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Caloroga Shark Media. Hey there, I’m Johnny Mack with your daily comedy Deus holiday weekend. Here been sitting on this article from Vulture, Weird Al on the best and most obsessive music of his career. I haven’t actually looked at this song that legitimized Al’s career. Al says, eat It.
Al says, my first album did well enough to merit the record company rolling the dice on album number two. At a couple of minor hits like Ricky I Own That on forty five and I Love Rocky Road. They appeal to I suppose hardcore comedy nerds, but when you add Michael Jackson to the equation, all of a sudden becomes a much bigger fan base. Eat It was an international hit and completely change my life overnight. Now, as we dive in on Weird Al, here and I have other things today, this isn’t a Weird Al episode.
I’ve appreciated the evolution of Al’s musicality over the years, so I’ll just point out right now, when he sings eat It, he does it’s very stylized eat It kind of delivery on the chorus, Whereas if you listen to the more modern stuff he’s using. I assume his natural voice, and Al’s a pretty good singer. Song parody, Al was most nervous to pitch. The saga begins his parody of American Pie about Star Wars. Al, it’s old vulture.
Everybody was telling me there’s no way Don McLean’s gonna prove that he gets approached all the time. He turns everybody down. I’ll figure it. It never hurts to ask weird at song, even for you weird, Al, Al says Jackson Park Express, which is one of my favorites. That’s at one of Al’s favorites, not one of my favorites.
Was the last song on the Mandatory Fun album. It’s about a bus ride, which I thought was a fitting bookend because one of my very first songs was another one rides the bus. Here’s the last song on what was probably my last album, and it’s like the dark side of James Blunts You’re Beautiful. It’s this whole conversation a guy has in his head after sing a woman on the bus gets into some really weird and dark areas. Yeah, I’m sad Al doesn’t make albums anymore.
He puts out the occasional single, but he just kind of stopped and that last album was fantastic. Most surprising response to a parody, Al says, White and Nerdy, which arguably is Al’s masterpiece. I have a weird Al playlist I just made in my phone. Let me pull that up and I kept this tight on purpose. My playlist, weird Al twenty five has Jurassic Park, which is just amazing.
And I’ve been watching the Jurassic Park movie, so it’s been in my head. But that is a great parody of a song called MacArthur Park that I think has gotten largely forgotten. Smells like Nirvana, awesome, great video I lost on Jeopardy on point fat, Amish Paradise, White and Nerdy and Dog Eat Dog. Those are highly puts up.
And now you know, I was also listening to Van Halen.
Got a little clip of run around there from what is that? From Unlawful Carnal Knowledge album. I hate the title of that album. Anyway, back to weird Al, can you tell it’s on holiday weekend? Weird Al said my favorite was Camillionaire, who aided my parody of a song Ride and Dirty.
He came up to me on the Red carpet the Grammys shortly after winning Best Rap Song. He said I was partly responsible for him winning the Grammy because my parody made it undeniable that his was the Rap Song of the Year. Song with the highest stakes, Al says, smells like Nirvana. It was my first comeback, as it were, because my movie UAHF came out in nineteen eighty nine and bombed. I almost did another Michael Jackson parody because I was reaching that point of desperation, and then Nirvana came along.
I was back on MTV and touring again. That was the point when I realized a good, long career has peaks and valleys, and you can’t get too depressed when you’re in a valley or too full of yourself when you’re at the peak. Music video that elevated the medium. Weird Else says Amish Paradise. I’m very proud of the backwards sequence at the end.
I’m certainly not the first person to think of recording something backward for music video, but it was something that took a lot of work and effort to get the logistics figured out. Weird Al’s pitched to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to do the right thing and induct him. I agree, he says. I think if they’re ever going to pick a comedic entry, I’d like to think i’d be considered for that. If they pick another accordion playing parody writer ahead of me, I’d be upset.
Colin Quinn is up in Saratoga, New York. Today. He’ll be doing a benefit for or the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, a nonprofit that helps nine to eleven families, first responders, and military veterans with housing.
Speaking of nine to eleven, I was, so, I’m a New Yorker, and I was in New Yor…
And I was on Fortieth Street. So if you’re a hip to New York City, I don’t want to make it sound like Fortieth Street was across the street from the Twin Towers. And I tried to explain to my kids, you know, you’ll see stuff on the news where like they’ll describe things as like near Times Square, and it might be half a mile from Times Square, which technically is near Times Square, but distances in New York City or Great like if you’re like seven blocks from Times Square, not very far if you’re a bird, But in terms of like New York City ness, that’s a long way away anyway. So I was in New York. I was looking at the towers tell the story for another day.
I was a little not taken aback. But I was just like, oh, okay, watching kill. It’s only the other night when they just dropped some nine to eleven jokes, like it was nothing at Madison Square Garden. But again, there are people who are now. I mean, you know, if you were born in twenty and one, you’re twenty four years old, so you might be thirty and really not have any memory of nine to eleven or a little less than thirty, I guess.
But you know what I’m saying. Just time moves on, Like I don’t cringe when you hear a Pearl Harbor joke or a Kennedy joke. So I get it. But it was just like, oh, all right, it’s twenty twenty five now. Anyway.
Colin Quinn is doing a benefit for the families, he told Saratoga Living. I’ve done tennels of towers, things a lot. It’s a great cause. Everybody from the city knew a few people that died on nine to eleven. That is true.
It’s amazing everybody knew somebody, and also everybody seemed to know someone with a story like, Oh, I was on my way to work, but you know, I stopped at CVS or I normally would have been on that train, but my kid had a back to school thing at eight thirty in the morning. You heard a lot of stories like that. Colin. Do you get in a politic and a set like this? Colin Quinn said, I do.
Everything is politics now. There’s no area that politics doesn’t enter the national conversation because the national conversation is everybody running their mouth online at all times. So whatever you say there is people having an opinion on a lot of my stuff is how we think now because of social media and how insane we all really are. A lot of it is about the space program and AI and stuff like that. Where we’re going as people.
Most people come to see me know I’m not doing a lot of sex jokes or stuff like that. They don’t expect to be in a party atmosphere. I’m not the kind of guy that’s fun for people that are drunk. I’ve never been, and I’m less and less that guy, the older I get. If you want to sit in a very uncomfortable chair with a hardback, laughing intermittently based on your hearing, then I’m one to see.
Do you like Saturday Night Live? We’ll get this one on your radar. For the middle of September, u T Austin’s Harry Ransom Center is hosting live from New York, The Lorne Michaels Connection, a deep dive into fifty years of comedy, satire, and pop culture shaped by Lorne Michaels based on Gary Krueger’s comments the other day, more like forty five years. We’ll see if there’s a Gary Krueger exhibit. This collection is from Lauren Michael’s Stuff and it features annotated scripts, production notes, rare photos, famous props like the cow bell, the Five Timers Club jacket, Sinead O’Connor’s Ripped Pope photo, and costumes from Matt Foley and The Church Lady.
It’s free. It runs through March twentieth of next year. It kicks off with a student faculty preview on September nineteenth. Coffee and snacks included for those guys not for you. You can’t get in till September twentieth.
Well, unless you’re a student you’re listening to me, in which case Hi. Conan O’Brien was on the back to the Best podcast. I’m not familiar with that one. He was asked about the first major celebrity party he attended. Conan said it was the SNL fifteenth anniversary, which happened when Conan was in his twenties.
We are all getting old, he said, that was my first time seeing an insane number of celebrities in one small space. Prince was there and he’d just done the Batman soundtrack. I remember being in a crowded hallway and he was standing right next to me, the most perfect looking person he’d ever seen in your life. Conan also remembered John bon Jovi came to an SNL party when he was the biggest thing in the world. It was like nineteen eighty eight and he came and I remember he’s wearing like a Buckskin cool outfit, just so cool.
Brad Williams is going to be working on a special He wants people to come out and help him try out his new material. As for inspiration for bits, he said, I never know what’s going to strike me. My years are always open, he said. Each show is different. If you saw me a year ago, it’s a different show.
But he won’t talk politics. I don’t like half the audience to hate me based on who I voted for. So I want to make sure everyone, no matter who you voted for it can come out and have a good time and kind of escape that after trying out material. He said, that’s the beautiful part of stand up crowds. You don’t know if it works until you try it out.
Mighty bomb, it definitely happens. I have friends who are like, what if you bomb, You’re going to bomb. I’ve been doing it long enough. I look at as a math problem two plus two to equal fortnite. I don’t get mad.
I just kind of go back to the lab and figure it out. Sabashion Maniscalco is gonna get off of the road, and what’s he gonna do? He said, I’m gonna get back into golf. He told bill Board. I went golfing.
I did it in Las Vegas and I was performing there. I want to do some golfing, and then I’m taking my mother to Italy for her eightieth birthday. She always wanted to go to the Amalfi Coast, so we’re taking you there. Then. I definitely want I start cooking again because it’s very relaxing for me.
I’ve got so many recipes that I’ve saved on Instagram that I want to try out. Everybody likes. When I make steak, people go, well, how hard is it to make steak? You just cook it? But I put it in the oven for write this down everybody, forty five minutes.
At two seventy five, I let it rest for fifteen minutes. I do a see er two minutes on each side, just a good helping of pepper and salt on it. No sauce, no nothing. I just started making mashed potatoes, which turned out fantastic when I had a little garlic, which wasn’t on the recipe. Nothing where it’d be like, oh I do this thing where it takes the eight hours to prepare.
I’ll do a pasta dish with oil and some garlic and a little parsley on top, cheese, maybe a little Bronzino salt, pepper stick in the oven, squeeze little lemon or oil on it. Simple. That’s your comedy news for Today, normal episode tomorrow. You know, the foot’s not all the way on the gas on a holiday weekend, you know what I’m saying, And especially it’s a slow news week type of year. But this was fun.
See tomorrow