This Thanksgiving, thank Weird Al for UHF

Ultra Hilarious Film

Many people have lots of things to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. The fact that stores are extending Black Friday into Thanksgiving, parents, lists of things to be thankful for, and the deliciousness of cookie dough. All of these things will probably rank high up there on many people's lists of things to be thankful for. But what am I most thankful for? That “Weird” Al Yankovic graced us with UHF over 20 years ago.

UHF was my first journey into truly bizarre humor. When you combine the parody with the... unique characters, you're not going to get a whole lot of sense out of it. But therein lies the logic of UHF. Everything is bizarre to make everything normal.

This is the perfect movie for any time, any occasion. Feel like watching “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and “Rambo” but don't want to go through the arduous process of loading up two discs? Bam, UHF. Get attacked by a poodle? Bam, UHF. Cable goes out? BAM, UHF (that one gets all caps, because it has two meanings).

I hate eating fish and everything that goes with it. But if given the opportunity, I'd go on “Wheel of Fish” without even giving it a second thought. I might seriously undervalue what I won (Ohhhh, this 881 pound tuna is kind of large. That's neat... I should have taken the box), but to get to hang out with Kuni would make it all worth it.

I remember when I was five years old and didn't really understand the concept of a VHS. I walked past my parents as they watched the “This Weekend on U62” portion of the movie. 

The shows they were previewing looked insanely cool, especially in my Pop Rock-addled five-year-old mind. If they had gone ahead with a full-on version of Conan the Librarian, I'd imagine there'd be a knockout battle between Conan and someone who un-Deweys the decimal system. Needless to say, whenever he swords someone, there'd be explosions.

When I tried turning to U62 that weekend, my TV didn't go that high. I picked up some weird religious stuff on the later channels (13) but that wasn't anywhere near the requisite 62. I imagine my parents were heartbroken when they had to tell me those promos were for fake shows.

But if we had more programming executives like George Newman, we'd have more watchable shows. If he weren't a fake guy turning out parody shows, the world would be a better place. I consider myself a heavy consumer of TV programs, and even I only watch about 15 shows a week. And since I am not an octagenarian, none of these programs come off of the CBS schedule.

This paves the way for an easy solution, have George Newman run CBS. I realize the inherent problems of having a fictional character run a real TV station, but has anyone ever met so-called CBS President Les Moonves? I rest my case. Having a fictional George Newman running CBS is no different than having a fictional Moonves at the reins. And one is much more Weird Al-infused.

Just imagine a CSI-budgeted version of Bowling for Burgers. There'd probably be big time special effects and shots from the burger's point of view. Or maybe a version of “Two and a Half Men” that's actually funny. That might seem like a tall order, but having the public buy all of the station's stock to pay off George's Uncle's gambling debt was quite the tall order to. Oh, 20 year old spoiler alert.

So, as all of you gather around your Thanksgiving turkey today, raise a drumstick in Weird Al's general direction (West by Southeast) and think him for creating such a fine contribution to American cinema.