That's so darn sappy, it's just gotta be true!

[vovat]

Okay, so yesterday was Black Friday because it's the day that retailers typically go into the black (i.e., they're making money). But the 1929 stock market crash happened on Black Thursday, when lots of people LOST money. Can't the people who name these things decide whether black is a good or bad color (or, if you will, absence of color) when referring to monetary matters?

Anyway, I had Thanksgiving dinner at bethje's house on Thursday, and then came home and spent most of the rest of the day on the Internet. I sure know how to celebrate a holiday! {g} I also finished watching every episode of The Weird Al Show, both with and without commentary. Just because I can, I'm going to offer a few thoughts on each of the thirteen episodes. I hope someone actually bothers to read this.


Bad Influence - While not the first episode made, it was the first one aired, and the only one I'd previously managed to get on tape. It established the show's propensity for hilarious left-field gags (like Al dipping his arms into a vat of melted chocolate, which actually stays there for the rest of the episode), TV bits (including Pirate Day Care, a pizza delivery place that doesn't use boxes, and the first of several hilarious Fred Huggins segments), and parodic educational films. It also established how ridiculously in-your-face the morals are, and how Al usually has to act like an immature jerk to try to get the point across. Billy West's RANDOM SCREAMING during the narration was apparently an intentional nod toward how blatant the network insisted on these morals being. Poor Billy. Barenaked Ladies appear as the musical guest, and do a good performance of "Shoebox."

Promises, Promises - According to the commentary, they'd tried to get some bigger guest stars before setting on John Tesh (who, as we all know, is Snoop Dogg's main inspiration). The infomercial bit is great. This episode also introduces Fatman, featuring Al as a guy who, when he eats a donut, turns into an overweight, clueless superhero. Maybe they could have come up with a better lead character, but I do like the Batman-style villains who commit food-related crimes.

Mining Accident - The miners (led by Michael McKean with an Irish accent) were fun characters, and the lesson seemed less overt than most (although the narrator still had to hammer it in).

Back to School - This was the first one that I didn't see back when it was first aired. The lesson is, essentially, that you can't learn things automatically. Yeah, kind of dumb. Gedde Watanabe reappears as Kuni, his character from UHF. Other episodes feature other UHF co-stars. David Bowe, Victoria Jackson, Emo Philips, and Kevin McCarthy all show up. No Michael Richards, but considering his recent behavior, that might have been a good thing. We didn't need him hurling racial epithets. Getting back to the episode, the choir that appears while Bobby is asking questions at the beginning is a great touch.

Time Machine - As with most time-travel plots, if Al had used his time machine intelligently, he probably wouldn't have had to learn the Lesson of the Day. But then, we're used to Al acting stupid on this show, so I guess this isn't such a big deal. Al performs "Yoda" with his band, albeit without the Yoda Chant. And the Morpho Man commercial is hilarious.

One for the Record Books - Another one I hadn't seen until watching it on the DVD. While kind of an obvious joke, I was still entertained by the idea of Sir Alec Guinness as head of the Guinness Book of World Records. Not the REAL Alec Guinness, who was apparently no longer acting at that point, but still. Oh, and due to some weird legal issue, it was actually the GLENNIS Book of World Records. Anyway, the moral was that world records aren't that important, but doing your best is. The latter part is presumably the more important one (since, as they point out in the commentary, not that many kids are obsessed with setting world's records), but it's the part they didn't really show. Oh, well. The musical guest this time was Hanson, which was actually one of the bigger acts he managed to get.

Because I Said So - This is one of my favorites, thanks to Al's house band and his being forced to make a new song every few minutes. Also, the conflict is set up without making Al look like a moronic jerk, and resolved in a somewhat less irritating fashion than some of the others (although not really the way the narrator tells us at the beginning). This was the first aired episode to include Stan Freberg as J.B. Toppersmith, Al's producer (who looks nothing like the producer in the animated opening sequence, but oh well), who's a good character. And I was amused by the random appearance of the hula girls.

Talent Show - Hey, for once, it's someone other than Al who learns the Lesson Du Jour! That's a refreshing change. The guest band is Immature, a young and boring R&B trio that I've never heard of outside the context of the show.

Al Plays Hooky - A fairly interesting premise has Al going on vacation and leaving the show to Corky. Not one of my overall favorites, but it does feature one of the most insanely bizarre guest stars this show had during its run, namely Fabio. I believe this also included the Fatman episode with the alien fish who use bagels as money, with an amusing Independence Day spoof.

He Ain't Heavy, He's My Hamster - Somehow the pilot episode ended up being the tenth one shown, which means a lot of introductions to things we'd already figured out by then. I liked Toppersmith forcing Al to have a dancing banana on his show (one of at least three appearances by people in fruit costumes during the run of the series); and this also included the hilarious Silly Choice Dinners commercial, starring John Ennis of Mr. Show fame.

The Competition - Al and a rival kids' show host try to sabotage each other's shows. Again, a good premise, but not one of the better episodes for my money. The obscure guest band, Radish, apparently featured a young Ben Kweller. Who knew? Another amusing tidbit from the commentaries was that the song they performed actually had some implicitly dirty lyrics.

The Obligatory Holiday Episode - Al, the director, and the producer didn't seem to care for this one, but I liked it, even if the message was very close to a few others we'd seen before. There were a lot of callbacks to earlier episodes, and the mood pie was a clever idea (despite being represented by a pretty lousy prop).

Al Gets Robbed - If they had known this was going to be the last episode to air, maybe they would have done something to acknowledge that. It kind of went out not with a bang, but a whimper. Still, this one had some bits that were amusing enough, especially the guest appearances by Randy "Macho Man" Savage (who loses a wrestling match to Harvey the Wonder Hamster) and Gilbert Gottfried (as Al's imaginary friend).

The commentary tracks are excellent, but often not particularly kid-friendly. Since the package doesn't identify it as a children's show (okay, it says it's a "CBS Saturday morning show," which strongly implies that it is, but still), I think they're not even trying to market the show to kids today, but rather to Al's "avid (if not rabid) fan following." Probably a good move. I do think the discs should include chapter stops after the theme song (I usually ended up fast-forwarding through it when watching the shows without commentary), but that's a minor complaint.

It's obvious that the people involved with the show didn't think it turned out as well as they would have hoped. Besides, the thing got very little promotion, and wasn't even shown in a consistent time slot. I was in college when it came on, and one CBS affiliate there showed it at 8 AM, while another showed it at 10. Since I didn't have a TV in my room, and some nudnik decided that locking the TV lounge overnight was a good idea, it was sometimes difficult to watch it, but I did whenever I could. At my old home in eastern Pennsylvania, the show was actually aired on SUNDAY mornings. So I guess it was pretty much inevitable that it wouldn't work out, but I'd like to see Al try another TV series at some point. I'm not sure how keen he'd be on the idea, though.


Okay, I have to take a shower and go to the bank, so maybe I should take care of that now. I'll probably have another entry later, though.

EDIT: I added Emo Philips to the list of UHF veterans to appear on The Weird Al Show.

Comments

[revme.livejournal.com]

Yeah -- the show COULD have been insanely good, basically if they let Al do what he wanted and realised that kids are much hipper than the network gives them credit for, but the commentaries were pretty awesome.

BTW, did your audio kinda freak out a little bit on the Radish episode? On mine, for the second act, it went sorta into being split really hard between the left and right channels -- no mono mixing at all -- and most of the background music was gone. (Oddly enough, the audio on the commentary track was hunky-dory.) Interesting thing with Radish is that for a brief time, they were really hugely hyped, partially because the lead dude in the band (who later turned out to be Dwight D. Eisenhower, and now you know the rest of the story) was so young... then when the album came out and it turned out that listening to it didn't actually let you walk on water, everyone decided that Radish was terrible and hated.

Also: No Michael Richards, but considering his recent behavior, that might have been a good thing. We didn't need him hurling racial epithets.
...I assume the moral to that one would have been "It's important to try your best. Also, to hate the niggers."

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I think the suits tend to underestimate audiences in general, and not just children. The most interesting parts of a lot of commentaries involve the censors, and how their notes rarely make any sense. I laughed when one of the commentators (probably either Tom or Peyton, but I'm not sure which) said something about how the network doesn't think kids would know what a PhD is, but they'd apparently have no problem with the concept of an intergalactic black hole.

As for the sound issues, I'm not really sure. The DVD player I was using isn't in such great shape anyway (I just recently got it back from the repair shop), so if there WERE issues I noticed at that point, I probably chalked it up to the player rather than the disc. If I ever watch that scene on a better player, I'll let you know if I notice anything weird about it.

[loz]

I found your commentary fascinating - even if I never watched the show.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I'd recommend you do watch it, by the way. I'm sure you'd find something you liked, despite the obnoxious in-your-face morality.

[l8erngr8er.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed what you had to say about the Weird Al show. I remember watching it a couple of times when it was on (weird time slot, true 'dat). I definitely like my fair share of Weird Al songs and videos, but I also thought the show was cool and like seeing him on things in general, not only because he is funny but seemingly a very nice man.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

When was it on in your area?

[l8erngr8er.livejournal.com]

I think 8.