Weird (2022) (Review)

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