It's not that bleak at the stores around me, but I do know what you mean. With the exception of the one Suncoast by me that has a really hip manager and put "UHF" in their front "featured" section, you have to do some real searching to find it in a store.
It's very easy to find around here too. Just about every music or video store I've been in has multiple copies of it. You don't have to search hard for it, either. Most of the times it was in in the comedy section under "U" where it belonged. In some Suncoasts it was even on the front rack as you walk in.
Of course, the one time I wanted to buy a copy of it, we looked forever for it. It was at a Wiz, the week it was onsale. We went through all the DVD racks and discount bins, and I asked an employee who looked it up on his computer and said there was 19 copies of it in the store. So now he's determined to find it too. He asked a few others to look too until someone realized that "UHF" was a new release and new releases are downstairs on this tiny little rack hidden somewhere in the DVD player section of the store!
I am so glad you got your UHF! PLEASE tell me that you know about the hidden features (easter eggs). If not, you gotta check 'em out. Al certainly put a LOT of work into that DVD! THANK YOU AL! I know you did it for us (the fans). What a guy!
Al certainly put a LOT of work into that DVD! THANK YOU AL! I know you did it for us (the fans). What a guy!
He certainly did! Yes, I think I have seen all of them. I love when he is showing the outtakes and he said something to the effect of "I had to put these in here or else you'd get all whiny, I know you!" You KNOW he was talking to us! LOL. Yep, what a guy, indeed. That's the biggest thing I like about our boy. He is an all around good egg.
Thanks Al. BTW, did I mention? I can't wait for the new album!
I found a quote from Al regarding UHF that I thought was pretty interesting...
QUOTE » YANKOVIC TALKS \"UHF\" \"Weird Al\" Yankovic was closely involved with creating the special features for MGM's long awaited UHF: Special Edition and he recently had a few comments on the upcoming release: \"Producer Greg Carson and I went through a mountain of slides that MGM had hidden away to find a couple hundred really cool ones to use in the photo gallery,\" Yankovic said. \"Plus, there's a nice little \"making of\"
documentary, basically an edited-down version of the electronic press kit that was produced at the time the movie was being shot. The behind-the-scenes cameras were only there for a few days, so they only covered a few things -- but we get to see the making of \"Wheel of Fish\" and the Indiana Jones sequence, which is fun. There's a 20-minute feature on the deleted scenes which I host, and a full running commentary with myself and director Jay Levey. As it turns out, Jay Levey wound up not saying very much on it -- he warned me ahead of time that that might be the case -- so I basically came prepared with every anecdote and factoid I could remember or dig up about the film. The commentary is chock-full of useless trivia, like the names of people who auditioned for the movie and were turned down (only to become big-name stars) and the street addresses of virtually every location we shot at in Tulsa. Plus -- you may not know this -- but UHF got some bad reviews when it first came out, and I read them all over the closing credits. If you're a fan of the movie, I think you'll find it fascinating -- if you're not, it's probably way too much information, but then why are you listening to the commentary track anyway?\" Yankovic also hinted that there would be some surprise guests on the commentary track, but would not say if one of them would be his UHF co-star, Seinfeld's Michael Richards. \"I won't say, because then it wouldn't be a surprise, would it?\" As for the deleted scenes, \"(those) were taken from a VHS tape that I've had in my closet since 1989 -- that's the only copy that exists -- but really, considering the source, they look surprisingly good. And the reason they were taken out of the movie is because, well, they just weren't all that funny. But if we didn't have deleted scenes on the DVD, the fans would just go insane, and we can't have that now, can we?
Yankovic credits the fans for convincing MGM to finally put the film out on DVD. \"I know there was a big grassroots campaign among the fans to get this movie on DVD. It's really got a cult-like following, so I think MGM may have been badgered into finally putting this thing out,\" he said. UHF is due for release on June 4th.
And bonus points because they spelled his name right!
I am encouraged to roll up my sleeves and start pestering the powers that be to get off the stick and give us TWAS on DVD!
Well, in the case of DVD regions, it's all a marketing thing. Since a movie is released throughout the world at different times of the year, a studio wouldn't want someone in, for example, France to buy an imported DVD from America before that movie opens in French theaters or appears on a French retail shelf.
If you ask me, DVD region-coding is just redundant since the differences among all the TV color systems (NTSC, PAL, SECAM, etc.) already limit the number of countries from which a person can buy videos or discs to watch.
And frankly, cracking a DVD region is a LOT easier than copying a PAL video into NTSC.
