On the night of July 21st 2010, Weird Al Yankovic came to Orlando and performed a concert at the “Hard Rock Cafe” at Universal Studios City Walk. It’s been awhile since I last went to one of his concerts, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I got a T-shirt and some trading cards there. Good thing my sister and I arrived early.

These are only a few from a set of 50.

Weird Al opened with a polka medley with songs from Lady Gaga, Britney Spears, Justin Bieber, and others. Then came some classic songs like “You Make Me” and “Good Old Days”, both of which come from the album Even Worse. They weren’t among his bigger hits, but I remember them well.

Of course Weird Al also performed other big hits like “Smells Like Nirvana”, “Fat”, “Eat it”, “Money for Nothing/Beverly Hillbillies”, “Amish Paradise”, “Dare to Be Stupid”, and “White and Nerdy”. He even included some new songs like “Skipper Dan” and “Craigslist”.

Weird Al was a really smooth dancer when he performed “Wanna B Ur Lover”. He came down from the stage and sang to the ladies in the front row. It was so funny. Then while performing “Ode to a Superhero”, a guy had to hold a harmonica for Weird Al while he was playing the accordion.

In between songs there were many channel flips on the screen. Among them are “interviews” with celebrities like Celine Dion, Avril Lavigne, Snoop Dog, Eminem, and Jessica Simpson. (Or is it Sampson?) I figured that Weird Al needs that time for all those costume changes.

There were also plenty of short segments, where Weird Al was animated on other shows like Johnny Bravo, The SimpsonsFuturama, and Celebrity Death Match. That even includes other shows that so much as even mentioned Weird Al as a reference. I never realized there were so many. It was set up very well, much like Robot Chicken.

Weird Al also mentioned that July 21st was an anniversary of when UHF premiered. Everyone was cheering, including myself, because we know that movie is a real classic.

After the concert, there was an encore with a Star Wars theme. I thought it was appropriate with Star Wars Celebration V coming up in August 2010. But first, Weird Al sang about cell phones. There wasn’t much to it, but if you had a cell phone, you could hold it up while hand waving to the song.

Then came Weird Al’s two Star Wars songs, “The Saga Begins” and “Yoda”. Just before finishing “Yoda”, Al and the band did some other kind of singing that sounded like random chanting. I admit, that choreography was tight, as it had appeared unexpected.

I’ll tell ya, Weird Al Yankovic is better than ever. I wonder if he has a new album coming out soon.

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Stan Bush is a musician who was at BotCon 2010. He was a real nice guy. Stan is best known as one of the main performing artists on the soundtrack album from the 1986 animated Transformers movie. The songs he performed were “The Touch” and “Dare”. I had him autograph my copy.

There was a lot of great music on this album that came from the movie, which includes several instrumental tracks from composer Vince DiCola. Other artists include N.R.G., Spectre General, Lion (who performed the Transformers theme), and Weird Al Yankovic. Now who would’ve thought that Weird Al would be on a Transformers album with his hit song “Dare to Be Stupid”?

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Welcome back. For my 101st post, I’ll be talking about Weird Al’s projects in TV and film. We’ll start with his 1989 feature film UHF. This was a very creative movie that stars Weird Al Yankovic as George Newman, who manages a little rundown TV station owned by his Uncle Harvey (Stanley Brock), who won the deed in poker game. George’s imagination turns that station into something better.

There are plenty of other funny characters also. One of them is Kuni (Gedde Watanabe) the martial arts instructor. His students keep hitting into the walls and flying out the windows. “Stupaad!” The Bum (Vance Colvig Jr.) is a running gag character, who asks for change but has plenty of dollar bills to spare. Another great character is the hilarious TV star and devoted janitor Stanley Spadowski, played by Michael Richards. This was back before he was Kramer on Seinfeld.

George hosts “Uncle Nutsy’s Clubhouse”. His antics with Bobbo the clown are hilarious. After meeting Mr. Frying Pan, George feeds Bobbo dog treats that are mistaken for butter cookies. “Mmm, that’s good.” I don’t see how any of the children in the bleachers could not laugh.

Throughout the movie, there are creative commercial parodies and promotionals. Some of my most favorites were “Spatula City”, “Conan the Librarian”, “Town Talk with George”, and “Gandhi 2″.

I’ll tell ya. This movie is a real classic. It features a lot of Weird Al Yankovic’s brand of humor with spoofs on TV shows, commercials, live performers, and of course, music. I thought I saw Dr. Demento in the crowd.

It doesn’t end there. Weird Al also had his own TV series on Saturday mornings called The Weird Al Show – The Complete Series (1997-1998), which features important morals as well as the many sides of Weird Al’s creativity. They include things like a TV spot that features comedic channel flips, a snack corner where Weird Al makes repulsive, but creative foods like lima bean cookies, split pea fudge, and chocolate lasagna, and musical performances by special guest stars.

Can it get any better than this? Any word on when Weird Al is releasing a new album?

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In celebration of my 100th post, today’s topic is on one of my all time favorite singers, Weird Al Yankovic. He writes great comedic songs, though many of them are spoofs from other hit songs from many different artists. The music is the same, but the lyrics are still original and all written by Weird Al himself.

I can still remember Weird Al’s first album “Weird Al” Yankovic back in 1983 when I was very young. One of my most favorite songs from that album was “My Bologna” (spoof from “My Sharona”). Even now I still collect his albums. Here are some of his classics in casette tapes.

The fact that Weird Al spoofs many different songs is how I first knew about the “real” versions. Whenever I hear any of those on the radio, the first thing that always comes to mind is the Weird Al version, which is usually better. Let’s face it, many other “real” songs I’ve heard have lyrics that I don’t understand at all, but Weird Al’s lyrics do make sense to me and I find that very helpful. Heck, some of these songs even sound better on the accordion, in my opinion.

As for Weird Al’s music videos over the years, which you can find on Weird Al Yankovic – The Ultimate Video Collection, they are hilarious. There was a time on MTV when some videos are played, then Weird Al shows his version right after each one. Most of the comparisons were very different, with the exceptions of “Fat” and “Eat it” (spoofs of “Bad” and “Beat it”). I can definitely see the strong similarities with those Michael Jackson videos. I’ll tell ya. When it comes to simple gags, Weird Al spares no expense.

Weird Al was once labeled as the Elvis Presley of The Dr. Demento Show. In fact, Dr. Demento himself has made cameos in quite a few of these videos, mainly the older ones.

Weird Al is best known for his Hawaiian shirts, but he’s had many different looks. Of course it’s all based on the song he performs and what artist he’s spoofing. It must be tough going through all of those costume changes for every live concert. Come to think of it, back in 1997 the very first live concert I’ve ever attended was a Weird Al concert. I still have the souvenir T-shirt I got from there. Too bad it doesn’t fit me anymore. It was such a great experience.

That’s it for now. Check my blog for part 2, where I’ll be talking about Weird Al Yankovic in movies and TV.

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The late Michael Jackson has been a huge sensation as the king of pop music for many years.  One of his biggest music videos was the short film Thriller.  The dance numbers in that video is highly memorable for combining zombie poses with Michael’s dance style.  There’s even rap performed by Vincent Price.  Real artistic.

At Spooky Empire 2009, there was a whole group of zombie dancers with a couple of Michael Jackson Cosplay dancers performing the Thriller number.  Despite the iPod that some guy keeps putting in front of my viewpoint, I sure found it enjoyable.  Later that evening, one of the Michael Jackson Cosplay guys performed a medley of Michael’s hit songs on stage.  He was great.

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Michael Jackson has other classic videos also.  Weird Al Yankovic, who is one of my all time favorite singers, made parodies of Bad and Beat it with Fat and Eat it.  They were so funny in comparison.

One other video that stands out is Black or White.  It was around the time when Michael Jackson first got his plastic surgery.  The song itself had a great message about racial diversity.  Macaulay Culkin even makes an appearance from his fame on Home Alone.  Obviously, he was lip-syncing.  Was that Tyra Banks among the morphed images near the end?

I can still remember the other part of that video when it first premiered on cable.  A panther walks outside to an abandoned city street and morphs into Michael Jackson.  He dances fiercely.  Then destroys windows and a car while doing it.  The reason you wouldn’t see this part anymore is because it was deemed too violent.

Another Michael Jackson rarity that I remember was the 3-D movie Captain EO.  It used to be at Disney’s “Epcot Center” Park years ago before it was replaced with Honey, I Shrunk the Audience.  I didn’t fully understand the story line, but I do remember that Captain EO (Michael Jackson) had a group of alien allies, which include Hooter the elephant, Fuzzball the little flying fuzzy creature with a long tail, and some creature with detachable body parts that turn into musical instruments.  I forget his name.  The team performs a dance number before a wicked spider queen called Change the World.  The spider queen’s henchmen join in and eventually she turns into a beautiful woman and joins in.  It sure brings me back.

Michael Jackson’s older videos from the 80s are still some of my favorites.  I would recommend either Number Ones or Michael Jackson – Video Greatest Hits – HIStory which includes the Black or White video in its entirety.


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