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The Weird Al Show
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| The Weird Al Show | |
|---|---|
 The Weird Al Show - The Complete Series DVD cover |
|
| Format | Live action/animation |
| Created by | "Weird Al" Yankovic |
| Starring | "Weird Al" Yankovic Brian Haley Gary LeRoi Gray Judy Tenuta Paula Jai Parker Danielle Weeks |
| Country of origin | United States |
| No. of episodes | 13 |
| Production | |
| Running time | 23 minutes |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | CBS |
| Original run | September 13, 1997 – December 6, 1997 |
| External links | |
| IMDb profile | |
| TV.com summary | |
The Weird Al Show was a short-lived television show starring "Weird Al" Yankovic. Produced in association with Dick Clark Productions, it aired Saturday mornings on the CBS TV network from September to December 1997.
Al's television set is called "Al TV," which shares the name of another Weird Al show.
Contents |
CBS forced[1] the show to fit its FCC "E/I" requirements for education programming.[2] Though the show appeared to be geared at children, the moralistic messages were interspersed[3] with Yankovic's trademark slapstick parody, and the humor was aimed at older audiences. The show was cancelled after one season as part of a series of major changes CBS made to its Saturday morning programming.
CBS sent various notes to the writers of the show after reviewing the scripts, asking the writers to "Yankocize" (i.e. make funny) the commercial-break bumper announcements that the network wrote to reinforce each episode's lesson (or as Al put it, make them suck a little less), as well as remove any "imitatible behavior" from the scripts that children might want to mimic after seeing on TV. The writers were often surprised not at what the censors took out, but what they left in — for example, a sketch (written and submitted as a joke) in which Baby and Papa Boolie commit suicide after listening to one too many of Fred Huggins's songs was being seriously considered by the network for use on the show. (The sketch was later rewritten to have Papa Boolie call a mental hospital to take Fred away.)
The theme song can be found on Yankovic's album Running with Scissors (1999) as "The Weird Al Show Theme". The show was released on DVD on August 15, 2006.
- Eddie Deezen as The Guy Boarded in the Wall
- Donavan Freberg as Baby Boolie
- Stan Freberg as Papa Boolie, J. B. Toppersmith
- Gary LeRoi Gray as Bobby the Inquisitive Boy
- Brian Haley as The Hooded Avenger
- Harvey the Wonder Hamster as himself
- Ed Marques as Varna the Squirmese Cook
- Paula Jai Parker as Val Brentwood, Gal Spy
- Patricia Place as Mrs. Fesenmeyer
- Jack Plotnick as Uncle Ralphie
- Judy Tenuta as Madame Judy the Psychic
- Danielle Weeks as Cousin Corky
- Mary Yankovic as Mom (herself)
- Nick Yankovic as Dad (himself)
- "Weird Al" Yankovic as himself, Fred Huggins, Tony Malone, Fatman, various other characters
- Billy West as the show's narrator/announcer
Gedde Watanabe's character, Kuni, also appeared in Yankovic's film, UHF. David Bowe, Victoria Jackson, Dweezil Zappa, Kevin McCarthy, and Emo Phillips also starred in the film.
| # | Title | Guest stars | Original airdate | Code |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | He Ain't Heavy, He's My Hamster |
|
November 15, 1997 | 3601 |
| 2 | Mining Accident |
|
September 27, 1997 | 3602 |
| 3 | Bad Influence[4] |
|
September 13, 1997 | 3603 |
| 4 | Promises, Promises[5] |
|
September 20, 1997 | 3604 |
| 5 | Back to School |
|
October 4, 1997 | 3605 |
| 6 | One for the Record Books |
|
October 18, 1997 | 3606 |
| 7 | Because I Said So |
|
October 25, 1997 | 3607 |
| 8 | The Competition |
|
November 22, 1997 | 3608 |
| 9 | Time Machine |
|
October 11, 1997 | 3609 |
| 10 | Al Gets Robbed |
|
December 6, 1997 | 3610 |
| 11 | Al Plays Hooky |
|
November 8, 1997 | 3611 |
| 12 | Talent Show |
|
November 1, 1997 | 3612 |
| 13 | The Obligatory Holiday Episode |
|
November 29, 1997 | 3613 |
In the "Al Gets Robbed" episode, the Hooded Avenger walks over to Al delivering him his tabloid papers. The paper is called "Midnight Star", referring to the same-titled song about the tabloid off "Weird Al" Yankovic in 3-D. The main headline, "Incredible Frog Boy on the Loose", refers to a lyric in the song.
After the end credits of each case, a 3 second version of the Bite Me track can be heard. Bite Me originally appeared a hidden track on "Weird Al" Yankovic's 1992 album Off the Deep End, only it was six seconds long. The track appeared after 10 minutes of silence of the final track (You Don't Love Me Anymore). However, Bite Me wasn't included on the cassette version of the album (It was on the CD version only). The track was included to scare listeners who neglected to turn the CD off.
The Weird Al Show - The Complete Series[6] was released on August 15, 2006. It is a 3-DVD set of all 13 episodes of The Weird Al Show, plus bonus features.[7] The episodes are presented in broadcast order.
It was released in Canada on September 26, 2006, alongside the U.S. release of his new album, Straight Outta Lynwood.
Before the DVD set release, a compilation of the short music video segments for "Lousy Haircut", "Lasagna", and "Livin' in the Fridge" (as well as the show opening) was released on "Weird Al" Yankovic: The Ultimate Video Collection in 2003.
- 13 commentaries with "Weird Al" as well as other cast and crew members
- "The Evolution of 'Fatman'", a featurette comprised of original concept art - The "Fatman" cartoons were based on Weird Al's hit song, "Fat."
- Galleries of concept art
- Animated storyboards
- Karaoke for the theme song of the show
- ^ That might sound like it’s nothing but a non-stop bitchfest, but, in fact, it’s some of the most illuminating commentary you’re likely to hear. It provides an insider’s view on how a network – in this case, CBS – can start off with a great show, then ruin it by providing a million memos on what to change…and once the show’s creators offer as much compromise as possible and manage to churn out a finished product that they’re relatively happy with, the network reciprocates by contributing almost nothing in the way of promotion. In reality, Al should’ve seen the writing on the wall from the beginning. He’d been pitching a kids’ show since 1984, it took thirteen years for CBS to show any interest, and when they finally did, it occurred (not coincidentally) just as the FCC instituted a mandate that the networks offer three hours of educational programming as part of their Saturday morning lineup. “They said, ‘We’d like to buy your show, but we’re only buying educational shows,’” reveals Al in the commentary on the series’ first episode, “at which point we said, ‘This is an educational show!’ So we prostituted ourselves a little bit to get on the air, but being educational was something we took on gladly, thinking, ‘Oh, it’ll be like Pee-Wee’s show. It’ll be personality-driven show that appeals to kids and adults; we’ll be able to be irreverent and funny, but, at the same time, they’ll learn a little lesson by the end of the show.’ But that wasn’t the way it came down exactly.” (Adds Reid, “We kind of assumed that we’d be able to give our audience some credit for having the intellect to discern the message…as opposed to sort of using a ball peen hammer to hit in them in the face with it again and again and again and again.”) As a result of CBS requiring Al and company to constantly force the moral of each episode down the throat of the viewer, the show is definitely a watered-down version of their original vision; additionally, the network was also concerned about possible “imitatable” behavior by Al and his cast, so every comedic bit had to be approached by wondering, “Is this something a kid might try at home?” (Al’s position on the matter was, “I do get the thing about imitatable behavior, but, really, if your kid is that easily influenced, you should just throw away the TV set.”) In the end, the single greatest critic of the show is Yankovic himself, who at one point sums up the show by saying, “My humor was often compromised and the educational content itself was sometimes questionable, so it wound up being a show for nobody.” He quickly backpedals, however, by admitting – quite accurately, it should be noted – that there’s a lot of really good stuff in the show. The commercial parodies are particularly hilarious, the trailer for a fake disaster film called “60% Chance of Rain” is spot-on, and the musical performances are all highly enjoyable…even though you’ll cringe when you discover that CBS wouldn’t allow the name “Barenaked Ladies” to be spoken aloud. (They’re referred to either as BNL or simply the Ladies.)
- ^ http://www.weirdal.com/faq.htm
- ^ Around the time the show was in production, a few things were forced upon the series by the network. At the time, the FCC was demanding educational shows to be broadcasted for hours at a time in order to balance the cartoon mind-rot. The Weird Al Show was one of the FCC’s casualties. Morbid jokes about death and superhero alcoholism were scaled back (though not removed entirely), and morals weren’t just inserted into each episode, they were positively crowbarred in. While every possible attempt was made to sidestep the whole “education issue,” The Weird Al Show buckled and quickly faded away after one season.
- ^ In the first episode "Bad Influence" Weird Al meets a new friend, Spike (Kevin Weisman of Alias fame). Spike offers Weird Al membership in his very exclusive club but first Weird Al must prove that he is cool. Spike makes Weird Al tear off one leg of his paints to look cool, dip both arms in hot chocolate and shave off his right eyebrow. Weird Al begins to suspect Spike may not be the best friend to have. First he sees a report by Downtown Julie Brown on television that wearing one paint leg is ‘so last year’. Next Spike makes Weird Al act rudely to his friend Bobby the Inquisitive Boy (Gary LeRoi Gray), hurting the boy’s feelings. When The Hooded Avenger comes over he sets Weird Al right and the lesson is learned.
- ^ In the episode "Promises, Promises" Weird Al and his friends are watching TV and Val, Corky and the Avenger see John Tesch. They all are wowed over him and Weird Al, looking for acceptance says he knows Tesch and can get him to visit them. This of course is a lie and Weird Al wonders how he can fulfill his promise. The guy boarded up in the wall (voiced by Eddie Deezen) gives Al a list of what it costs for a celebrity appearance. Al has to raise $82,000 to get Tesch over. He consults Madame Judy the Psychic (Judy Tenuta) and she shows him a vision of noted television pitchmen Ron Popeil and Tony Little. They advise Al to air his own infomercial to raise a lot of money fast. Al raises the $82,000 with dubious products like the four tined food stabber (a folk) but people are soon inundating him with letters demanding refunds.
- ^ The Weird Al Show: The Complete Series
- ^ tvshowsondvd.com
- The Weird Al Show at the Internet Movie Database
- The Weird Al Show at TV.com
- The Weird Al Show in Jump The Shark