The Weird Al Says Tweet!

[TMBJon]

Nice, that means Al is signed with Ari Emmanuel!

[Orthography Enthusiast]

Does this mean Jay Levey is out, or does Wm Morris Etc. do something different?

[TMBJon]

Jay Levey is Al's manager, WME is his talent agency.

From Wikipedia: "Agents have the authority to make deals for their clients. Managers establish connections with producers and studios, labels and publishers. They also guide the artist's career."

[Orthography Enthusiast]

Okay, thanks, another question. Do you suppose they took him on as a client because he's become more high-profile lately? A bigger cheese, so to speak?

[TMBJon]

No idea what the motivations were in this case, and I couldn't even begin to speculate. But I will say this: William Morris is by far the biggest and best agency in the entertainment industry, and as I said above, since the merger it is being run by Ari Emmanuel (fictionalized as Ari Gold on the mediocre HBO show "Entourage" by the hilarious Jeremy Piven) (and also, brother of Rahm Emmanuel). Ari has a reputation as being a very aggressive and very successful agent. Having said that, I somehow doubt Ari is personally representing Al, but the agency is a great one to have going to bat for Al given the recent increase in projects he seems to be getting involved in. Especially considering Al was inches away from directing another feature film, I think it is an objectively great development for Al's career that he now has a highly regarded agency representing him.

[JCM]

Wait, Weird Al isn't doing that Cartoon Network movie anymore? What happened?

[Way_Moby]

Wait, Weird Al isn't doing that Cartoon Network movie anymore? What happened?

Read here:

http://alyankovic.wordpress.com/2010/07/06/2010-tour/

[JCM]

It sucks that CN just sent him off like that, but live action content was never suited for the channel, anyway. It's much better now, and I feel that Al would have only contributed to its decline.

[Grom]

Ari Emmanuel

Is he the one mentioned in The War for Late Night? Because, yes, he's extremely aggressive if that's the case. Anyway, this only sounds like a great, positive step for Al and his reputation as a performer.

[TMBJon]

Notable clients of WME