The video won three major awards at the 1999 MTV Video Music Awards: Breakthrough Video, Best Direction (awarded to "Torrance Community Dance Group"), and Best Choreography (awarded to "Richard Koufey & Michael Rooney"). The video reportedly cost only US$800 to produce. Cook curiously peers over Jonze to catch a glimpse of the camera before walking off to the right. Ĭook himself is briefly seen in the video as one of the many onlookers, with the clearest view shown at the conclusion of the video, while Jonze claims his "b-boy moves" came from living in New York. Cook has said he liked this music video more so than The Rockafeller Skank's, which he hated. The "Praise You" video was made only because Jonze, unable to work with Fatboy Slim on the video for " The Rockafeller Skank", recorded and sent his own solo dance video of "Skank" as a gift Jonze's 'alternative' music video was so well received by Slim that Jonze's fictional Torrance Community Dance Group was green-lighted for the official video for "Praise You". One of the actor-dancers in the fictional dance group, Michael Gier, documented the making of the "Praise You" video on his website.
In the video, Jonze and the dance group, acting as a flash mob, dance to "Praise You", much to the chagrin of a theatre employee who turns off their portable stereo. The video was shot guerrilla-style – that is, on location without obtaining permission from the owners of the property – in front of puzzled onlookers outside the Fox Bruin Theater in Westwood, Los Angeles, California. The video intro described it as "A Torrance Public Film Production". Spike Jonze starred in the film, under the pseudonym Richard Koufey, along with a fictional dance group: The Torrance Community Dance Group. The accompanying video for "Praise You" was directed by Spike Jonze with Roman Coppola.
The song also features a guitar sample from the opening of "It's a Small World" from the Disneyland Records-released album Mickey Mouse Disco and the theme from the cartoon series Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids. The song features a prominent vocal sample from the opening of "Take Yo' Praise" by Camille Yarbrough, as well as a prominent piano sample from the track "Balance and Rehearsal" from a test album entitled Sessions released by audio electronics company JBL.