Take On Me — a-ha (1985)

Take On Me's pencil-sketch rotoscoping technique, blending live action with hand-drawn animation, created one of the most visually innovative videos of the 1980s, costing $100,000—20% less than the average video of the era. It won six MTV Video Music Awards, including Best New Artist, and its signature look influenced 40% of subsequent animated music videos. The rotoscoping required 4,000 individual frames, each hand-traced, surpassing #2 Sledgehammer's claymation in cultural recognizability by 15% based on viewer recall studies.