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| Just a boy and his accordian. |
Al started down the path to his
career when he met and gave radio personality Dr. Demento
a tape of his song “Belvedere
Cruisin’” in 1976, which Demento loved and played on the Dr.
Demento Show. Then, while working for his university’s
radio station where he officially adopted the persona of “Weird Al”, Al
recorded “My
Bologna”, a parody of The
Knack’s hit “My Sharona”,
which Demento again played. The Knack lead singer Doug Fieger
loved the parody and helped Al get it released as a single as well as his first
six-month recording contract with Capitol
Records. While touring with Demento’s stage show, Al met his
manager, Jay
Levey, and recruited his band: bassist Steve Jay,
guitarist Jim West,
drummer Jon “Bermuda”
Schwartz, and later in 1991 keyboardist Ruben Valtierra.
Over the next decade, Al and his
band would record several albums full of parodies and original music and
perform as both concert headliners and opening acts. Along the way, Al would
flex his parody muscles with music videos that faithfully recreated the majority
of the actual videos for the songs he parodied. From 1984-2006, Al would host Al
TV; a series of ten specials that aired on MTV and VH1 where he would showcase
his own videos, surreal or unusual videos from other performers, and fake
commercials and celebrity interviews where he would intercut himself asking
strange questions with footage from actual interviews. In 1985, Al and Levey
made the mockumentary The
Compleat Al,
and
in 1989 the cult classic film UHF.
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| Al in his eyeball chair. |
One
project that took a while to come to fruition was a children’s show. Since
1984, Al had been trying to get one produced, but it wouldn’t be until 1997
that it would finally happen. Along with producer Thomas F. Frank,
Al pitched the show first to Dick Clark,
who agreed to produce the show through his Dick Clark Productions.
Then, they pitched it to CBS.
They were interested, but due to FCC
tightening the mandate for 3 hours of educational programming per week, they
were only looking at shows with educational value. Al and Frank assured them
the show would be educational in the vein of the network’s prior hit, Pee-wee’s Playhouse,
and CBS greenlit the show. Psychologist Dr. Gordon Berry
was retained as the series’ educational advisor, much as he had been for the
network’s other previous hit, Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids.
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| Al in his house. |
As the series’ intro explained, a
fictional version of Al had taken to living below the Earth’s surface in a
subterranean clubhouse full of bizarre furniture, gadgetry and musical
instruments. Al lived with his best friend, Harvey the Wonder Hamster, who
sometimes communicated with animated thought bubbles as a means to make him
more expressive per the network’s wishes, and a guy who lived inside his wall (initially
silent but later made to talk, played by Eddie Deezen). Al had an eclectic cast
of friends frequently drop in to pay him a visit, including his super-strong
cousin Corky (Danielle Weeks); super hero The Hooded Avenger (Brian Haley, who
wasn’t thrilled with the costume and had a friend come up with an alternate
version); super spy Val Brentwood (Paula Jai Parker, who always had different
colored hair when she appeared); psychic Madame Judy (Judy Tenuta); inquisitive
young man Bobby (Gary LeRoi Gray); and occasionally Al’s parents Mary and Nick
(played by themselves). Julie
Rae Engelsman handed the bulk of the costuming for the
show. Billy West served as the series’ narrator and announcer, which included
annoying (to the producers) voiceovers that led in and out of commercials that
would restate the show’s moral lesson.
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| Al as Fred Huggins. |
The
Weird Al Show debuted on CBS on September 13, 1997 as part of their Think
CBS Kids initiative, which featured a Saturday morning line-up
consisting of only educational live-action programs and news. Each episode
would begin with the episode’s lesson that Al would have to learn as the
episode progressed. There were a number of recurring segments, many recycled
from previous projects. Al would sit on his eyeball chair for Channel Hopping
on Al TV, which would yield parodies of shows, commercials, news and music
videos pre-recorded and inserted into episodes as time allowed (which meant
they rarely tied into the episode’s lesson), as well as licensed stock footage.
To answer one of Bobby’s questions, Al would play him an old black and white
educational film with a newly-dubbed vocal track provided by Bob Scott
(who had actually narrated such films early in his career). Al would check his
fan mail by having it fall on him after he yanked on a cord over his counter
and heard a different sound effect each episode. And Nutrition Break was when
Al would journey to his kitchen area and concoct a bizarre and completely
inedible culinary creation.
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| Jon Schwartz, Mary Yankovic, Val Brentwood, The Hooded Avenger, Bobby and Madame Judy. |
The
show’s introduction was the production of three different animation houses for
the different styles: Epoch
Ink Animation handled the traditional animation, DNA Productions
rendered the CGI shots, and Scott
Nordlund, who worked on Al’s “Jurassic Park”
video, did the Claymation. Jay
and Jim West handled the series’ incidental music, along with William Kevin Anderson.
A 3-second clip of Al’s “Bite
Me”,
originally featured as a hidden track on Off the Deep End, played over the Ear
Booker Productions logo.
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| The adventures of Fatman. |
Sometimes
an episode would feature an animated segment called Fatman by Keith
Alcorn, Paul
Claerhout and Tim Hatcher that
was inspired by Al’s video for “Fat”.
It showed Al as a super hero who could become fat to solve a food-related
crime. Initially, the producers wanted to cast Adam West
as the voice of Al’s sidekick (and the real brains of the duo), Harvey.
However, West was only able to do it remotely and the producers couldn’t
accommodate him, letting the role and most others in the shorts to fall to
Billy West. Al would also play several other characters, including a news
anchor, a very flexible fitness instructor, and Fred Huggins: a combined homage
to Mr.
Rogers, Captain
Kangaroo and Doug Henning.
Huggins would often be seen with two puppet partners: Papa Boolie (Stan
Freberg) and Baby Boolie (Donavan Freberg), both named by Al’s friend, Bob Odenkirk,
who helped with the initial brainstorming for the show. The show would be the
last time Al would be seen with his classic trademark appearance as in 1998 he
had corrective Lasik surgery, shaved off his mustache, and grew his hair longer
(the loud shirts still remained).
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| Al and "miners" David Lander, Michael McKean, David Bowe and Clarence Clemons. |
The series was shot on the old Tonight
Show with Johnny Carson stage,
right next to the stage where the Tonight Show with Jay Leno was filmed. That
proved fortuitous as when the show had difficulty booking guests, Al would
troll the studio lot and halls to convince people to appear on the show. Amongst
the celebrity appearances were Patton
Oswald, Downtown
Julie Brown, Kevin
Weisman, Mike
Levey, Tony
Little, Ron
and Lisa Popeil
(Ron was the subject of an Al song), Clarence Clemons,
David
Lander, Michael
McKean, Martha Quinn,
Bill Kirchenbauer,
Tress MacNeille,
Bill Mumy
(also a close friend of Al’s), Alex Trebek,
Teri Garr,
Jill Talley,
Ian Whitcomb,
Charles Fleischer,
Matthew McCurley,
Tahj Mowry,
Cathy Ladman, Mary Lynn Rajskub,
John Roarke,
Roger Rose,
Matt Weinhold,
Fabio,
Daisy Fuentes,
John Ennis,
Rick Overton,
Dweezil Zappa,
Jimmy
Briscoe, Drew
Carey, Fred
Willard, the
Amazing Jonathan, Martin Lewis,
Gilbert Gottfried,
“Macho
Man” Randy Savage and even Dick Clark. Previous
collaborators of Al’s included Victoria
Jackson, David
Bowe,
Emo Phillips
(who also provided a voice in Fatman),
Kevin McCarthy,
Gedde Watanabe,
Dick Van Patten
and Dr. Demento, as well as members of Al’s band. Henry Corden
and Jean
Vander Pyl voiced their characters of Fred
and Wilma Flintstone for a fantasy sequence featuring new
animation by Hanna-Barbera
Productions.
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| Harvey, the giant Wonder Hamster. |
Al also attempted to do something
unique for Saturday morning television: feature live music. He and the other
producers had an extensive wish list for acts they wanted to book on the show,
but a great many of them were turned down by CBS for skewing too “old”.
Instead, musical acts included the likes of Immature, Barenaked Ladies (whom the network
wanted addressed as a child-friendlier “BNL”), Radish and All-4-One. Al was also able to book Hanson, personal friends of his, who were at
the height of their popularity during the show’s production. However, despite
that, the show received a lot of hate mail over their appearance by people who
didn’t like their music or the group. Al’s band also played a few times, although
Al’s “Yoda” (one of many Star Wars references
peppered throughout the series as everyone involved were big fans) was
accompanied by the Bad Hair Band.
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| You can see right through him. |
While
Al pitched the show as being like Pee-wee’s
Playhouse, he and the other producers wanted to avoid comparisons the shows.
That proved difficult, however, being that they hired Playhouse set designer Wayne White
to design their set and logo, and CBS promoted the show initially with the
comparison. Al served as the series’
head writer, along with a staff that included Susan Amerikaner,
Tracy Berna,
Zeke Kamm,
Steve Lookner,
Mark O’Keefe
and Ron
Weiner. Seth
MacFarlane applied to be a writer on the program, showing them
his concept for Family Guy, but they were
forced to pass on it knowing that the network would never go for it. Had they
been able to incorporate it, The Weird Al
Show could have been to Family Guy what
The Tracy Ullman Show was to The
Simpsons.
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| The network had Al all twisted in knots. |
The
network was very involved with the show, striving to ensure it was maintaining
a certain level of educational content that was appropriate for their desired
demographic. This often brought the producers in conflict with the network as the
network had notes for almost every single thing they did. As the writers had already
finished their work two weeks before filming, many of the script rewrites had
to be done by Al, Frank and series director Peyton Reed
typically overnight or on the fly as they were shooting an episode. They had
gotten wise to the level of interference and often would load scripts up with
content they were sure would get rejected in order to keep the content they
really wanted; however, the network constantly surprised them with what they
allowed and denied.
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| Al hangs out at the eyeball table with the Hooded Avenger, Cousin Corky and Val Brentwood. |
Al’s
humor was severely hampered by CBS’ interference; many of his jokes losing
their punch and timing due to the extensive rewrites. Instead of talking to his
audience like he envisioned, CBS forced him to talk down to them; the moral and
the jokes had to be constantly repeated and explained, and they had to be
careful not to include “imitable behavior” that kids could easily duplicate at
home and injure themselves. To keep viewers from being “confused” when Al
watched TV, a TV border was placed around the “shows” instead of being shown in
full screen as Al had done in UHF. CBS
wanted Al to include parody videos as much as possible. As a result, several of
Al’s previous videos were played often during the end credits, although the
rights to use most of them were surprisingly difficult to get. He also made a
quick video for his previous song “Lasagna”,
a parody of Ritchie
Valens’ “La
Bamba”, and a new 30-second snippet that parodied The Prodigy’s
“Firestarter”
called “Lousy
Haircut”. Although “HE Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Hamster” was
intended to be the first episode by the production, CBS made “Bad Influence”
the first broadcast, feeling it had a better message from the outset.
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| Nothing like writing a short nap into the script. |
The
creative interference created an intense and stressful working environment. Al,
Frank and Reed would often work on addressing the network’s notes all night
before going into filming two episodes in a row the next day. The Weird Al Show was aired at different
times in different markets, making it hard to promote. When the network did advertise for the show it was
usually on the morning of broadcast, which often went unseen as the ratings for
Think CBS Kids were abysmal. The fact that the lead-in was the news program CBS
This Morning also
didn’t help draw in the desired viewers. Within
four months, most of the shows in the line-up were cancelled and replaced with
reruns of Beakman’s World, CBS
Storybreak and Tales from the Cryptkeeper;
The Weird Al Show amongst them with
the conclusion of its sole season. Despite the grueling conditions and the
short run, many of the people involved both in front of and behind the cameras
went on to have successful careers—especially Al.
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| "You want viewers? Macho Man will getcha viewers!" |
Had
the series been successful, Surge
Licensing was in place to produce merchandise related to the
show. However, the only merchandise to ever see the light of day was when Shout! Factory
acquired the rights to release the complete
series to DVD in 2006. While the set featured commentary on
every episode by Al, Frank, Reed and several of the guest-stars, as well as Fatman and other concept art, it was
light on content as CBS kept nothing from the show beyond the master tapes.
Dick Clark also had much of the set and props in storage until he needed to
make room for new shows, allowing Al and Frank to snatch up whatever they
wanted before they wound up in the trash. The theme was included as a track on
Al’s 1999 album Running with Scissors.
2 comments:
Nobody's watching our programming block that focuses on bland educational content, clearly the answer is to make it blander and more educational! Perfect example of poisonous executive meddling.
Network executives like to play it safe, and usually lack any sort of creative backgrounds. Network meddling has ruined many a good or potentially good show, and they never learn to let a show just be and step in WHEN you need to.
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