The Weird Al Show

The Weird Al show was a children's show that ran in 1997. Shout Factory was generous to release the full season (only season) of the parodist "Weird Al" Yankovic. This show is great for his fans and parents with children for something good to watch. People who dislike Al or never heard of him will probably not want to watch this; haters is going to hate.

CBS wanted Al to make it a children's show or keep it clean that Al have to abide to. Al did a great job abiding to the children's theme, but he probably wanted more creative control.

As for the show, it has great educational pointers for situation adhering to the children's demographic. With great guests including his mother and his friends like Judy Tenuta and music guest like Barenaked Ladies and Hanson. But the show was okay, but not to Al standards. Have you been to his concerts? He is over the top. There are some good shows, my favorite is Talent Show (with a funny Flintstone's skit). And there are some watered down episodes that just dragged like the last episode "Al gets robbed." What a sad way to end a show, bet Al was happy when it did.

With being said I bet if it had controlled by Al himself I give it a 7, 8 or 9-10. But I respectfully hand out a 6 of 10, which is fair grade. And I am a fan of Al, and I understand what he had to go through make the Weird Al show.

"The Weird Al Show" only lasted for 13 episodes. I think the biggest reason for this is that the audience for such a show was probably rather small to begin with and the network's moving the show around didn't help any. Now I like Weird Al--and even went to his concert a few months back. BUT, his weird and surreal humor just isn't the sort of thing that will appeal to most adults. And, as far as kids go, it would appeal to the strange kids out there (like me when I was young) but just couldn't compete with corporate programming. It was was too different and filled with bizarre skits and unusual guest stars--much of which would have gone over the heads of many kids.

My feeling is that before you try watching the show, get copy of Al's "UHF". It's somewhat like the show but with more polish and the skits are far less hit or miss. Then, once you know whether or not you like this sort of strange humor, find the DVDs and watch away. Overall a very good show but a definite niche show.

Pretty funny in general, but probably a couple of things sunk it. It was (I guess) a CBS kid's morning show, but CBS didn't bother to really include it on their Saturday morning schedule. So the affiliates that did air it showed it in dozens of different time slots.

Also, it had to be rated as "educational programming" (the "EE" or whatever), so there was always some message. Although Al managed to pretty end up parodying that every week, too.

The main problem was that folks probably didn't get it. Unlike Pee Wee Herman when Playhouse came out, Weird Al was already pretty well established. Those who didn't like him avoided the show, meaning it was basically his fans tuning in. Along with the mobile time slotting, that probably accounted for its departure after a year. Which is a shame, but there you go.

I miss this show it was funny, I loved the parodies of the milk ads and TV shows like Sabrina, The Teenage Fish and Mummy and Daddy, and the 50% Chance of Rain,Fatman,Harvery the Hamster and Fred Higgans, which were all hilarious i get cracked up just thinking about them also I don't remember the musical guests and there were also weird regulars, and the parodies of those 50's school film It's kind of like Pee-Wee's Playhouse only crazier. My cousin (who is 30 something year old guy) thought it was interesting because where he lived it came on before a farming program.

Why this show was cancelled so quick is beyond me. Oh yeah... the ratings. Well it's not the show's fault, it was the time slot (it was on at 8:30am on Saturdays where I live). This show was great nontheless with its take on the kid show genre in general. I still love the Bill Nye parody where everyone is singing "The Grass is Green" (you have to see it to understand) and the 80% Chance of Rain (a spoof on disaster movies). I hope they release these on tape sometime soon.