The Weird Al Show

The Weird Al Show
The Weird Al Show - The Complete Series DVD cover
Created by	Al Yankovic
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
Original release
Network	CBS
Release	September 13 – December 6, 1997

The Weird Al Show was a television show hosted by "Weird Al" Yankovic.(Alfred 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.

Al's television set was called "Al TV", the name of a number of Yankovic's television specials

CBS' interference

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.

See also: E/I

Theme song

The theme song can be found on Yankovic's album Running with Scissors (1999) as "The Weird Al Show Theme". The song includes musical quotations from Jurriaan Andriessen's Sciarada Spagnuola.

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".

Cast

• 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, voice of Harvey the Wonder Hamster in "Fatman" shorts

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

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
1	Bad Influence	Julie Brown as Fashion Reporter Patton Oswalt as Seymour Kevin Weisman as Spike Barenaked Ladies as musical guest	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	Mike Levey as himself Tony Little as himself Ron Popeil as himself John Tesh as himself	Al lies to his friends about being 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	David Bowe as Miner Clarence Clemons as Miner David Lander as Miner Michael McKean as Miner Emo Philips (voice) as Slaw Meister Martha Quinn as Woman in Commercial	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	Bill Mumy as Delivery Guy Alex Trebek as himself Gedde Watanabe as Kuni	Al decides he wants to become smarter, and soon regrets it.	October 4, 1997	3605
5	Time Machine	Teri Garr as herself Victoria Jackson as Crying Woman Steve Jay as musical guest Jon "Bermuda" Schwartz as musical guest Rubén Valtierra as musical guest Jim West as musical guest	Al forgot to get Harvey the Wonder Hamster a present on his birthday, so he invents a time machine to go back in time so he has enough time to get Harvey a present.	October 11, 1997	3609
6	One for the Record Books	Todd Patrick Braugh as Gene Siskel Mark Kineavy as Roger Ebert Ric Sarabia as Bearded Man Scott Streltzoff as Free Thrower Ian Whitcomb as Sir Alec Hanson as musical guest	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	Charles Fleischer as Buford Mathew McCurley as Huey Tahj Mowry as himself Dick Van Patten as himself	Al has to babysit Huey, Al's television producer's greedy nephew.	October 25, 1997	3607
8	Talent Show	Henry Corden as Fred Flintstone Cathy Ladman as Cindy Jean Vander Pyl as Wilma Flintstone Mary Lynn Rajskub as Weather Woman John Roarke as Clint Eastwood Roger Rose as Talk Show Host Jon "Bermuda" Schwartz as Drummer Matt Weinhold as Game Show Host Immature as musical guest	The day of the annual "Weird Al talent show."	November 1, 1997	3612
9	Al Plays Hooky	Fabio as himself Daisy Fuentes as herself Kevin McCarthy as Mayor	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	Dr. Demento as Himself John Ennis as Dad Loretta Fox as Mom Dale Hallcom as Three Armed Guy Rick Overton as Mr. Molasses Emo Philips as Dr. Philips Dweezil Zappa as himself	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	Jimmy Briscoe as Mippy Drew Carey as himself Fred Willard as Award Show Host Radish as musical guest Jack Plotnick as Uncle Ralphie	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	Dick Clark as himself The Amazing Johnathan as Uncle Johnathan Martin Lewis as Token Brit	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	Gilbert Gottfried as Al's imaginary friend Gilbert Martha Quinn as Woman in Commercial "Macho Man" Randy Savage as himself - Randy Savage almost cancelled his appearance when he found out he was supposed to lose to a hamster. He was eventually coaxed into continuing once he was assured it wasn't a girl hamster. Dick Van Patten as Burglar All-4-One as musical guest	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.

Bite Me

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 to scare listeners who forgot to turn the CD off.

DVD release

Shout Factory, a company known for bringing cult series to DVD, released The Weird Al Show - The Complete Series on August 15, 2006. It is a 3-DVD set of all 13 episodes of The Weird Al Show, plus bonus features. 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.

Special features

• 13 commentaries with "Weird Al" as well as other cast and crew members.
• "The Evolution of 'Fatman'", a featurette consisting of original concept art - The "Fatman" cartoons were based on Weird Al's hit song, "Fat."
• Concept art gallery.
• Animated storyboards.
• Karaoke for the show's Theme Song.

External links

• The Weird Al Show at IMDb
• Template:Tv.com show
• The Weird Al Show in Jump The Shark