Tuesday, July 29, 2014

You Can Be A Coffee Achiever, Or: One of My First Crushes FINALLY Tops The Charts

One of the defining moments in my personal fandom history happened when I was in the eighth grade. Every night a friend recorded a local radio show, The Top Nine At Nine (as voted by listeners between 7PM and 8PM), on a Maxell cassette and every morning we played it back on her contraband tape recorder on the bus to junior high. A group of us would chat and sing along but one morning there was a new song that rendered us all completely silent as we tried to catch the lyrics, and, wait, was that a slide whistle? And an accordion? In the middle of early-80s synth pop heaven? We listened in total confusion and debated whether that was the same guy who sang "Pac Man Fever". Whoever it was, it was a cute (the slide whistle) if gross (the lyrics) song and we decided that "Weird Al" Yankovic was a one hit wonder. You have NO IDEA how happy I am to have been wrong about that.


When he finally hit Number One on the Billboard Album Chart last week after thirty plus years, Tom Green got to tell him about it and this was his reaction. Really, how can you not love that?


And if THAT isn't enough, over the weekend SHOUT! Factory announced at ComicCon that UHF is being re-released on a 25th Anniversary Blu-ray coming this fall.


I mentioned a couple of days ago that a spam might be in order so let's get on that. His 1984 album, "Weird Al" Yankovic in 3-D, was produced by Rick Derringer and contained his hysterical and Grammy winning send-up of Michael Jackson, "Eat It."


I blogged about meeting him waaaaay back here in a post about why "Dare to Be Stupid" from his 1985 album Dare to Be Stupid is my personal theme song. It still is.

 
Madonna is said to have suggested the title for this one, also from Dare to Be Stupid.
 
 
 
Each of Yankovic's albums has included a polka medley and one of my favorites is the one from 1986's Polka Party! "Rock Me Amadeus" was begging to be a polka, right?
 
 
 There's no way I'm not including "Smells Like Nirvana." This one was on Off the Deep End from 1992. You knew it would be here.
 

 
As much as I love that one, though, my all time favorite is "White & Nerdy" from 2006's Straight Outta Lynwood. I have said before and I still think that whoever first said, "You know what this video needs? A Donny Osmond cameo," is a brilliant genius. I mean, really.
 

 
I apologize for the vid heaviness of this post but this? It's been a long time coming and I wanted to take some time to really celebrate it. Thanks, Weird Al, for daring to be stupid. 




4 comments:

  1. Another piece of evidence that you just are supposed to do what you love -- he looks so choked up!

    Love "Dare to be Stupid."

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  2. I love Weird Al! This is great news!

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    Replies
    1. It's hard to not love him, right? I'm so thrilled for him!

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