Speaker 1: Hello, everybody, Welcome to the Shirley You Can't Be Serious podcasts.
We are here today to talk some weird weird ow Man, Yeah, weird.
Speaker 2: Bouncing around this subject for three years.
Speaker 1: Well, but we're not doing our episode today. I know,
we are doing weird the Al Yankovic story, right, not
weird out, because I mean, we're talking about twelve million
albums in sales. We're talking about a career that spanned
four decades. I know, we're talking about an amazing human
being from beginning to end. And there's no way that
we can do a justice in just one episode, especially
one that has to come out in like the next
week because the movies coming out on Friday.
Speaker 2: That's true, We're gonna watch it on the Roku channel.
So we'll do some preliminary stuff today. Then we'll talk
about the movie and tell everybody what we think. All right,
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we originally had UHF on the schedule to do this fall,
but we had to bump it. We're doing other things,
so right, we'll come back to that one at some point, right,
So we're here to talk. We're here to talk about
the movie. Yeah, let's talk about uhf, let's talk about
movie a different movie. But we'll come to that. We'll
do that, all right.
Speaker 1: So first let me just take us back eighty seven. Okay,
fifteen eighty seven.
Speaker 2: What fifteen eighty.
Speaker 1: Seven is the first time that the word paradea is
used in print that I can find, and it means
a burlesque poem or song. And so that's of course
where we get our word parody, which is we're talking
about it today. I mean, not only were talking about
the King of pair Pardy music, but this movie is
going to be a parody from beginning to end. I'm
super excited about it.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: I was talking to David Wright, and I didn't quite
get it when I saw the trailer the first time. Yeah,
and I'm like Madonna and weird, al what how did
I not know about this? Right? I was a little
too serious about what I was seeing on screen there,
a little too serious.
Speaker 1: So okay, So fast forward to the nineteen fifties. There
are a few guys, one of whom I listened to
quite a bit when I was in college. His name's
Alan Sherman, did a lot of parody songs. You probably
heard the song Hello Matta, Hello Fadda, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Hello Murder, Hello Fada.
Speaker 1: That's it. It's Alan Sherman.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: So around the same time, there was another guy who
was doing some comedy songs, and I sent you some
info on him, but i'll take you down. He was
born in nineteen twenty eight. The guy's still around, like
he's still alive and kicking way yeah, yeah, he's he's
an old guy. But he was a child prodigy, went
to Harvard when he was sixteen, graduated three years later
Magna kum Laudie. Actually I think it might have been fifteen.
I mean it was just it was absurd.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: And so he's this young, amazing guy, right and immediately
starts teaching math. But he also is really super interested
in music. Played piano when he was a kid, is
interested in all of it. But it's not this kind
of serious musical theory stuff that he's doing. It is comedy.
He's doing parodies of songs, right, right, And so I've
just I love that I get to just follow these
rabbit holes down because that's what we do in these
That's what I do, right shows. Although you did have
father yod. So that was a rabbit hole of all
rabbit holes.
Speaker 2: In my head.
Speaker 1: But anyway, Tom Lair ends up getting drafted in nineteen
fifty five. So I'm doing the math. I'm like, he's
born in twenty eight gets drafted and fifty five, that
means he's like in his late twenties. That seems like
a weird time to get drafted. But it turns out
he was part of this group called the NSA. Well,
nobody knew what that was back then. It was a
classified thing. He said. He just an interview like a
couple of years ago, twenty twenty. He's like, yeah, so
I had to tell people that I was working on
the nuclear bomb because the real story was a little
too sensitive. WHOA, yeah, wow, yeah, so it's pretty cool.
And then and then he also mentions and it was
during that time that I was in the Army that
I invented jello shots.
Speaker 2: He invented.
Speaker 1: He invented jello shots. Like it was you couldn't have
alcoholic beverages on in the service, and so he was like, okay,
let's invent something that's not a beverage.
Speaker 2: How about that?
Speaker 1: So that's how jello shots were invented. So then a
couple of years later he comes out with this song
called the Elements, and he takes this song from He
takes the a song from Pirates of Penzance called Major
General Song and changes the words to where it's all
of the elements at the time. There have been more
discovered since then, but all the elements on the periodic
table on the periodic table and puts them to this music.
The name of the song is the Elements.
Speaker 2: Listened to him singing here.
Speaker 4: Germanium and iron, amarici and ruthenium, uranium, eurobrium, zicconium, rutim,
vanadium and lanthemum and osmium, anastatine and radium and golden
protect in indiana and gallium and im and thulium and thallium.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay.
Speaker 1: So he's back teaching, teaching in college, but like his music,
starts to catch on in places. Isaac Asimov in his
this is.
Speaker 2: The same guy, I got pissed off at Ghostbusters for
filming in Central Park.
Speaker 1: Yes, so, he in his second autobiography that is, like
volume two his second Yes, says I enjoy still felt
was the name of it.
Speaker 5: It.
Speaker 1: He talks about seeing Tom Leer play in a nightclub
and he's talking about the song I got it from Agnes,
and he says, I slowly realized that what he was
talking about was of venereal disease, right, And as the
characters became more clear, it was it was clear that
we were getting more perverse and weird, and he just
thought it was hysterical and so he you know, Tom
lrs in Isaacasmov's autobiography, let's play that song right here. Okay.
Speaker 2: I love my friends and they love me.
Speaker 3: We're just as close as we can be. And just
because we really care what whatever we get, we share.
I got it from Agnes, She got it from Jim.
We all agree it must have been Louise who gave
it to him. Now she got it from Harry, who
got it from Marie. And everybody knows that Marie got
it from me.
Speaker 1: That's hilarious, man, that's funny. Well, and but it's also
wildly inappropate. And so the radio wasn't playing him, right,
It was just people who he pressed a record and
like people would just hey, I heard about this, and
it would get pastor here's his quote. Lacking exposure in
the media. My song spread slowly like herpies rather than
a bola.
Speaker 2: This guy's really bright. Yeah, right.
Speaker 1: So, as it turns out, one of his fans is
a guy named Daniel Radcliffe.
Speaker 2: I know, right, Daniel Radcliffe. I heard he was born
in nineteen eighty nine, two days after the release of UHF.
Speaker 1: Two days after the release of UHF. Daniel Radcliffe is
born in twenty and ten. Some years later, He's on
Graham Norton show, right, and he says, I love this song,
and I think this guy is a genius.
Speaker 2: And he is.
Speaker 1: He sings the entire thing without musical background, without que cards,
just from memory, sings all of the elements of periodic
table in this song.
Speaker 5: Okay, So there's antimonials nikoluneam selenium, hydrogen and oxygen like nicolenim, germainium,
mana masie marthinim, uranium, you ope vanadium, and I'm feman
osman acentina, radium and goldenmon gallium and I didn't thor
him and thuliaman thallium a little little there's.
Speaker 2: A tree Matoby.
Speaker 1: Rihanna and Colin Farrell are both there laughing hysterically at him.
And it does really well and he's he's got this
kind of amazing ability to sing fast, difficult to remember songs.
Speaker 2: So just in case you don't know who Daniel Radcliffe is, wait, is.
Speaker 1: He somebody that people should know? I mean I saw
him and he looks familiar.
Speaker 2: The name you might know him better as is Harry Potter.
Is he and Harry Potter? Yes, he's Harry Potter. Oh,
he is Harry pots Harry he's a little kid. Yes, Okay,
you know that.
Speaker 1: I do know that.
Speaker 2: Gosh freaking Harry Potter.
Speaker 1: He's kind of an icon.
Speaker 5: He is.
Speaker 2: He's kind of an icon.
Speaker 1: Hey, I'm just saying that there are people out there
that might not know who he is. Right, Well, I've
seen him in Swiss Army Man. Okay, he I think
he made so much money from doing those Harry Potter
movies that he was just like, I'm going to do
the wildest and weirdest stuff that I can.
Speaker 2: I think you're right, But we're getting a little ahead
of ourselves here. Okay. We haven't talked about the man
himself about weird Out. Yes, So tell me what you
know about weird Al's history. Well, here's what I know.
He was born in nineteen fifty nine. Raised in California,
super Bride student, graduated from high school early went to college.
Was talking to his guidance counselor and he's like, I
think I want to be a cartoonist. And the guidance
counselor is like, no, no, no, no, no no, you
want to be an architect. So he's like, Okay, I
guess I'm going to be an architect. While he's in college,
he gets a job as the night DJ at the
local college radio station and starts to play some sort
of funny music and he's probably playing Tom Lee or
song probably and so at the time in nineteen seventy nine,
one of the biggest songs of the year is called
My Sharona by the Knack, which we're going to cover
in our Patreon episode Dear Listener.
Speaker 1: If you are not a Patreon member yet, you should
be because if you are, you get to listen to
our special episodes where we cover the one hit wonders
of the eighties and beyond, and this month we are
covering My Sharona, which is a key song in the
career of mister Weird Ali Yankovic.
Speaker 2: Absolutely so.
Speaker 1: He he had played these kind of weird songs against
advice of and actually requirements of the college, and eventually
they canned him. They fired him, really yes, okay, so
like everybody was upset and they're They're like, then this
guy was funny. By the way, that's also where he
got his name, weird Al. Like he was weird and shy,
and he played the accordion.
Speaker 2: He said, a traveling salesman came to the door one
day and was selling accordions and his mom was like, yes,
I'll take one for my son, who's super cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he wanted she wanted him to get the chicks.
And so anyway, so weird Al not only plays these
funny songs, but he starts recording some of them. And
one of his heroes is a guy named doctor Demento, Yes,
who he has his own show, was pretty famous back
in the seventies. Plays these weird songs.
Speaker 2: All the time.
Speaker 1: I actually came to weird House High School to speak
at one point, and you know, weird got his autograph.
So at some point he records a song and sends
it to Doctor Demento, and Doctor Demento plays.
Speaker 2: It on his show.
Speaker 1: He's like, oh, this is amazing. And then He's like, Okay, well,
let's do live shows. And so they're doing live shows
with him and an accordion and a guy on the drums,
and it's just ridiculous stuff. But ultimately, yes, they record
a parody of the song My Sharona, which is called
my Bologna. This is the song that moves him from
good too great and he becomes a superstar.
Speaker 2: And the singer for the Knack. He said, somehow he
weird aw got his address, mailed it to him, He
listened to it, he loved it. He went to Capitol
Records and says, we got to sign this guy. Brilliant.
Speaker 1: I mean, how awesome is that the guy from the
Nack gave us weird Owl.
Speaker 2: Yep, that's so cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So again, we can't go into the whole history
of weird out here, but we all know that after
that he gave us some of the best parody songs
for the next forty years.
Speaker 2: And we were talking.
Speaker 1: We had a nice little experience where I hit a
deer earlier this week and Jason came to my rescue.
I think we were literally talking about weird al whenever
the deer decided to give me a and so then
when you picked me up, we had a nice forty
five minute drive where we get to talk about weird
Al and the songs. And I was trying to remember
what the first weird Al song was I heard, and
I can't remember if it's eat It or if I'm
pretty sure it was I love Rocky.
Speaker 2: Road for me, absolutely eat It. It was on MTV.
I know they played it at the roller rink when
I was a fifth grader. Yeah, and it killed at
the roller rank of course.
Speaker 1: First.
Speaker 2: I mean, first of all, beat it was next level fire.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And when you played a parody of beat it, it
was just and it's so clever and funny. We loved it.
Speaker 1: It's great because that also was a turning point in
his career because he is such a nice guy. He
always asked permission of the artist to parody their song,
and if they say no, he doesn't do it.
Speaker 2: Are you going to bring up coolioh?
Speaker 1: Yes? Well again, confusion there, because I can remember long
ago that'd being a big issue in him saying I
don't know, you know, like we sent it to him
and he said yes, and then we recorded it and
then he said no, and we're like, oh, we already
done this and it's too late. Is that what I said?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that was his side. And then Coolio was like,
I told him I didn't want to record it, and
he recorded it anyway. The short story is, and we
lost Coolio just within this past month. Yeah, Coolio and
he made up. They like they met together. They made up,
and Coolio came out and publicly said I was wrong
for saying what I said in that interview. I was
wrong at the time, he goes, I had producers whispering
in my ear telling me the wrong thing, and weird.
Speaker 2: I was a great guy, and he was very strong.
Speaker 1: He was like, I was wrong, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: And gainst Paradise is brilliant. Yeah, and almost Paradise is
equally freaking brilliant.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, yeah, absolutely, but back to early days, Yes, he
asked permission before he does these songs. Right, And so
you want to ask Michael Jackson, the Michael Jackson, if
you can parody his biggest chart topping song right this moment, right, Well,
it doesn't hurt to ask, and that was their theme,
It doesn't hurt to ask. Let's give it a try,
and Michael said, O, guy, sounds funny and so from
that moment on, whenever he would ask somebody if he
got any kind of resistance, it was well, you know,
we were enough for Michael Jackson, right, And I was like, okay,
all right. And you remember in the Nirvana episode when
we talked about it was Victoria Jackson comes to them
backstage at Saturday Night Live and she's like, my friend
weird Al really likes yeah. Yeah, and they were like,
we've made it. Yes, I mean, we're on Saturday Night Live,
but weird Al wants to cover our song. That's how
you know you made it in the music business when
Weird I wants to cover you.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Which the interesting thing about I don't think he's
ever done Prince.
Speaker 1: He has not. He is the He is the artist
who has always refused or had always refused to let
him perform his songs. Right, And you don't see any
Prince songs. Nope, no Prince No the Princes lost in
my absolutely book. Absolutely.
Speaker 2: Hey, okay, so let me ask you this just I'm
putting you on the spot. Yeah, we talked about weird Al.
I know, we talked about him in Michael Jackson h Nirvana. Yeah,
we talked about him during our Huey Lewis in the
News episode because of that parody video with American Psycho.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I want a new Duck. We
talked about that. Yeah, we talked about him during our
Aerosmith episode where I said, one of my personal favorites
is living in the Fridge, right right, Okay, so let
me ask you to put put you on the spot
top three weird ouse songs. Ready to go.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 1: Fat is immediately springing to the top of the list,
and then I'm gonna go one more minute with you,
and then I'm gonna follow that up with White and
Nerdy White.
Speaker 2: That's solidarity, that's solid So for me, it's a it
goes with the video. Like you know, there are two
separate things, but when you mash them together, there's I
mean there's Fat has extra weight because the video is
so freaking hilarious too, right, that has extra weight? Really anyway, Yes,
so I would put Fat at the top of that list.
I love the saga begins, which is a story of
Star Wars right Anakin Skywalker, and then I'm always gonna
go back to Live in the Frame. It's just because
my family just loves that song.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so he makes a phenomenal career in the eighties
doing the parodies of these songs, and ultimately he and
his manager decide, Hey, let's do a whole movie.
Speaker 2: And the movie's really just.
Speaker 1: Going to be more parodies, that's all it is.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it literally starts off in the same
way that Raiders of the Lost Ark starts off. Yes,
get the back of his head, get the whip, get
all of that, and it's fantastic. They filmed it over
in Tulsa. You were sending me pictures of it, just
like this past week.
Speaker 2: Listen. I remember when they filmed this and the local
radio station put out a call for extras. They needed extras. Yeah,
and I wasn't old enough to drive or I would
have been in this bachelist city scene. So but yeah,
it was a big deal until So Oklahoma I filmed.
I remember the summer I filmed. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, I went to college for a couple of years
in Tulsa and one of my acting teachers was the
fish Lady's Oh You So Stupid. Yes, that was one
of my acting teachers. Believe it or not. I performed
with her and learned from her.
Speaker 2: Wow, okay, awesome.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so UHF, brilliant movie comes out and absolutely blows
up the box office, right, No, yeah, no, Fortunately it
happened to come out on the same day as, among others, Batman.
Speaker 2: I know, I know. So I have had this kind
of ongoing discussion with the guys from a Film Buy
and David Wright, and so they fell by podcast. They
believe eighty six is the best year. David Riot's real
strong with nineteen eighty four, and I have kind of
always been team nineteen eighty nine. Yeah, I mean that
summer you had Indiana Jones, the third Indiana Jones, maybe,
you had Batman, you had leth a Weapon two. I
mean you had Honey, Shrunk the Kids.
Speaker 1: All of those movies like leith a Weapon two, Honey
I Shunk the Kids, Batman, and UHF all came out
that same month.
Speaker 2: Like it's all tight, really tight. Yes, And then yeah,
the sequel to Ghostbusters that summer was Blockbusters City and
UHF just got buried it did. It was only in
the theater for like two weeks. I remember in Tulsa
it was a big deal. But every time I went
to the movie theater, I'm like, well, crap, I gotta now.
I gotta see Lethal Weapon. Now, I gotta see Batman.
Now I gotta see Indiana Jones. And I never saw
it in the theater.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so tragic. I did see it in the theater.
So let's talk about the movie for a second. Talk
about the movie that we're here to talk about. Yes,
So UHF comes out eighty nine two days later. Daniel
Radcliffe was born Harry Potter. He does some sort of movie,
some Witchcraft movie or something, a series or something.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: Anyway, somebody's popular. And then in twenty ten, Daniel Radcliffe
is on The Graham Norton Show and he performs this
song The Elements. Tom Layer, Right, I look to see
if Tom Layer was an influence on Weirdow. Of course
he was, right, of course, of course he was. I literally,
like literally twenty twenty one, weird Al is like, Tom
been fifty six years, man, when are you gonna come
out with another album? Like he's he just being silly,
but I mean he this is a guy who was
monumentally inspirational to him. And he happens to see Daniel
Radcliffe singing The Elements on The Graham Norton Show and
he says, I think that kid should play me in
the biopic. Yeah. Now, at the same time, I like
sa biopic instead of biopick. It's biopick, I know, I know,
I like biopic better. It's like myopic.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: So twenty ten, same year that the Daniel Radcliffe is
on the Graham Norton Show, a guy named Eric Apple
comes to Weird Al and says, Hey, we've had all
these music biopicks coming out. Let's do a trailer for
your biopic and let's like think up all of these
dumb music tropes that they have in all of these
music biography movies and let's just play it up right. Yeah,
because Weird Al is the most straight laced, non interesting
personal life.
Speaker 2: It's true, guy you could meat.
Speaker 1: I mean, he's he has made a ton of money,
brought a ton of happiness to a bunch of people,
and his life is just kind of normally.
Speaker 2: He's the one guy you could trust with your girlfriend, right, Well,
him and Vince Neil, I mean, you know, right.
Speaker 1: So, so what they do is they get Aaron Paul
who's the guy who plays Pink on Breaking Bad, and
they get Olivia Wilde to play the Madonna part. Yes,
They've got Mary Steambergen playing his mom, his dad.
Speaker 2: What's that is it? Gary Cole is Gary Cole, Gary
Cole from Space. Yeah, he's so good.
Speaker 1: And Patton Oswell plays Doctor Demento right, and weird Al
is the record producer who refuses to sign weird out right,
and it's this I'm addicted to drugs, I'm having these
sex parties. I've got these abusive parents. And it's all
those music tropes that you were seeing back in the
twenty ten. You had the Johnny Cash that's twenty ten,
twelve years ago. Yeah, weird the Al Yankovic story. The
trailer came out twelve years ago.
Speaker 2: It's crazy, and you said that to me. I had
no clue it was.
Speaker 1: So was written by this guy named Eric Apple directed
the trailer twelve years ago, and over the last twelve
years he and weird Al have been working on this
script together. And then sure enough they gave Daniel Radcliffe
a call and said, hey, would you like to come
play this part?
Speaker 2: And he said, let's go. Harry Potter and weird Al.
Speaker 1: So I asked you earlier today, what is your favorite
music biopic?
Speaker 2: Purple Rain? That's good, Purple Rain. That's good. I mean,
were counting that absolutely?
Speaker 1: Okay, So I'm gonna I just jotted down just from
thinking about movies I seen, including Queen Bohemian, Raselley Bohemian,
including that one, even including the Beethoven story.
Speaker 2: That's another one. Sure, mortal beloved, same thing. So here
you go.
Speaker 1: You ready?
Speaker 2: Okay, so you just say yes or no on this
for your whether I've seen it or like it. No
purple rain.
Speaker 1: The tropes, these are the tropes for all of these
musical biographies, Okay, you ready. Abusive parents, yes, angst, Yes,
hostile producer, Sure that one's more like a club owner
own but yes, hey kid, yeah, for drug and alcohol abuse,
not by him, not by not by print, but there
was definitely his dad had an alcohol products right right.
And then a music teacher that makes a difference. Again
not quite but like he well he discovers the music
that his dad's. So those things abusive parents, angst, hostile producer,
drug and alcohol abuse, music teacher, that makes a difference.
Those seem to be present in at least, you know,
three out of five in every musical biography. So what
weird Al and Eric Apple did was they were like Okay,
how can we take these and blow them up and
make this ridiculous parody of your life story?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, I can't wait to see it. Man, Hey, listen, yeah,
listen to this. Okay. So I just looked at the cast,
and not so much the cast, but listen to the
characters in this story. Okay, And keep in mind I
haven't seen the movie yet. I can't wait to see it.
So we've got Daniel Radcliffe as we'd Ow. You've got
Evan rachel Wood as Madonna. We've got Rain Wilson as
Doctor Demento from the office he had to come in.
Dwight Paton Olswat was going to be Doctor Demento again,
but he hurt his foot and so he couldn't do it.
But you have people playing just listen. I mean, Conan
O'Brien is playing Andy Warhol, Jack Black is playing Wolfman.
Jacket doesn't even line out of time wise really sure,
You've got a person playing Pablo Escobar and Pee Wee
Herman and Alice Cooper and Tiny Tim and Gallagher and
Hulk Hogan and Hulk Hogan. Elijah Wood's playing Phil Collins.
Speaker 1: I cannot wait to see Elijah Phil Collin, Elijah Woods,
Phil Fantastic.
Speaker 2: By the way, where All is playing Tony Scotti, the guy,
the record producer, the record of producer, and he's providing
the singing voice for Daniel Radcliffe.
Speaker 1: Of course you got to yeah, yeah, Okay, So we
blathered on long enough. Yep, we're now gonna go watch
the movie. We're gonna come back and we're gonna tell
you what we think.
Speaker 2: Okay, sounds good, let's do it.
Speaker 4: Huh.
Speaker 2: All right, I got a special thank you that we
got a shout out for real quick. Okay, So our
longtime listener and good friend Chris Webber sent us a
gift in the mail. Hi, Chris, check it out. I
didn't even know this thing existed. This is an Airplane
soundtrack album.
Speaker 1: Thank god, it's only a record. That's the tagline. I mean,
that's that's awesome. I would never have guessed that they
came out with a vinyl LP of the songs off
of Airplane.
Speaker 2: What have we got?
Speaker 5: What?
Speaker 2: Okay, listen to this. This is gonna blow you away.
Speaker 1: You're ready for this?
Speaker 2: Ye freaking hilarious. Okay, So we have the theme from Jaws.
Speaker 1: There you go.
Speaker 2: We have staying alive.
Speaker 1: Is it sped up?
Speaker 4: Do we know?
Speaker 1: I guess you could, like you know, yeah, we'll ramp
it up. We're gonna bring out the record player. We're
gonna listen to this thing.
Speaker 2: We have everything's coming up, Roses.
Speaker 6: We have the River Jordan, uh huh, of course, fantastic,
and we have the Notre Dame fight song, win one
for the Zipper, the love theme for Airplane, and then.
Speaker 2: Time whatever that is. But this is great. This is hilarious, Chris,
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Man. This is I think we should totally devote an
episode for this album.
Speaker 6: Oh my gosh, there you go, Chris.
Speaker 1: I'll put the call out there for you all, Shirley fans.
If you want to send us an album, whatever it
might be, short of, you know, pornography, we will consider
seriously reviewing that album for you in an episode.
Speaker 2: Okay, I like the escape Cloths. That's good.
Speaker 1: I'm a lawyer, baby. Of those little caveats in there, we.
Speaker 2: Will consider seriously. No promises, but yes, all right.
Speaker 1: So that actually brings us to what we're here to
talk about today, which is weird the Al Yankovic story.
We just got done watching the movie and you pointed
out midway through, cause we're both just laughing and smiling
the whole time. And you were like, these guys did
exactly what the Airplane guys did, which is they kept
it serious in their delivery, despite how absolutely ridiculous it
was what they were saying or doing at the time,
they kept it serious in their performance and it paid
off in spades.
Speaker 2: Very very similar style comedy to like Airplane, Make a Gun.
You know, the characters. It was dead serious.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, yes, everybody was delivering it. They weren't hamming it,
they weren't overdoing it, they weren't underdoing it. They weren't
doing anything other than playing this as if it was
a serious movie, and they executed it perfectly, making it
that much funnier. Now it's not it's not airplane, right,
it's not airw No, but it is fun. I mean,
it's just good fun. And honestly, I am truly impressed
at the ability to kind of recreate scenes from other
really well known biographical kind of movies. I mean, you've
got you had the doors in there, right, you had
purple rain in there. At some point, you had boogie
Knights in there. I loved the Boogie Knights pool scene
was fantastic. You had all of these random eighties characters
out there. You had Emo Phillips playing Salvador Dolly and
delivering his lines in Spanish with like a perfect accent.
Speaker 2: It was fantastic. It was great, man, it was a
lot of fun. So, okay, so you bring up the
Boogie Knights scene, right, and so Weird Al has been
invited by Doctor Demento back to his house to have
this pool party. And there's a ridiculous amount of people there.
I mean, you got Alice Cooper, you got Pee Wee Herman,
got Gray Slick, You've got the girl from the B
fifty two's, you've got Frank Zappa, who we talked about
multiple times in this podcast. And it's just they're all
like you, pee Wee Herman's in his costume.
Speaker 1: Right, And as we mentioned, Jack Black is in that
scene and he shows up as Wolfman Jack and it's
the big kind of challenge scene. Guys, this is a
fantastic show. You should check it out. Just prepare not
to anything seriously because it is just a fun little
like I was just smiling at what they did, but
I was going to say, you know, when Weird Al
would do his videos, like when he did beat It
and when he did Like a Surgeon, and when he
did all these other videos. He really went out of
his way to try to capture what they had done
in the original video, and he did a lot of directing.
Now we got a different director on this one, but he,
I mean he sold that game as well. He absolutely
did an homage. I mean it's kind of like uajef
like when it starts off with Raiders at the Lost Arc.
It's really being executed very well. I mean it's like,
you know, this isn't identical. It's obviously a comedic take apparently, sure,
but they do a great job with it.
Speaker 2: Okay, I got to bring up one person in particular.
That So Daniel Ratcliffe does a great job as weird Al.
Speaker 1: For sure.
Speaker 2: It's very you know, it's he's he nails the joyful
expression of weird Al, and yet he delivers on the
heartbreak and anger of you know, when his mom's like
basically what we think is you should do things that
you hate and not be yourself, you know. And so
that whole thing is set up and he does a
great job. But I'll tell you who knocked it absolutely
out of the park. Was Evan rachel Wood as Madonna. Yeah, yes,
she did Madonna slash the Drug Cartel.
Speaker 1: I mean when she shows up with a star and
an eyepatch, boys and girls, you're just going to be like,
what is going on? Like I said, they went for
all of those music biography tropes and they and they
landed them all in space.
Speaker 2: It really was weird out to the nth degree. So
like different events actually did happen in his life, you know?
Speaker 1: Yeah, they had the recording in the bathroom of My Boloona, yes,
which we talked about earlier.
Speaker 2: Yes, and he did parody the next My Sharona, which
by the way, is a upcoming Patreon episode.
Speaker 1: Don't forget to subscribe to Patreon so that you can
catch that episode just for our Patreon subscribers. Go to
patreon dot com slash Truly podcast.
Speaker 2: Yeah, those are really good. And so he did actually
meet Madonna. Now, she didn't kill Pablo Escobar and take.
Speaker 1: Over here spoiler alert, spoiler alert, she didn't kill Pablo
Escobar anyway, that's that he got that wrong. So just
there you go.
Speaker 2: I hate to be the one to break it to everybody.
She did not kill Pablo Escobar.
Speaker 1: Right, No, that's not what happened at all in the movie.
Speaker 2: But it was like these different true events that they
would kill.
Speaker 1: It is like a punch fake.
Speaker 5: Is that what.
Speaker 2: I'm just saying. So they would take these events and
then they would make the most ridiculous thing out of
these true life events. So I enjoyed it to death.
Speaker 1: I really did. It's it is a movie that you
can have family fun with. There's you know, a sex
scene if you will, but it's just so ridiculous what
they're doing.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's a makeout scene, right, I mean you.
Speaker 1: The trailer of the of the show has the line
in it, you know, he's like that like a virgin?
Is that autobiographical? And she's like, yes, it is, except
that I've had a lot less sex. That's about as
bad as it gets in the whole show.
Speaker 2: Right, no profanity. No, Now you've got.
Speaker 1: Weird al smoking and drinking like a fiend. But again
you get that from the previews, and it's it's hysterical,
all of the anger and the angst. It's it's superbly done.
Speaker 2: I really really, it's a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: Oh and I forgot to mention, you know, I brought
this up when we were doing our research on the
movie before it came out. The producer of this is
an alumni of ours, and oh, you guys, that's right.
Jason and I both graduated from the University of Oklahoma,
and one of the primary producers on this show is
a guy named Tim Headington. He's done a bunch like
he did. He's an oil and gas guy, like it's crazy,
you know, but he's also been in film production for
probably fifteen years at this point.
Speaker 2: I'm your billionaire.
Speaker 1: One of the other shows he did this year was
Everything Everywhere, All at Once, which is another weird and
fantastic show. So I was just, you know, had to
look at him his he's like his brother Mary David
Borene's daughter, like it's I mean, it's crazy. Anyway, it's
it is great that we have an Oklahoma guy who
helped make this project possible. And then the other thing
that was really interesting to me is that this is
the Roku Channel. You know, I don't know that I've
ever seen the Roku channel have a movie that they
call this is a Roku production, but they did, they
had in this and then maybe it's their first one.
I need to look this up. I haven't think it
is to do it, but like, this is basically their
Stranger Things. This is the We're gonna sink all of
our money into this project and see how it goes.
And I mean, I'm I'm rooting for him. I'm rooting
for him. I want them to make it big.
Speaker 2: Okay, So very clearly we're saying, go watch this movie.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, if you love where It Ow, you're
gonna love it. If you love move excuse me, if
you love music biographies, you're.
Speaker 2: Gonna love it.
Speaker 1: If you love the icons and the nostalgia of the eighties,
you're gonna love it. It is. It's well performed, well
put together, just a whole lot of just silly fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah. If you're a fan of pop culture, if you've
seen Bugge nice, if you've seen Purple Rain, if you've
seen the Queen movie, it's gonna all ring true. Plus
if you know a little bit about weird out, it
doesn't hurt either.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Oh, and I just heard today, like with the
release of the movie, he released a new album that
was totally unexpected. I haven't got a chance to go
check it out. I don't know if it's like the
greatest hits and the songs from this movie or what
it is. But today he came out with a brand
new album release. Nice little surprise to go along with
the movie.
Speaker 2: We love Weirdel.
Speaker 1: We do, We really do. We will do a large
and in depth deep dive into the weird Awl story, but.
Speaker 2: Not to day. Yeah, but go check out the movie
weird Else sprinkled throughout. We saw weird ELL's wife in
the movie.
Speaker 1: If you know who she is, you can recognize her.
Speaker 2: She's kind of the foxy lady with gray hair at
the end. Yeah, yeah, anything else.
Speaker 1: No, guys, we definitely give this two thumbs up. Go
see it. We look forward to hearing your thoughts and
comments after you checked it out.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely tons of fun. Go watch it.