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For those who might have found the Pee Wee Herman show too... umm... highbrow, CBS, in cooperation with Dick Clark Productions, blessed us with a unique television treasure: pop music spoofmeister "Weird Al" Yankovic's own Saturday morning kids variety show. Shockingly, the late-'90s series lasted only an unlucky 13 episodes, proving once again that American TV is anything but Darwinian... Alright, you know what? It's too easy to just dismiss the infamous white jheri-curled, mustached and bad Hawaiian shirt-wearing accordionist. In contrast to the Hollywood committee which passed over Yankovic for a 'Walk of Fame' star recently, let me take this space to whistle the praises of a man who for the past two decades made us laugh (often in spite of ourselves) at an otherwise overly self-serious music industry.
Al's eternally uncool persona has always neutered his own cleverness, and nowhere more so than in these shows. Continuing in the vein of Al's cult-fave film UHF, the WAS is a grab-bag of episodic and recurring premises tacked onto a thin plot frame. Breathlessly goofy, the show centers around Al's underground lair, where superhero neighbor The Hooded Avenger (Brian Haley) mixes with cute friends Cousin Corky (Danielle Weeks), Val Brentwood—Gal Spy (Paula Jai Parker) and spirtual advisor Judy Tenuta. A variety of animation styles as well as spoofs of news, infomercials, exercise and other TV programming break in randomly. Musical guests include Barenaked Ladies, Immature, Hanson, and Radish. And the episodes are studded with (sometimes uncredited) B-list cameos from the likes of Ron Popeil, Fabio, John Tesh, Emo Phillips, Drew Carey, Fred Willard, Alex Trebek, Gedde Watanabe (16 Candles' Long Duck Dong), Daisy Fuentes, and Michael McKean.
If that all seems ho-hum smug, there are also elements here which would amuse the most jaded of Surrealists; Yankovic watches TV from a chair comprised of giant eyeballs; another recurring character is appropriately named "the guy boarded up in the wall;" there are lip "bombs," vomiting puppets, a "Yoko Ono" alarm; and co-star Gary the Wonder Hamster is not just a prop but active participant. Best of all, midway through disc two, we get a Flintstones "outtake" sequence that is almost worth the price of admission (keep in mind, I got my copy for free).
Oddly enough, the Weird Al show is actually, at times, more watchable than the largely repetitive and overly muggy Pee Wee Herman series which obviously inspired it. Still, a show that is Mad TV 30% of the time and hyperventilating tweener fare the rest is a bit hard to really love.
But hooking up with it after closing time isn't out of the question.
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