Couch Potato (song)

"Couch Potato" is a song by "Weird Al" Yankovic. It is a parody of the Academy Award winning song "Lose Yourself" by Eminem. In it, the narrator details his obsession with watching television and the television shows he watches.

Release

"Couch Potato" was originally going to be the lead single of Poodle Hat, but due to Eminem's concern that it might hurt his career, its commercial release was postponed indefinitely. Couch Potato has never been released as a promo, nor a commercial single. It is only available on the Poodle Hat CD, or as a digital download on the internet.

Music video

Yankovic intended to make a music video for the song, but the plan was scrapped at the last minute when Eminem expressed concerns that it might disparage his image.^[1] According to Yankovic, the video would have included a "patchwork quilt" pastiche of scenes from other Eminem videos.^[2]

Yankovic told the Chicago Sun-Times in 2004, "Last year, Eminem forced me to halt production on the video for my 'Lose Yourself' parody because he somehow thought that it would be harmful to his image or career."

Yankovic mocked the situation on his Al TV special where he staged a mock interview with the rapper using footage from a real Eminem interview on MTV News. Eminem said "I believe in...artistic expression." Al countered with "So you think, for example if somebody wanted to do, oh, I don't know, a parody of somebody else's video, they should be able to... artistically express themselves and just do it?" Eminem was shown at a loss for words.

Also in the mocked interview, Al simply played the first verse on a boombox while sitting in a chair, reading a newspaper until Eminem eventually turned it off.

References in the song

Notes

• Yankovic performed the song live on The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn on May 21, 2003, the day after the release of Poodle Hat.

• Yankovic also performed a modified version on Nickelodeon Magazine's 10th Anniversary special. He had to edit the song, however. The second verse as well as the second chorus were cut and instead of saying "gay", he and his band said "hey," and the reference to the Playboy Channel was also cut from the song.

• A reference to this song is made in the comic Vicious Whisper, released by Aaron Alexovich alongside the comic Serenity Rose both of which are published by Slave Labor Graphics. In the comic, an actual fan of the series poses the question "look... if you had... one shot... to sit on your lazy butt and watch all the TV you wanted, would you take it? Or just let it slide?" Presumbably because Aaron A. did not notice the reference to the song, Vicious Whisper answers this question honestly in an in-depth speech.

See also

• List of singles by "Weird Al" Yankovic
• List of songs by "Weird Al" Yankovic

References