All of their songs were produced and written by Catapult musicians Aart Mol, Cees Bergman, Elmer Veerhoff, Erwin van Prehn and Geertjan Hessing (under the aliases "Adams & Fleisner" and "Tony Acardi"), and recorded at Cat Music.
The quintet also formed Rubberen Robbie in 1978, their vehicle for parody and carnival songs, sung in their native Dutch language.
[9][10][5][11][12][13] In the 1980s, the members wrote songs for Leidsche rock band Tower and André Hazes (three of which were recorded for his album Gewoon André, including his number 1 hit "Een Beetje Verliefd"), and specialised in writing and producing breakdance, hip hop and Italo disco music, with 1983 and 1984 becoming their most productive years.
Since their new songs were cut down as non-format and did not hit the airwaves, they used pseudonyms such as "Adams & Fleisner" and "Tony Acardi", and formed various fictional bands and artists in which the members were models and dancers hired for cover photograph shoots and lip-synced to songs sung by Bergman, Hessing and session singers in live performances.
The laugh comes from Woody, who makes a sudden appearance, wearing a space suit and holding a laser gun, and hypnotizes the perplexed man, telling him to take him to the hippest spot in town to do the "Woodpecker Boogie and Rap".
[5][11][6] Giving their new project the name "VideoKids" and recording and producing some more tracks in full, Cat Music hired and asked two good-looking young people, Peter Slaghuis and Bianca Pikaar, to be the faces of the Euro disco act.
[5][6] Slaghuis had done remixes of Cat Music's other projects, such as the Special European Edit of "After The Rainbow" by Joanne Daniëls (along with Emile Noorhoek) and "Steppin' Out" by Digital Emotion, while Pikaar, under the stage name "Bianca Bonelli", would later have a solo single called "Je Veux L'amour (Follow Me)", also written and produced by Cat Music.
In the video, the woodpecker plays one prank after another on the Slaghuis/Bonelli flight crew, messing with their spaceship and leaving the duo hardly any time to sing.
[21] In order to avoid being sued by Universal Studios, a new character named Tico Tac, a "spacepecker", was created as the group's mascot and used in place of Woody.
The man decides to tame Tico and make him "more presentable" by taping his mouth shut and tying his drill to a plunger.
[25][26][27] Slaghuis would later use "Woodpeckers from Space" in the seventh installment in his "Disco Breaks" bootleg series,[28] and he and Bonelli would release their debut album, The Invasion of the Spacepeckers.
By 1985, "Woodpeckers from Space" was an international hit, peaking in 72nd place in the United Kingdom,[29] 6th in Switzerland,[30] 4th in Germany,[25] 2nd in Portugal,[31] and 1st in Norway and Spain.
[8] "Woodpeckers from Space" and their other songs, such as "Do the Rap" and "La Bamba", were played quite often on radio stations at the time, and covered and included on several best-of albums and compilations.
[36][37] The single also included "Happy Birthday" (from "Cartooney Tunes") and "Skyrider", and featured Tico Tac: Spacepecker on its back cover.
A music video for "Do the Rap" was filmed, in which Slaghuis, Bonelli and Tico (who reuses some animations from "Woodpeckers from Space") are at a party, dancing and singing along to a record player playing the song.
At one point Tico plays around with a ball in a Star Trek pinball machine, and accidentally falls on top of the record player, temporarily stopping the song.
[6] Following "Do the Rap" was the release of VideoKids' second album, On Satellite, in which the music sounded somewhat different, becoming generally more strict with the addition of some bass guitar, though still containing its usual twinkly synthesizers.
[38][39] In 1994, ZXY Music released a Eurodance remix of "Woodpeckers from Space" by Patrick de Schrevel, which also included the 1986 and 1989 mixes.
[41] In 2004, Cat Music licensed "Woodpeckers from Space", "Do the Rap", "Satellite" and "Witch Doctor" to Weton-Wesgram for inclusion in their compilation album Club Hits of the 80's.
[42] In 2008, they released the 1986 remix of "Woodpeckers from Space" as part of their album Cartoon Hits and On Satellite on iTunes, Spotify and Apple Music, followed by The Invasion of the Spacepeckers in 2012 and 2013.
[45][46][47][48] In October 2023, "Woodpeckers from Space" was released as part of the compilation album Adams & Fleisner: The Ultimate Collection by i Venti d'Azzurro Records.
[21] "Woodpeckers from Space" has been covered and remixed several times by other artists throughout history, such as Café Society in 1985;[35] Doctor Pecker in 1986,[55] The Smurfs in 1995,[56] V-Kid in 1999,[57] Evelyn in 2001,[58] Spritneybears in 2003,[59] Cirez D in 2004,[60] and Kidz Hitz Party 2: Back To School in 2007.