Likud video mimics 'Harry Potter Puppet Pals'

Campaign clip is almost identical to a 2007 viral YouTube hit – catching Likud's campaigners unaware.

By LAHAV HARKOV
Likud Beytenu campaign video 370 (photo credit: Screenshot)
Likud Beytenu campaign video 370
(photo credit: Screenshot)
Tick. Tick. Tick. "What is that mysterious ticking noise?"
Depends who you ask. It's either a nuclear bomb, courtesy of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or a pipe bomb, laid by Harry Potter arch-villain Voldemort.
Likud Beytenu released an election campaign video on Wednesday evening, a frame-by-frame parody of the 2007 YouTube viral hit "The Harry Potter Puppet Pals: The Mysterious Ticking Noise" – but the party's campaigners had no idea.
Both clips begin with a ticking noise, and continue with a fugue.
In the Potter video, which has has 136 million hits, puppets representing the main characters of the book and movie series chant their names to a different beat.
The Likud Beytenu clip has finger puppets of Center and Left-Wing politicians chanting. Labor leader Shelly Yacimovich repeats "money and government," Meretz's Zehava Gal-On calls to "end the occupation, and Tzipi Livni says "to run or not to run," while Kadima chairman Shaul Mofaz mumbles something unclear. Yesh Atid's Yair Lapid says phrases having to do with his good looks and wealth like "give me some gel" and "Crème Brule."
In the middle of the 2007 hit video, Harry Potter and his least-favorite teacher, Snape, shout at each other: "Harry Potter! Snape! Harry Potter! Snape!"
In the 2013 election version, Likud and Mofaz get into a screaming match consisting of "The Tzipi Livni Party! Kadima! The Tzipi Livni Party! Kadima!"
Both end with an explosion and the puppets turning into confetti. Each bomb was laid by the respected universe's villain – Voldemort for Potter, and Ahmadinejad for the Likud Beytenu 's Israel – followed by them laughing at their success.
"Teeheehee. This is a bomb made for peace!" Ahmadinejad says.
Two of the Likud Beytenu 's campaigners, Nadav Scheindberg and Ron Levin, said they had never heard of The Harry Potter Puppet Pals. After viewing the clip, Levin admitted the similarities, but said there is no legal issue.
"There's no connection between the content and the characters in [the Harry Potter Puppet Pals and the Likud Beytenu campaign video], but they have the same motif, a puppet show," Levin explained.
Levin said the campaign sought to "emphasize that the heads of the Left-wing parties are acting like they're captive to slogans without any connection to reality, like puppets."
Labor was not amused by the humorous video.
"This campaign is ridiculous and does not have any serious message," Labor MK Eitan Cabel remarked. "[Prime Minsiter Binyamin] Netanyahu and [Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor] Liberman continue to make the public discourse shallow, and try to escape real questions that concern everyone one of us."
According to Cabel, the clip "proves what everyone knows: Only the Likud is disconnected from reality. Only the Likud can be so piggish and merciless. Only the Likud can destroy relations with our greatest ally, the US, and only the Likud can lie to the public like this."