I bet a lot of people here are Weird Al fans. I’ve been a fan since Even Worse came out and I hope to see him for the first time later this year. He’s doing an exhaustively long tour where he does all original songs, no parodies. It sounds awesome.
Anyway, here’s one of my favorite things Al did that wasn’t musical. He used to go on MTV and do “interviews” with rock stars.
I’m a fan of The Weird Al Show. It struck me as having a style of comedy very adjacent to MST3K except slightly cleaned up for kids. Like, kid edgy.
I remember when his first single came out. “Another One Rides the Bus,” which I think was recorded live on the Dr. Demento show. That, “The Curly Shuffle” and “The Rodeo Song” were the big novelty hits of my high school years.
On the “Movie Sign with the Mads” episode about “UHF” Trace and Frank talked about working with Weird Al, and apparently they really like him and he’s a great guy. They seemed to appreciate his determination to work ‘clean.’
If you haven’t heard Al’s commentary track for UHF, it’s amazing. He knows every little factoid about the movie, like the street addresses of the scenes in Kansas City, where they shot the movie. He also just decides at one point to call Victoria Jackson and talk to her about the movie and she sounds very surprised. I really don’t think it was staged.
Weird Al fan here. Early 80s I use to listen to the Dr. Demento show (broadcast live from under the smog berry trees). That’s where I head “Another one Rides the Bus” and was hooked.
Shared a li’l Al story over here. Spoilers: he’s 
.
His chopped up interviews with musicians are always gold. I thought I recalled him starting the goof during the first AlTV run but I was wrong.
Weird Al talking over the video.
Edited, unfortunately.
Weird Al as depicted in the Weird Al Show opener and The Huntsman as depicted in his theme song on Freakazoid… they almost have the exact same origin story. Kinda’ makes ya’ think…
YOU be the judge…
Ever heard the B-side of the single that was released? This sounds like the demo version, though.
One neat little factoid is that for the UHF movie, for the Philo mad scientist character Weird Al had another guy in mind, buuuut THAT guy was kiiiinda busy creating a puppet show at the time…
The lesson here is save strangers in the forest and you will get a spot on TV
Very true! Here’s the relevant clip from the A.V. Club article a few years ago:
AVC: Is it true you had originally written Philo for Joel Hodgson?
Yankovic: Yes, he was my first choice originally, because I thought of Philo more as an inventor. And Joel Hodgson had built this stand-up routine around building these kind of crazy inventions and things like that, and also had this very, very deadpan delivery, which I thought would suit the character well. And then, for whatever reason, Joel decided not to do it. Joel and I are friends to this day, but at the time, he seemed like he wanted to back away from showbiz. He just didn’t feel like being involved in a movie at that point in his life.
Joel Hodgson (creator, Mystery Science Theater 3000 ): You know, it was funny. I was just so enthused about doing Mystery Science Theater . I didn’t really feel comfortable as an actor, you know? I’m really not an actor. Other Space , the show I’m working on right now, is the most acting I’ve ever done—like eight episodes. And I feel like, just now after eight episodes, I’m finally figuring out how to act. So back then, I just didn’t feel like I had the chops.
Director of videos for others like this.
I’m another fan that discovered Weird Al over the airwaves of the good doctor. The Doctor Dimento show was the end of my weekend every Sunday night.
If you haven’t seen a Weird Al concert, you are in for a treat. I’ve already got my tickets for his next visit. Fingers crossed that it happens.
I knew of Weird Al in the 80s, which was before I knew of Dr. Demento, who I was introduced to (not personally, I mean the show) in high school in the 90s, but probably wasn’t a conscious fan until the 90s. You know, when I had my own disposable income to buy CDs and things. I’ve only seen Al live once so far, which was at a county fair - I want to say San Mateo County? Weird venue for that.
“We all have cell phones, so come on, let’s get real” *everyone waves the lighter app on their phone*
He was pretty awesome as Sir Issac Newton too!
I got to attend the Dr. Demento 25th Anniversary Show, which featured Al, Barnes & Barnes, Tiny Tim, Bobby ‘Boris’ Pickett and a bunch of others regularly featured on the Dr.'s radio show.
It was both lots of fun and interminable because it was being filmed so they kept making people stop and start over for the film crew. The thing lasted over 3 hours and got whittled down to about 45 minutes for broadcast.
