| The accompanying video - like all other Innuendo videos directed by Rudi Dolezal and Hannes Rossacher of DoRo Productions - was filmed in February 1991 and it features the band dressed and acting in an absurd manner, including guitarist Brian May dressed as a penguin (a reprise of his outfit featured in the booklet of the first Queen album)drummer Roger Taylor wearing a tea kettle on his head and riding a tricycle while Mercury sneaks up on him and is chasing him, a man in a gorilla suit, bassist John Deacon as a jester, and Mercury wearing a bunch of bananas as a wig (corresponding with the line "I think I'm a banana tree"). "I'm Going Slightly Mad" is the last Queen video to feature significant creative input from Mercury. Although he was already considerably ill at the time, "I'm Going Slightly Mad" features him very mobile and expressive in the final clip, as well as actively co-directing some of the video's storyboards. This was not the case in "These Are the Days of Our Lives", the last video Mercury ever filmed (in May 1991), where he hardly moves around at all. The video is shot in black and white, and its light effects, and the absurd character Mercury creates, complete with heavy makeup and a wig, all help to camouflage his frail condition at the time. For "I'm Going Slightly Mad", Mercury had worn heavy make-up to conceal the blotches on his face and a second layer of clothing to disguise how emaciated his body had become |
