously released on the band's rarities box set, With the Lights Out, in November 2004, and on the compilation album Sliver: The Best of the Box in November 2005. On January 23, the band again performed "Heart-Shaped Box" live, at the Hollywood Rock Festival in Rio de Janeiro. These early versions of the song featured unfinished lyrics and what music journalist Gillian G. Gaar called "a far more experimental solo, more akin to the group's improvs".

### In Utero

The studio version of "Heart-Shaped Box" was recorded in February 1993 by Steve Albini at Pachyderm Studios in Cannon Falls, Minnesota, for the band's third studio album, In Utero. Work on the song began on February 14, the second day of recording. According to Albini in a 2013 interview for the audio series Spotify Landmark, "Heart-Shaped Box" was the only song recorded during the sessions that required "more than a couple of takes", along with eventual fourth single, "Pennyroyal Tea".

In a 2013 Rolling Stone interview with Fricke, Grohl recalled that "everyone was concerned about the tempo of 'Heart-Shaped Box.' But click tracks were not cool. Kurt and Steve came up with this idea — we should use a strobe light [laughs]. We had this long conversation about how it won't dictate the tempo, just imply the tempo. ... I sat there for a take or two with this fucking strobe light in my face until I practically had a seizure."

Despite his overall satisfaction with the recording, Novoselic was unhappy with the original effect used during the song's guitar solo, and recalled arguing with Cobain and Albini about it:

> These were the words I said: 'Why do you want to take such a beautiful song and throw this hideous abortion in the middle of it? And they're like, 'Well, I don't know, it sounds good.' They didn't have any arguments, because they were sabotaging it is what they were doing.

The guitar effect was eventually removed when the song was remixed, along with second single "All Apologies", by Scott Litt at Bad Animal Studios in Seattle in May 1993, several months before the album's release. Cobain and Novoselic had agreed that the vocals and bass were too quiet in Albini's original mix of the album, and elected to have the two future singles remixed. Litt's remix of "Heart-Shaped Box" also featured newly recorded vocal harmonies and acoustic guitar by Cobain.

### Later performances

On September 25, 1993, the band performed "Heart-Shaped Box", along with "Rape Me", on Saturday Night Live at NBC Studios in New York City. It was their first show with second guitarist Pat Smear.

"Heart-Shaped Box" was the final song played at Nirvana's last show, on March 1, 1994, at Terminal 1 of Munich-Riem Airport in Munich, Germany.

## Composition

"Heart-Shaped Box" is an alternative rock song that lasts for a duration of four minutes and thirty-nine seconds. According to the sheet music published at Musicnotes.com by BMG Rights Management, it is written in a 4/4 time signature, with a moderate tempo of 100 beats per minute. It is in the key of G minor, modulating to G dorian on the verses, while Kurt Cobain's vocal range spans one octave, from the low note of G3 to the high note of G4.

The song has a basic sequence of G5–E5–C5–G–E5–C7 in the verses and G5–E5–C7 during the chorus as its chord progression. Journalist Gillian Gaar described "Heart-Shaped Box" as "the Nirvana formula personified, with a restrained, descending riff played through the verse, building in intensity to the cascading passion of the chorus".

### Lyrics

In the 1993 Nirvana biography Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana, Cobain told author Michael Azerrad that "Heart-Shaped Box" was written about children with cancer. "Every time I see documentaries about little kids with cancer I just freak out", he explained. "It affects me on the highest emotional level, more than anything else on television." As Azerrad noted, however, the song's lyrics were more likely about Love. Charles R. Cross, author of the 2001 Cobain biography Heavier Than Heaven, described the lyric, "I wish I could eat your cancer when you turn black" as "what has to be the most convoluted route any songwriter undertook in pop history to say 'I love you'". Garr wrote that "while the song does reference [cancer], the lyrics appear more to address the physical and emotional dependencies inherent in relationships."

Cobain's unused liner notes for In Utero, first described in Heavier Than Heaven and published in Journals the following year, featured an explanation for "Heart-Shaped Box" that "fell completely apart", according to Cross, "but touched on The Wizard of Oz, 'I Claudius', Leonardo da Vinci, male seahorses (who carry their young), racism in the Old West, and Camille Paglia".

The song's title was inspired by the collection of heart-shaped candy boxes Love kept in the front room of the Fairfax apartment she and Cobain lived in. However, early versions of the song featured the word "coffin" rather than "box". According to Bailey, the song also featured the working title "New Complaint." In a 1993 interview with Circus, Cobain explained that the chorus lyrics "Hey/ Wait/ I've got a new complaint" were a reference to how he believed he was often perceived by the media.

In 2012, Love wrote on Twitter that "Heart-Shaped Box" was about her vagina. Tweeting to the American musician Lana Del Rey, who had covered the song at a concert in Sydney, Australia, the previous week, Love wrote, "You do know the song is about my Vagina right? 'Throw down your umbilical noose so i can climb right back,' umm ... On top of which some of the lyrics about my vagina I contributed." The tweets were deleted shortly after.

## Release

"Heart-Shaped Box" was released as In Utero's first commercial single on August 30, 1993, on CD, cassette tape, and 7-inch, and 12-inch vinyl record formats. The single was released in Europe only and peaked at number five on the UK Singles Chart. All copies of the single featured the Grohl-composed "Marigold" as a B-side, while 12-inch vinyl and CD editions also included the In Utero track, "Milk It".

In the United States, DGC sent promo copies of the song to American college, modern rock, and album-oriented rock radio stations in early September. The label did not actively court Top 40 radio, with Geffen Records' head of marketing explaining that "Nirvana didn't sell nearly 5 million [records] because of a hit single. They sold that many albums because of who they are". However, the single was available in the US in limited numbers as an import release.

"Heart-Shaped Box" entered the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart at number seven, and eventually peaked at number one on the chart. The song also reached number four on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart. Music & Media reported in November, 1993, that the song had been well received on Italian contemporary hit radio station RTL 102.5.

### Critical reception

Reviewing In Utero for Rolling Stone, Fricke called "Heart-Shaped Box" "the kind of song Stone Temple Pilots couldn't write even with detailed instructions", and cited it as evidence, along with "Dumb", that if Generation X "is ever going to have its own Lennon — someone who genuinely believes in rock & roll salvation but doesn't confuse mere catharsis with true deliverance — Cobain is damn near it". Phil Alexander of Kerrang! wrote that "on the current single Heart-Shaped Box, the sublime All Apologies ... and the convalescent croon of Penny Royal Tea, [Cobain] re-stakes his claim as one of his generation's most absorbing songsmiths." John Mulvey of the NME called the song "a strangulated, semi-f-ed-up anthem of sorts for a generation who fell in love to 'Teen Spirit' and are now as disturbed as Kurt by a growing sense of maturity".

### Legacy

In his review of Nirvana's eponymous greatest hits album in 2002, Will Bryant of Pitchfork wrote, "I've always considered 'Heart-Shaped Box', with its elliptical guitar figure and explosive choruses, to be one of Cobain's most accomplished compositions. For all its heavy-handed symbolism, the song strikes deepest to Cobain's preoccupation with birth, the menstrual cycle, and female anatomy, wound tightly with primal tension in the verses and released with sublime catharsis in the choruses." Andrew Romano of The Daily Beast called it "as close as Cobain ever got to a perfect song", with "a perfect music video to match".

In 1999, the song was voted number 10 in Kerrang! magazine's "100 Greatest Rock Tracks Ever!" The Guardian and Kerrang! ranked the song number one and number two, respectively, on their lists of the 20 greatest Nirvana songs. In 2022, Pitchfork readers voted it the 30th best song of the 1990s.

### 20th anniversary version

A second "Heart-Shaped Box" single was released in September 2013, to promote the 20th anniversary re-release of In Utero. The three-track promo CD single was included with the first 2000 copies of the "Super Deluxe" edition of the re-issue, and featured Albini's original mix of the song and a remix prepared by Albini in 2013 as B-sides.

## Music video

### Preliminary work

The "Heart-Shaped Box" video was the only music video made for In Utero, and the last video released by the band. Cobain had originally approached American filmmaker Kevin Kerslake, who had directed the band's last four music videos, for the songs "Come as You Are", "Lithium", "In Bloom", and "Sliver", to direct it. Five treatments were prepared by Kerslake between July 14 and August 12, and included scenes of Cobain kissing American author William S. Burroughs, whom Cobain had wanted in the video, and the band hanging by their necks from tree branches. However, no shoot arrangements were made, and by the end of August, the group had elected to work with Dutch photographer and video director Anton Corbijn instead.

Corbijn believes he was chosen to work on the video on the recommendation of Love, and cited his connection to Echo & the Bunnymen, a rock band from Liverpool, England where Love briefly lived and whom Love admired. According to Corbijn, Cobain had asked to be sent the music videos he had directed for Echo & the Bunnymen shortly before receiving a fax from Novoselic with drawings and ideas about a Nirvana video.

As Corbijn recalled, Cobain's proposed treatment for the video was "incredibly precise. More precise than I've ever had for a video. I loved it, but initially I was a bit taken aback that somebody came up with so many ideas, because generally my videos are my own ideas ... But then I looked at it and I thought that actually it was pretty good. I was very amazed by somebody writing a song and having those ideas as precise as he did." According to Novoselic, Cobain's original treatment was two pages long; Novoselic recalled typing it on his new laptop while Cobain dictated.

### Filming

The "Heart-Shaped Box" video was filmed on August 31 and September 1 at Raleigh Studios in Los Angeles. Cobain had requested the video be shot in Technicolor, but as Corbijn recalled, "somehow it was not possible; maybe the whole system had been sold to China or something." Instead, Corbijn and his producer came up with the idea to shoot the video in color, then convert it to black and white and have every frame hand-tinted. The process took weeks and led to the vivid brightness of the video's colors.

In a 2013 interview with Andrew Romano of Daily Beast, Corbijn recalled "a really eerie moment" where the actor playing the video's elderly man, "fell down while walking, on the set. He had some kind of bowel cancer, which he didn't know. Something broke open. There was blood everywhere. We had to get the ambulance, and he had to go to the hospital straight off. It was really severe." According to Corbijn, the old man was the most difficult to cast because finding "an old man who looked like an old man in L.A. was not so easy ... In the end we found this fantastic man who had a jazz club or a jazz station on the radio, something like that." Cobain had originally wanted Burroughs to play the role of the elderly man, but Burroughs declined, although they later met and collaborated on the spoken word piece, "The 'Priest' They Called Him".

According to Corbijn, the two other characters in the video, the overweight woman and the young girl, were easier to cast, "although it was difficult sometimes I think for the child to act because there was blood coming out of her blouse at some point."

Corbijn remembered Cobain as "very alert. Smart boy. Very intelligent. He did everything I asked him to do." According to Cali DeWitt, who briefly worked as the Cobains' nanny, Cobain and Love had fought on set, with Cobain putting out a cigarette on his forehead in retaliation to Love's repeated reminders that this was an "important video" and that he needed to "look good". As DeWitt told author Everett True, "if you watch the video, there's a lot of make-up on his forehead because it was a really bad scab, big and in the center. In the close-ups, there's a strip of hair that never seems to move from the middle of his forehead. They had to paste some hair over it."

### Synopsis

The "Heart-Shaped Box" video begins and ends with the band watching the elderly man on a hospital bed being administered medication through an IV drip. Most of the video takes place in what Garr called "a surreal 'outdoor' setting; a field of bright red poppies with a large cross standing in the middle, adjacent to a wood of creepy old trees (both elements in key scenes in The Wizard of Oz)." During the song's first verse, the elderly man, wearing a Santa Claus hat and loincloth, climbs onto the cross, which is covered by crows. The second verse introduces the young girl in what appears to be a Ku Klux Klan robe and peaked hat reaching for human fetuses in a tree, and the overweight woman in a human organ body suit with angel wings affixed to her back, similar to the winged anatomical model on the cover of In Utero. At one point during the second verse, the girl attempts to chase the three crows from the cross while the old man, now wearing a mitre, is tied to it.

During the song's guitar solo, the girl's hat is blown off her head and falls into a puddle in the poppy field, where it turns black. A brief shot during the solo reveals a fetus in the IV drip. The third verse features Cobain singing directly into the camera without his guitar, while Grohl and Novoselic stand behind him in a room with stars on the walls. The room is actually a box designed by Corbjin with a large heart on top, but the band initially disapproved of the way it looked, and Novoselic asked that it not be filmed from a distance. A brief shot of the box, with the heart above, appears at the start of the final chorus.

The band is featured performing with their instruments during the first two choruses, and without their instruments in what appears to be the same star-decorated box, zoomed out to reveal a bed, nightstand with a lamp on it, and rocking chair, during the final chorus. Both the sky and the walls of the box are blue during the quieter verses, and red during their heavier choruses and the solo. During the video Cobain repeatedly charges the camera, and his face moves in and out of focus.

As Garr pointed out, the Ku Klux Klan imagery recalled Cobain's original idea for the "In Bloom" video, which was to feature a young girl born into the KKK who eventually rejects her parents as "evil".

In his interview with The Daily Beast, Corbjin estimated that he came up with "maybe 15 percent" of the video's ideas, with the rest being Cobain's. "The big woman, for instance, was my idea", he explained. "For me that was Mother Earth. There were a few other things, like the mechanical birds and the fake butterflies and stuff." Corbjin also said the idea to have a crow lip sync parts of the first chorus was his, calling it an example of his "Dutch humor". According to Garr, Cobain had originally wanted to use real animals. Corbijn also added the ladder that the elderly man used to climb up the cross, the box that the band performed in, and the road through the poppy field.

### "Director's Cut"

While editing the video, Corbijn was visited by Cobain and Love, and urged by the latter to use the extended shot of Cobain singing the third verse. As Corbijn later explained, "Kurt looked amazing, and Courtney wanted to keep that shot till the very end. It was a very long take, but she persuaded Kurt to go with that." However, Corbjin then edited a different version which replaced this shot with additional footage of the young girl and woman, as well as scenes of Cobain lying in the poppy field, covered in mist.

According to Corbijn, "They used Courtney's edit initially, and then they put mine out as well. And my edit became the video in the end." This version also appeared on the DVD The Work of Director Anton Corbijn in 2005. Both the "Original" and "Director's Cut" versions of the video appeared as bonus footage in 2013 on the Live and Loud DVD, which was issued as a standalone release as well as part of the 20th anniversary In Utero "Super Deluxe" package.

### Lawsuit

On March 9, 1994, Kerslake sued Nirvana over the "Heart-Shaped Box" video, alleging copyright infringement. According to Nirvana: A Day by Day Eyewitness Chronicle by Carrie Borzillo, Kerslake discovered that he would no longer be directing the video on August 28, 1993, and sent a letter to Corbjin to ensure that none of the images in his five treatments would appear in the final video. Kerslake's lawsuit stated that both Cobain and Nirvana's record company had approved Kerslake's third treatment for the video, with Cobain describing it as "Perfect".

On September 1, 1993, Cobain called Kerslake and invited him to the 1993 MTV Video Music Awards the following day, where Kerslake's video for "In Bloom" was nominated for Best Alternative Video. Kerslake accepted the invitation, and joined the band onstage after they won the award. Soon after Kerslake wrote Cobain a letter, addressed to "kurdt", thanking him for the invitation but expressing his unhappiness over reports that his alleged ideas had been used in Corbijn's shoot. Cobain did not respond, but a meeting was set up between attorneys and the record label to discuss the video.

The case did not affect the video's distribution, and was ultimately settled out of court. In 2019, Cobain's former manager Danny Goldberg discussed the lawsuit in his Cobain biography Serving the Servant, writing that "after the video was aired, Kerslake sued Kurt, claiming, absurdly in my opinion, that he was responsible for the idea of 'Heart Shaped Box.' Kurt was deeply offended. After he died the remaining members of Nirvana settled with Kerslake."

### Reception

The "Heart-Shaped Box" music video was the number one most played music video on MTV in the US as recorded by Billboard magazine on November 20, 1993. It was also number one on Canada's MuchMusic Countdown for two weeks in November 1993. The video won two MTV Video Music Awards in 1994, for Best Alternative Video and for Best Art Direction. Since the ceremony was held after Cobain's suicide in April 1994, the awards were accepted by surviving bandmembers Grohl, Novoselic and Smear. "Heart-Shaped Box" also topped the music video category in the 1993 Village Voice Pazz & Jop critics' poll. The video was also aired on MTV Europe and The Box.

Cobain was pleased with the video, saying that it came "closer to what I've seen in my mind, to what I've envisioned, than any other video." Novoselic agreed that "Anton did a beautiful job on that video." Cobain later asked Corbijn to direct a video for "Pennyroyal Tea", but Corbijn refused, saying that he felt "the 'Heart-Shaped Box' video was so good, I could never make a video that was as good or better." According to Corbijn, Cobain responded by telling him he would "never make another video if you don't do it. And he didn't."

### Legacy

In 2011, NME ranked the song's music video at number 22 on its of the "100 Greatest Music Videos". That same year, Time magazine ranked "Heart-Shaped Box" at number 10 on its list of "The 30 All-Time Best Music Videos", where it was described as "beautiful and ... terrible".

In February 2016, Grohl reunited with actress Kelsey Rohr, who played the girl in the "Heart-Shaped Box" music video 23 years earlier, at the age of six. Rohr stated that "Today reminded me that I peaked at 6 years old but I was the most badass kid on the playground. Today was the absolute coolest. Or in Dave's words seeing each other today was a 'historic moment'! What a legend!"

## Track listing

All songs were written by Kurt Cobain except where noted.

CD single and 12" vinyl

1. "Heart-Shaped Box" – 4:39
2. "Milk It" – 3:52
3. "Marigold" (Dave Grohl) – 2:33

Cassette and 7" vinyl

1. "Heart-Shaped Box"
2. "Marigold" (Grohl)

US 12" vinyl promo single

1. "Heart-Shaped Box"
2. "Gallons of Rubbing Alcohol Flow Through the Strip" (Cobain, Grohl, Novoselic)

2013 20th Anniversary promo CD single
(Released with first 2000 copies of the 20th Anniversary "Super Deluxe" edition of In Utero)

1. "Heart-Shaped Box" (Original 1993 album version, mixed by Scott Litt)
2. "Heart-Shaped Box" (Previously unreleased 1993 Steve Albini mix)
3. "Heart-Shaped Box" (Previously unreleased 2013 Steve Albini mix)

## Charts

### Weekly charts

### Year-end charts

## Certifications

## Personnel

- Kurt Cobain: vocals, guitar
- Krist Novoselic: bass
- Dave Grohl: drums

## Other releases

- A live version, from the band's performance for MTV at Pier 48 in Seattle on December 13, 1993, appeared on the Live and Loud DVD, released in September 2013.
- A live version, recorded at the Great Western Forum on December 30, 1993, appeared on the live compilation, From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah, released in October 1996.

1993 song by Nirvana

Song recordings produced by Steve Albini

Songs involved in plagiarism controversies