Yank Blog

In the not-too-distant future, next Sunday, A.D., there was a guy named Al. He was weirder than you or me….

And the folks at Rifftrax asked him if he’d like to add some commentary to their upcoming version of “Jurassic Park” to which Al said “ummm, sure”. What is Rifftrax? Well, Do you remember that show Mystery Science Theater 3000 where Joel (or Mike) and his two wise cracking robots were made to watch really bad movies and poke fun of it all the way through? Well, this is the next version of that. It’s like DVD commentaries, but intentionally funny. For the moment, this is really only a rumor, but it’s coming from a reliable source. So that’s basically the deal. Al will be a guest “riffer” providing commentary with a few other robots people. Perhaps he will tell them where to stick it! More details will be posted as it becomes available.

1/31 Update: Well, it’s now official. The track will be Al with Mike Nelson and will be available for purchase starting on Feb 5th.

If you are in the Hollywood area this weekend, you may want to wander over to the Steve Allen Theater for their holiday sing-a-long show. It promises to be fun and entertaining with some extra special guests.

The Steve Allen Theater and Courgette Records are proud to present actor/comedian Harry Shearer (The Simpsons, Le Show) and his wife, critically acclaimed singer/songwriter and humorist Judith Owen, in an evening of holiday music and mirth. The evening unites Christmas-lovers and Scrooges alike, in traditional and nontraditional holiday music, part performance, part sing-along. Both reverent and irreverent…a perfect kick-off to the holiday season featuring surprise special guests, including Jill Sobule and The Bobs!

Ok, so Harry Shearer would be cool to see, but so what? So WHAT?! So what if you knew that Al was scheduled to be one of those super secret special guests! That’s so what! Can you imagine seeing Al doing a sing-a-long with Harry Shearer live and on stage? Probably, but your imagination also probably sucks compared to seeing it live! What are you waiting for?! GO! GO! GO!

Tickets are available on the website for either the Friday or Saturday show, both at 8pm, for $25.

Thanks to anonymous tipster, UHJeff, who passed along this joyous bit of news.

Recently, the following conversation took place:

Torsoboy: Huh, we still haven’t posted a news item about Al in the Transfromers.
HappySteve: Transformers? What are you talking about?
Torsoboy: I dunno. Our friend Devo was telling us that Al is … oh here, according to this entry on IMDb, Al will be providing the voice of Wreck-Gar in the upcoming new Transformers animated series or something.
HappySteve: Huh. I hadn’t heard about that. Any idea when it will debut?
Torsoboy: The folks who edit Wikipedia seem to think it will be next spring… they also tend to think that Atlantic Records sucks. I read that somewhere.
HappySteve: We should probably tell people about this.
Torsoboy: Eh, I’m too lazy to post about it.

So why is Seth Green mentioned in a blog about “Weird Al”. Oh no reason except for the first line of an article which reads:

You know you’re a geek when you’re asked to speak on ”Weird Al” Yankovic’s upcoming A&E Biography profile.

Yeah, so um, apparently A&E is doing a Biography on our pal Al and giving him the respect he deserves. Since this is the most news we have about it, don’t go askin “Well when oh when oh WHEN!?”. Because like when you ask “Who is it?” when some big, fat hermaphrodite with a Flock of Seagulls haircut, and only one nostril comes knocking at your door… there is no answer. YET!

Thanks again to UHJeff for finding the info and passing it along.

Rumors are that Steve Cochran on Chicago’s WGN radio is interviewing Al this afternoon at 5:38pm Central Daylight Time. Aww, but maybe you don’t live in Chicago, and you’re thinking “Wow, this would be great, but how am I supposed to listen to it?” Well, WGN is one of the largest AM radio stations around, and it can be heard in MANY MANY states on 720AM. Oh, that’s not good enough for you? Ok then. You can just go over to WGNRadio.com and listen online, provided you have realplayer installed and a computer…which if you are reading this, you are either a time traveler from the past who has come to the future searching for bacon flavored ice cream (sorry, go forward another 30 years) or you already have a computer. Tell your friends and tune in!

Hey, remember a few years ago when Al was on the Simpsons? It went something like this

Well, if E! Online can be believed, there may be another appearance..(or two?) next season.

Springfield is once again going Hollywood, with a slew of guest stars lining up to lend their voices to The Simpsons’ 19th season. Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, the latter as a life coach, make their first ‘tooned out appearance on the show, while Frasier men Kelsey Grammer, David Hyde Pierce and John Mahoney reteam for an episode. Lionel Richie, Topher Grace, Weird Al Yankovic, Steve Buscemi, Matt Dillon, Dan Rather, Maya Rudolph, Placido Domingo and Weird Al Yankovic have also signed up for the yellow treatment.

Apparently they like him so much, they mentioned him twice, or the appearance will be extra weird.

In case you never saw the full episode of “Three Gays of the Condo”, it’s available on The Simpsons - Kiss and Tell: The Story of Their Love DVD set.

Extra thanks to UHJeff for reporting this.

Wind up your radios everyone. Roving reporter, UHJeff, has let us know that Y-Rock on WXPN in Philadelphia will let our pal Al take over their radio airwaves this Friday. It even says so on their page:

Straight outta Lynnwood and onto XPN, “Weird Al” Yankovic sits down with fellow “white & nerdy” guy Joey O. this Friday night before taking over the radio station. The premier music parodist picked almost two hours worth of music and it all starts at 8pm this Friday, May 18th. Tune in at 88.5 XPN, 88.5 HD-2 and online at YRockonXPN.org. And listen to Y-Rock all week long for chances to win tickets for Weird Al’s August 15th show at the Keswick Theater before they become available this Thursday!

See that everyone? You can even listen online! That’s pretty cool. It sure saves most of us that annoying hassle of having to pack up everything (including my big leather suitcase and my garment bag and my tenor saxophone and my 12-pound bowlin’ ball and my lucky, lucky autographed glow-in-the-dark snorkel) and move to Philly for just a few hours.

Bad news for folks who got their tickets to see Weird Al at the the Amphitheatre at Sandcastle on July 7th. According to this press release the amphitheater will not open this year. Therefore, look for an official announcement soon that this show will be canceled. At the moment, it’s unknown if another date in the area would be scheduled. When similiar situations have happened in the past, there was usually a rescheduling in the area. There is also unconfirmed information that once the ticket agent is officially notified about the cancellation, they will email all ticket buyers about how to get refunds.

Of course, if you don’t want to worry about “If and when” a show will be in the Pittsburgh area, you can use the handy dandy fancy schmancy Concert Finder on Yankovic!. If you have your tickets, don’t forget to login to Upcoming.org and tell people you’re going! It’ll increase you’re “cool level” by twenty three points!

Ha! You thought it was going to be twenty seven points! Hmm, you’ll have to find some other way to earn those four extra points.

Ooh look. There’s another one of those desktop wallpaper calendar things available over at Al-oholics Anonymous. This month it’s a wonderful moment from the film UHF. These calendars are hand picked each month from entries in the create-a-calendar contest. However, there have been no entires for the past few months. It’s fun and easy to do. You don’t need to be a great artist or anything. Just scan a picture you have, add the calendar and logo and you’re ready to go! Look at the past winners to get some ideas. Of course, to submit, you’ll need to follow a few simple rules. And if you don’t have any software to create such works of art, then go download GIMP. It’s free for everyone! Good luck!

UPDATE: The calendar has been corrected with the right days. Thanks for catching that April Fools prank that was completely unintentional!

Thanks to the many emails we received about Al’s recent appearance on NPR’s Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! show. Well, appearance is not the right word since it’s radio…and he just called in for it, but he was on in any case. You can just surf on over to the episode website and listen to the full show or just Al’s time on it. Apparently, he really know his Pia Zadora trivia.

As a quick reminder, while many people are making Super Bowl plans, they’re overlooking making GRAMMY Night plans. The Grammys are handed out a week after the Super Bowl, and Al’s up for Best Comedy Album with Straight Outta Lynwood. If you organize any parties, be sure to spread the mayonaise on the lawn!