The video for the song was directed primarily by Prince, with animation created by Colossal Pictures co-founder Drew Takahashi. It combines footage of Prince & The Revolution performing the song surrounded by dancers and overlaid with various animations. The video uses an extended version of the song with a longer intro. Guitarist Pat Smear of Germs and Foo Fighters fame, appears as one of the background dancers in the video but, according to bandmate Dave Grohl, he was nearly fired. In the 2010 book I Want My MTV, Grohl elaborates further: “everyone has to do a synchronized dance. Pat can’t dance so they sent him home… Prince whispers in the bodyguard’s ear. The bodyguard says, “You can stay. He likes your hair.”
In the same book, producer Simon Fields also recalls production on the video: “For ‘Raspberry Beret’, we filmed a whole video, then Prince got a Japanese animator to do a completely different video and we mashed the two up.”
In an interview with Earl Jones, Jones recalls that Prince damaged his hair so poorly prior to the Raspberry Beret video that “the hairstyle… was literally all I could do with it.”
