Very Good Post, This Will Be

Today's song: Yoda by Weird Al

Alright now, this song is Jason's second request.  Jason has made good choices, challenging, but good.  It is hard to know what to do with this one because there are so many different  directions you could go.  I decided it would be interesting to talk about the parallels between Weird Al and Star Wars.  By interesting, i mean interesting to me.

Star Wars was a big part of my formative early years.  I was seven when it came out, ten for Empire, and thirteen for Jedi.  Weird Al came to my attention when i was fourteen.  Each would play a big part of my teen age and college years. 

Ok so, back when MTV still played videos, they would on occasion run something they called Al TV.  The premise of the show is that Yankovic uses his private satellite transmitter to commandeer the airwaves of a music video station in order to show the videos that he wants to watch. (Thanks Wikipedia)There were eight such specials between 1984 and 1999.  Al is a funny guy and he really got to shine here.  I would always make sure to tune into Al TV, even if i had to tape it. (You remember VHS, right?)

Alright now, I like sci fi so naturally i like Star Wars, even though my adult brain now recognizes that Star Wars is really fantasy and not sci fi.  For the longest time those three movies were the gold standard for special effects, and i do love special effects.  I read the Timothy Zahn novels and they rekindled my interest in the franchise.  Then disaster struck.  Lucas finally got around to making the prequels.

I think 1999 was a bad year for both Star Wars and Weird Al.  Episode one sucked.  And Lucas just like he did the first time around found a way to outdo himself with each of the next two movies.  Jar Jar is probably the best thing about Episode 2.  In 1999 Weird Al released Running with Scissors.  It was not his best work.  Throughout the nineties Weird Al's music became less appealing.  Rather than great parodies like Fat and Theme to Rocky XIII we got angry songs about women.  Maybe Al was going through something like getting dumped.

The decline for Lucus was brought on by his desire to not be Tolkien.  This is my opinion, but my opinions have perfect truth value.  I base this on his obvious desire to destroy a franchise my generation held dear.  Lucas conducted an interview in which he discussed people visiting the grave of Tolkien with disapproval.  He clearly did not want that to happen to him.  On Ewoks, he said something like the only people that didn't like Ewolks were guys in their thirties with too much time on their hands.  I was a guy in my thirties with too much time on my hands, this was the franchise's fanbase.

Ok so, we have two important cultural artifacts form my youth that became tarnished over time.  Once great and much beloved, both Star Wars and Weird Al became irrelevant to me in this century.  But there is one important distinction.  Like Darth Vader and unlike George Lucas, Weird Al would go on to redeem himself.  In 2006 Weird Al made, White and Nerdy.  The song became Yankovic's first career Top 10 hit on the Billboard Hot 100, a record 23 years after his first appearance on the Hot 100 chart with "Ricky" in 1983. It peaked at #9, beating his previous #12 peak for 1984's "Eat It". This was also his first Top 40 single since 1992's "Smells Like Nirvana". (Thanks again Wikipedia)  I won't go into detail with this song as i reserve the option of giving it its on post before the month is done, no promises.

Well this has been interesting, at least for me.  If Jason wants he may feel free to explain the private joke contained within this post.  Rick probably could too, if he wanted.  If only i could put in stomp sound effects, but alas i am not savvy enough .  The facebook lyric was for Kris.

Later

Bob