Tom Petty Estate Unearths 1982 “Wild Thing” Cover As Cameron Crowe Doc Hits Streaming [Watch]

The Tom Petty vaults flung open this week with the re-release of Cameron Crowe‘s long-forgotten 1983 documentary Tom Petty: Heartbreakers Beach Party and a studio performance of “Wild Thing”. Beach Party arrived on Paramount+ on Tuesday over 40 years after the Almost Famous writer originally shot it for MTV.

Heartbreakers Beach Party and the new “Wild Thing” video capture Petty and the Heartbreakers’ prolific 1982–1983 period. While Crowe helmed the feature-length Beach Party, the “Wild Thing” clip was filmed for the French TV show Houba Houba by Grateful Dead drummer Bill Kreutzmann‘s director son Justin Kreutzmann. Petty and the Heartbreakers recorded “Wild Thing” at The Record Plant in L.A. in 1982 during the same sessions that birthed previously released videos for “Keeping Me Alive“, “Finding Out“, and “Stories We Could Tell“. The video also includes bonus footage from Beach Party.

Related: Tom Petty Guitarist Mike Campbell Details New Book, ‘Heartbreaker: A Memoir’

This archival content all comes from when Petty and the Heartbreakers were recording 1982’s Long After Dark. Up until then, Crowe was known as a writer and came to prominence for writing Fast Times at Ridgemont High (first the 1981 book then the screenplay for the ’82 film). For his directorial debut, the former Rolling Stone writer documented the unbreakable coolness of Tom Petty, paving the way for subsequent film projects including Say Anything, Jerry Maguire, and his own story in Almost Famous. The film aired on MTV once in 1983 and was forgotten for decades until an archivist stumbled on the unlabeled film canisters and contacted the director. The digital version on Paramount+ has been restored from the original 16mm source film and includes new interviews from Crowe and Petty’s daughter Adria.

“Heartbreaker’s Beach Party occupies a special place in my heart,” Crowe said upon the film’s announcement. “Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers leaned into the making of the film with a kind of hilarious music-filled honesty that still feels fresh 40 years later.… The fact that the original film was yanked from MTV after only one airing shows that it was, and still is, an outlandish feast for fans in the best ways.”

Watch Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers perform “Wild Thing” in the studio in 1982 and stream the Heartbreakers Beach Party documentary on Paramount+.

Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers — “Wild Thing”