Put Down Your Remote Control, Throw out Your TV Guide

Twenty years ago this month saw the release of one of the truly classic movies in cinematic history. No I am not refereeing to Batman, Ghostbusters II, Lethal Weapon 2 or even Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, all of which landed in the top ten grossing movies of that year. I am talking about a movie that may not have even cracked the top one hundred that year, but still manages to be inducted into the Scooter Hall of Fame: UHF starting and written by “Weird Al” Yankovic.

For a decade, Al had been putting smiles on our faces with his witty parodies of songs, so UHF seemed like a natural progression for Al to lampoon movies like Raiders of the Lost Ark (The Last Crusade was the highest grossing film of 1989), television like The Beverly Hillbillies and even commercials like Spatula City. Sadly the film did so poorly; the movie remains the only one he has ever written.

UHF is also noteworthy as it featured a relatively unknown actor named Michael Richards who would later that year get cast as Cosmo Kramer in Seinfeld. No word if Jerry saw UHF and decided to add the simple minded janitor turned children show host to his cast, but I will just go on living my life thinking so.

Naturally being a “Weird Al” vehicle, there was an accompanying album which featured the previously mentioned Beverly Hillbillies which was put to the tune of Money for Nothing by Dire Straits. Tone Loc got his own television twist with the Gilligan’s Island themed Isle Thing. There were even some of the ads from the movies that made it into the soundtrack like the trailer for the action flick Gandhi II. There was also the token food song with R.E.M.’s Stand being converted to Spam and the prerequisite polka set to Rolling Stone tunes.