Shark Bytes

There wasn't much of a show to be able to actually jump the shark.
It either started out odd or was ok.
But this show was a little bit of both. It was good to start out with, but the ideas were always watered down with the constant lessons the network forced on it.

It would be a good show, if, you know, it wasn't a kids Saturday morning show and there were no lessons.

The show was hilarious, but the guys at CBS forced Al to act like an idiot in every show, and never let him act like the intelligent guy he is in real life. He got straight-A's all throughout grade school, but you wouldn't know it if this is the only thing you watched with Al in it. The reason this show was cancelled was because CBS decided to cancel the entire Saturday morning block and show cartoons instead. Also, the only promotions they did for the show was during Saturday mornings, when, as it turns out, NOBODY was watching! The only reason I got to see the show was that I got the DVD set as a birthday present. The show needs to be rebooted with a different format on a different network. The show was never given the chance it deserved.

al needs to get that show back it was the awesomest thing ever

Another case of how CBS f'ed up another decent kids show, by forcing Weird Al Yankovic to be "educational" (due to some weenie BS rule saying we have to learn while watching cartoons....feh!) Poor Al never stood a chance. Still, he was able to keep at least some of his trademark bizarre humor. Unfortunately, not enough. Still, this show badly deserves a DVD release.

I, too, grew up with Weird Al. I discovered him around 1981-82 when he was still sending unreleased tapes of his parodies to the Dr. Demento Show! But, like other posters, I have to say that "The Weird Al Show" jumped from day one. This was a "woulda-coulda-shoulda" deal for Weird Al. As others have said, he couldn't really be himself; the FCC passed a law around '96/'97 which said that all TV stations had to show at least three hours of "educational" programs if they wanted to keep their licenses, and that cartoons didn't count--this is a similar process to how radio stations are sometimes required to air so many hours of "community affairs" types of interview programs as a condition of keeping their licenses. I live in Northern Indiana, and the long-running "Bozo The Clown" show (from WGN-TV in Chicago) had to be altered (read: watered down) to satisfy the FCC's "educational" standards (i.e., no more Bozo cartoons, sketches with Bozo recommending books to read, films of Bozo visiting museums, etc). But I digress. Weird Al himself once said that on one show, he wanted to make a reference to Yoko Ono, but the powers-that-be put a kibosh on that, saying that kids "wouldn't know who Yoko Ono is." Weird Al's defense to this asinine excuse was "even if the kids DON'T know who Yoko Ono is, they can, and in many cases probably will, ask their parents who she is." But the network didn't buy that, and the show suffered accordingly. To the poster above who asked about the show Al did with Dr. Demento: I vaguely remember a ninety-minute Saturday night special called "The Funzone" that aired in the summer of '84 (Dr. D. plugged it briefly on that previous weeks' Dr. Demento radio show). I seem to remember most of the acts being circus/stunt-oriented (one involved some jugglers) and I recall that Al sang "I Lost On Jeopardy" live (with Jim West, Steve Jay and Jon "Bermuda" Schwartz backing him as they normally do). Dr. Demento himself only made a couple of appearances here and there, announcing the acts and breaks to commercials. The parts I remember were pretty funny, which "The Weird Al Show" was (usually) not, but I BELIEVE that this "Funzone" show may have only been intended as a one-time affair. Maybe those who remember the show better than me can answer this question more sufficiently, but whatever the case, Weird Al rules, and I just want to give a rest-in-peace message to Al's parents, who as many here may have heard, tragically died when their home filled up with carbon monoxide. Let's all wish Weird Al the best of luck in dealing with this tragedy. PEACE!

An example of the FCC interfering with creative control at its worst. I feel sorry for the guy, because I can see how this could have been great if CBS and the FCC had just let him be Weird Al. Still, the show had a few gems. Check out Al's complete music video collection on DVD, it contains a few of the better moments of this show, including a great partial music video of "Lasagna." By the way, has anyone heard of a short-lived TV show that Al and Dr. Demento had in the 80s? From what I understand, it was a summer special that NBC aired in between seasons of SNL, but more importantly, it was a Weird Al show done right.

I think it jumped when Al found that there was a man plastered into his bedroom wall. EEWWW.

A show with Weird Al just doing his thing, how can that jump? I loved those skits where he had fake instructional videos. I'll never forget when Harvey the Wonder Hamster beat up Randy "Macho Man" Savage, true classic that the idiots at CBS will never get.

Weird Al planned to have a big crazy show but CBS forced it to be educational to FCC standards. Al admitted he did not like it, and his ALTV specials prove he is indeed the funniest man in music business.

I think the world will be better off as soon as Al decides to GIVE IT UP altogether. His own show was the epitome of desperate programming.

This show jumped before it even aired! The guy tries to be funny, but he's just a dork looking for an audience! What the hell was this show about, anyhow? You'd think television would rise to a higher level then this, but NO! Crap like this still stays on the air, clinging to the ass of producers and writers who don't know what the f**k they're trying to do! I'm glad it only lasted a season or two.

I'm a long-time worshipper of the Al-Mighty. I've followed Him from childhood well into my adult years (I'm 30 now) and even I have to admit that The Weird Al show was a misfire. It jumped on Day One. It's not the first time Al went astray (I'm thinking of the Disney Channel concert, which might as well have been renamed The Compleat UHF, since it borrowed heavily from Al's previous full-length efforts). It probably won't be His last misstep -- being prolific means you birth a few clunkers from time to time. The Weird Al show wasn't worthless; it just didn't set out to do anything Pee Wee hadn't already done better. Apart from CBS' suicidal time slot (it aired Sunday Mornings at an inhumanly early hour in my region), the show didn't reach out to Al's core audience which typically ranges in age from 10 to 100. The show seemed aimed at pre-schoolers yet the humor was older. Older, but not focused. The kindergarten mentality and the show's syrupy "lessons" made the show hard to sit through if you were over 10. So in the end, the show appealed to NOBODY. I don't buy that the FCC and CBS were solely responsible for the show's meandering content. Someone with an active hand in Al's career could have -- nay SHOULD have -- conceived a show with an educational focus on ... MUSIC! The history of music -- the flavors -- the wide variety of instruments -- the countries of origin. I can't think of anyone better than Al to introduce kids to the many styles of music available today. Ah well -- spilt milk now. To summarize, roughly an hour and a half of entertaining footage could be culled from the entire series, and maybe Al will compile the decent gags into a DVD someday. If not, once and future Al fans who didn't wake up early enough to see the show can rest easy knowing that they didn't miss much. In some ways, they're better off, since I found myself uttering "poor Al" so many times during the show's run, I stopped taping the episodes ... out of respect for His greatness.

I never noticed this show jumping the shark myself. I guess Weird Al on the small screen isn't a sailable commodity. It made me laugh every time I watched the show. "To make my favorite snack, simply pour your favorite brand of India ink on a banana and dip it in sour cream. (takes a bite) Blech! This is my LEAST favorite brand of India Ink!"

Hey, don't blame Al for things he couldn't control, alright? Al didn't want patronizing storylines or overused moral lessons, the FCC did. (And, yes, the lessons are overused. Kids aren't stupid. When 20 shows they watch all tell them not to fight or to "borrow without asking", they don't need 200 more with the same lessons.) Thankfully, Al was able to get some of his bizarre humor on the show. And, hey, CBS, the Completely Braindead Station, what moron exec made the ludicrously idiotic decision to cancel your ENTIRE Sat. morning schedule?! Now you've got nothing but Letterman & Kilborn to interest me. (plus the occasional re-airing of "Joan of Arc") I'll never understand why good shows like this get cancelled while absolute junk (Degrassi) gets to stay on the air. I wish I had an eyeball chair. Ooohhhh, this is a story 'bout a guy named Al, & he lived in a sewer with his hamster pal...

Weird Al never jumped (he DID try to throw Harvey the Wonderhamster, though). Besides, he had Barenaked Ladies on the show!