| The Weird Al Show | |
|---|---|
The Weird Al Show - The Complete Series DVD cover |
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| Format | Live action/animation |
| Created by | Al Yankovic Randy Newman |
| Presented by | "Weird Al" Yankovic |
| Starring | 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 |
| Production company(s) | Ear Booker Productions Dick Clark Productions |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | CBS |
| Original run | September 13, 1997 – December 6, 1997 |
The Weird Al Show is a television show hosted by "Weird Al" Yankovic. Produced in association with Dick Clark Productions, it aired Saturday mornings on the CBS TV network from September to December 1997. The show was released on DVD on August 15, 2006. The show was a lot in tone with Pee-Wee's Playhouse which also premiered on CBS.
Al's television set was called "Al TV", the name of a number of Yankovic's television specials.
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Major creative conflicts occurred between CBS, which considered the show an educational children's series, and Yankovic, whose humor style was more adult-oriented. The show was canceled after one season, along with several other series in the CBS Saturday morning lineup.
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 "imitable 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' 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 unused script of the unedited Fred Huggins sequence is role-played in an audio commentary for an episode on the DVD.
The theme song can be found on Yankovic's album Running with Scissors (1999) as "The Weird Al Show Theme".
It tells the story of how Al came to live in a cave and get a television show, including references to the fabricated life story in The Compleat Al, such as having worked in a nasal decongestant factory. Also referenced is playing on the company bowling team, which may be a reference to "Generic Blues".
Gedde Watanabe's character, Kuni, also appeared in Yankovic's film, UHF. David Bowe, Victoria Jackson, Kevin McCarthy, and Emo Philips also starred in the film.
Episodes are listed in airing order, with the production code indicating the order they were intended to air in.
| # | Title | Guest stars | Plot | Original airdate | Code |
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| 1 | Bad Influence[1] |
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Al meets a new friend named Spike who has a "way-moby (cool) club," and Spike tells Al that he has to rip off one pant-leg, stick his arms in chocolate syrup, and shave-off his right eyebrow to be able to join the club. He eventually finds out it was all made up, and kicks him out of the house. | September 13, 1997 | 3603 |
| 2 | Promises, Promises[1] |
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Al lies to his friends about being buddies with John Tesh, so in order to raise the $82,000 appearance fee Tesh charges he does infomercials to sell worthless junk. Eventually all his customers want a refund, including Tesh himself. | September 20, 1997 | 3604 |
| 3 | Mining Accident |
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Some coal miners break through Al's house and he has to learn to make friends with them. | September 27, 1997 | 3602 |
| 4 | Back to School |
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Al decides he wants to become smarter, and soon regrets it. | October 4, 1997 | 3605 |
| 5 | Time Machine |
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Al forgot to get Harvey the Wonder Hamster a present on his birthday, so he uses his newly invented time machine to go back in time and get Harvey a present. | October 11, 1997 | 3609 |
| 6 | One for the Record Books |
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Harvey the Wonder Hamster gets radioactive and grows to four times the size of Al, becoming the world's biggest hamster on Earth and getting put in the Guinness Book of World Records. Al becomes jealous and tries to make himself a world record. | October 18, 1997 | 3606 |
| 7 | Because I Said So |
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Al has to babysit Huey, Al's television producer's greedy nephew. | October 25, 1997 | 3607 |
| 8 | Talent Show |
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The day of the annual "Weird Al talent show." | November 1, 1997 | 3612 |
| 9 | Al Plays Hooky |
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Al decides to take a vacation, leaving Cousin Corky stuck hosting the show. | November 8, 1997 | 3611 |
| 10 | He Ain't Heavy, He's My Hamster |
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Al bullies Harvey about doing a death-defying stunt, and must make amends. According to the DVD commentary, this was originally intended to be the debut, hence containing exposition for characters and segments that seem out of place on what turned out to be the tenth aired episode. | November 15, 1997 | 3601 |
| 11 | The Competition |
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Al competes against Fred Huggins and Uncle Ralphie to see who is the best TV show host. | November 22, 1997 | 3608 |
| 12 | The Obligatory Holiday Episode |
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Al celebrates the holidays with his friends. This was the last episode recorded and was intended to run last (since it would be near Christmas), however it ended up being the second-to-last episode aired. | November 29, 1997 | 3613 |
| 13 | Al Gets Robbed |
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Al returns to the cave from a trip and finds that all of his stuff has been stolen. | December 6, 1997 | 3610 |
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, (When the "Ear Booker Productions" logo flashes on the screen repeatedly) 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 as a parody of Nirvana's hidden track on the album Nevermind, but also to scare listeners.[2]
Shout Factory, a company known for bringing cult series to DVD, released The Weird Al Show - The Complete Series[3] on August 15, 2006. It is a 3-DVD set of all 13 episodes of The Weird Al Show, plus bonus features.[4] The episodes are presented in broadcast order.
The Weird Al Show was released on DVD 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.
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