Anyway, the event was at the excellent Paramount Theater in Austin, and was as thus:
-Pre-game show filled with Weird Al music videos, Al TV clips, Weird Al's television debut, and a fake trailer for Weird: The Al Yankovic Story that looked to be in the same vein as Walk the Line and Ray
-A sing-along with Weird Al's top 5 most requested music videos (Eat It, Like a Surgeon, Amish Paradise, I'm Fat, and White n' Nerdy)
-Screening of UHF
-Q&A with the director of UHF/Weird Al's manager, Jay Levey... and Weird Al himself!!
-After-party at a nearby club with kareoke and Twinkie Wiener Sandwiches, Al's famous snack from the movie in which he sliced a Twinkie down the middle, put a hot dog wiener inside, sprayed cheese whiz on top, and dunked the whole thing in milk
Let me just start off by saying that there is no better way to see UHF than with a theater full of the most rabid Weird Al fans in Austin. What made it even better, though, was that the Alamo Drafthouse guys who MC'd the event requested that we "treat it like a real movie" and not sit here and quote the whole thing, which was a huge relief.
What can I say, except that every bit was stinkin' hilarious? The pre-game show was highlighted by some pretty amazing clips from Al TV (originally aired on MTV): specifically, two different clips where Weird Al took two interviews done by MTV of Eminem and Kevin Federline, respectively, and edited himself into them as if he were conducting the interview. Go on YouTube and watch them. Just type in "al tv interviews" and watch the first ones to come up. You won't be disappointed, unless you actually think K-Fed and the guy named for candy-coated chocolate actually have talent outside of making trailer parks look like classy establishments. The interviews are simply brilliant and show off Al's wit as compared to the, em, "turn of phrase" of Eminem and Federline. Some of my other favorite clips involved Al carrying around a hand-held camera to different locations in which some kind of public sign was grammatically incorrect, such as in the first clip, where he stopped on the side of the road near a sign that said something like "Curves Ahead. Drive Slow" and he pasted a little "-ly" on the end of the word "slow". This spoke to the grammar Nazi in me, and I loved the man even more.
The sing-along was equally amazing, partially because the music videos were funny, but mostly because rarely have I felt as in my element as I did while sitting there yelling the lyrics to "White and Nerdy" with two-hundred similarly-minded individuals. This crowd was perhaps best summed up by one slightly overweight, "I'm just starting to get into World of Warcraft" bearded, long-haired guy with glasses - probably a computer programmer - who came in a tee-shirt that had a picture of an octopus on it with ray guns grasped in every tentacle and eight "PEW"s written across the top.
UHF holds a special place in my heart primarily thanks to the band teacher at our school, whom I'll call Mr. Swift. In 5th grade we were required to a take a trimester - that's right, we had trimesters - of art, one of band, and one of choir, and then choose one for the years after that, and two of my best friends - GoldenPigsy and our mad scientist friend we call Pilgrim - took band with this man straight through high school, so I heard plenty of stories. Anyway, on days in which he didn't have anything for his class, or if he was absent or if they had just completed a concert the weekend before, he would play UHF. Every time. This wasn't the UHF that we all know and love, but a heavily-censored version (it was a conservative Christian school) so marred by Mr. Swift's increasingly wrinkled hands that the 97-minute feature could easily be viewed in a single 50-minute class session. Anything that might be deemed inappropriate for children - ironic, I believe, since Weird Al's tastes seem perfect for them - was taken out. Evidently we 5th graders could not be exposed to anything that might slip unnoticed into a PG-rated film.
So in actuality, I couldn't even remember the last time I'd seen the proper movie, but as soon as it started, everything came flooding back into my memory, like when I thought of Pocahontas and Ferngully: The Last Rainforest upon watching Avatar. UHF's story serves mostly as a vehicle for the google of silly clips and scenes for which the movie is known. George (Weird Al) is a creative genius with no outlet for his creativity. He drifts from job to job until, out of the blue, his uncle gives him a run-down TV station to manage. Over the course of the film, the station brings the community together in a celebration of local pride over the big, evil network station and its dastardly manager (played by Kevin McCarthy, who was known to burst out laughing after the conclusion of a scene because his character is just so gosh darn evil). Interspersed between plot scenes are various commercials and clips for the different shows played on UHF channel 62: "Buddha Knows Best", "Druids on Parade", "Leave It to Bigfoot", "Strip Solitare", "Name That Stain", "The Young and the Dyslexic", and everyone's favorite, "Wheel of Fish".
UHF plays almost like a skit show like SNL, with a perfectly lovable underdog story threading between each scene to hold it together. Every character is a standout in their own way, from Weird Al's scatterbrained fantasies, to Kevin McCarthy's outbursts at his son for not getting him a Rolex, to Michael Richards' spastic Stanley Spadowski, to Gedde Wantanabe's perfectly overdone martial arts master. Even George's girlfriend, Teri (Victoria Jackson, an SNL cast member from 1986-1992) worked great in a strange, quiet nerd sort of way. I can't think of any characters who aren't worth watching while they're on-screen. There's so much personality in this cast that even the director, Jay Levey, entered the fray as a gun-toting Gandhi in the movie's trailer for Gandhi 2.
Even if you don't care for the movie, it's hard not to like Weird Al. He's outlasted virtually everyone whom he's parodied. He's funny without being offensive (except for those Al TV interviews, perhaps). Anyone at any age can (and does) appreciate his humor. All ages were represented at this event, without exception. Weird Al is like the Disney of spoof comedy, but without the pretentious bureaucracy or the supremely retarded "Disney Vault". Can you imagine a "Weird Al Vault", where you could only buy different CDs of his when he said you could? There'd be riots in the streets, or at least on message boards, which is just as bad when you're a pasty white man like me.
Did you know that Al personally speaks with every artist whom he spoofs? When he released Amish Paradise (a parody of Coolio's Gangsta Paradise), there was a miscommunication somewhere, and Coolio was not aware of the spoof until its release, and he was less than happy. Ever since this little incident, Al has made sure that everyone is alright with his intentions before he acts on them. But really, the spoofs are hardly ever any kind of attack on the original artist. It's not like Amish Paradise makes fun of Coolio or anything; Weird Al simply took the style of the song and flipped it on its head for his own comedic purposes. Like I said, he's brilliant and funny without being offensive. Most of his songs deal with food, for goodness' sake. That's only offensive if you're a head of cheese.
And he in person was excellent. That wit is present in how he really is when he's just himself. He has literally hundreds of Hawaiian shirts, not only in his massive closet at home but in storage as well. He has a slight lisp when he speaks, which surprised me. As the questions from the (I'm assuming) drunk audience grew more and more ridiculous, so did his answers. He matched the questions blow for blow and always responded with the same level of sincerity as the question. When asked how many Hawaiian shirts he has, he told us. When asked if he'd write a parody for some obscure Alan Parsons Project song, he calmly replied that he's just waiting for it to get popular first. When asked if he planned on writing more songs, he said that he had actually planned on retiring that night, but since the kid asked, Al decided that he would stay in the business and write more songs. I want to be friends with this man.
Thanks for Keeping Austin Weird, Al.
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