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Partyman is a Prince video released for broadcast and to promote the single.
It features Prince again as a 'Gemini'-like person, as in the video for Batdance, only this time his left half is Prince while the right is The Joker, making up Partyman.
Partyman arrives at a party where, like him, all the guests have half white faces, most of them wearing a masks rather than face paint. There is a band playing in tuxedos, also with their faces painted half white. The beginning of the video shows two big doors opening atop of a wide staircase and four purple suited valets walking in. One of them unrolls a scroll and announces: All Hail to the new king... Partyman!
Partyman then comes walking in casually whistling the melody of The Arms Of Orion. With a nod of his head he cues the band to begin the song. At first Partyman dances at the top of the staircase, but then he descends into the crowd swinging from a long rope and proceeds to empty a bottle of fluid in a large fish tank, saving the final sip for himself. Party-goers rush to the tank to fill up their glasses. Partyman uses a big silver plate to reflect the flashes of the cameras of a bunch of paparazzi. He then interacts with two women (one blond, Vicki Vale like character and a dark haired one). He also plays a short piano solo lying first under and than on top of the piano.
The full version of the video also has some scenes with a chimpanzee, wearing a Batman logo t-shirt, seemingly a dig at Michael Jackson, who famously had his chimp 'bubbles' at the time. Partyman gives the chimp a banana and when he peels it, it reads 'psyche'.
Prince also approaches a third woman, asking her what she is smoking. When she answers 'baloney' he offers to light her up, but does this with such an enormous flame that it sets her hair on fire in the process. Three policemen arrive at the party, trying to end the whole thing. More and more people now start falling over. By the end of the video it appears Partyman had poisoned the tank of fluid and all party-goers are dead.
The video was again directed by Albert Magnoli, director of Purple Rain and Sign O’ The Times, who by 1989 also acted as Prince’s manager.
Of note, Partyman features Michael B.'s first appearance in a Prince video. The audio of the long version of the video is slightly censored (the smoking girl part) compared to the version released as Partyman (The Video Mix) on the maxi-single.
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