Comedy Central Special, DVD/Blu-Ray Release

[Yankomaniac]

They might just show the whole medley, its not that long.

[RyanHippFTW]

Yeah, 1/4 of the special's running time is definitely not that long.

[Yankomaniac]

Haha, you little wisenheimer. It's a pretty important part of the show, and the best part IMO.

[crazygurl14]

Went ahead and pre-ordered this for my self for my birthday in a few days. Excited to see this now!!

[FredHuggins]

Okay, I know EVERYONE has already tried to predict the Comedy Central edit of this, but it still hasn't aired yet, so screw it, I'm throwing in my two cents as well.

Here's what we have to remember: Comedy Central airs hour-long comedy specials all the time, usually from stand-up comics. Some comedians at certain levels of stature (Patton Oswalt and Louis C.K. for example) spend years on the road preparing new material for their next Comedy Central special/album, after which they retire ALL that material and start from scratch, since the punchlines are no longer surprises. So it would be in Al's best interest, I think, to fill the televised special with as many newer songs, and as few "golden classics," as possible. He hasn't had a televised concert special in twelve years, so it would kinda look bad if he did Nirvana, Amish, Fat, Saga Begins and Yoda on a basic cable channel that offers four brand-new Daily Show episodes a week. It would almost look like he hadn't come up with a full hour's worth of new material since the '90s. This is Comedy Central, not VH1, so they might not take too kindly to a greatest hits compilation.

Basically, if I had any influence whatsoever over the CC edit (which will probably be around 42 minutes long, given the usual amount of commercials per hour CC airs), here's what I would push for (some of these running times have 5-10 seconds added for audience response, to bring them all to nice round numbers):

Opening (0:45)
Polka Face! (5:00)
TMZ (3:45)
Skipper Dan (4:00)
Party in the CIA (3:00)
CNR (3:30)
Let Me Be Your Hog (1:00)
Canadian Idiot (2:30)
Wanna B Ur Lovr (6:30)
Craigslist (5:00)
Perform This Way (3:00)
White & Nerdy (3:00)
Closing credits (1:00)
TOTAL: 42:00 EXACTLY!

THIS is my prediction and I'm sticking with it. It's perfect - a nice balance of parodies and originals, leaning towards the newer material. Lots of well-known crowd-pleasers, with a few slightly less-well-known songs here and there. The only pre-2000s song is Let Me Be Your Hog, which Al frames in such a way that it almost counts as a piece of new material. And yeah, I know over half of those songs are from Alpocalypse, but...well, the special IS called "Weird Al" Yankovic: The Alpocalypse Tour.

Also, here's my take on why Frank's 2000" TV, You Make Me and You Don't Love Me Anymore are being presented as DVD/Blu-Ray extras, rather than part of the concert: DVDs of Comedy Central hour-long live specials (especially those put out by Comedy Central itself) ALWAYS have "deleted scenes" from the concert in question as bonus materials. It's like their corporate policy or something. Sometimes these are outtakes or bloopers, or bits where the comedian loses his train of thought and just starts improvising and screwing around. But whenever a comedian DOESN'T do any of that, Comedy Central takes the less-funny bits and makes them extras anyway, to artificially increase the number of extras and give the product more of a "selling point" that DVDs need in these days of downloads and streaming. There may well come a point where you can stream this concert DVD on Netflix or something, but it will be the 90-minute DVD edit without the bonus features, so Comedy Central needs to give consumers reasons to ACTUALLY BUY THE FREAKIN DVD. And since F2KTV, YMM and YDLMA aren't TERRIBLY well-known songs (they're basically Al pandering to the hardcore fans like us; you'll notice, they NEVER get as big an audience reaction as his more well-known stuff) they were the most logical choice to shuffle off into extras purgatory. It kinda sucks, but hey, at least we can still watch them.

[weirdojace]

You bring up good points. The TV edit will most likely be something like that.

[TMBJon]

Fred, you have a good thesis but I do think Wanna B Ur Lovr would probably be scrapped in favor of maybe Amish Paradise and either Fat or Yoda. I don't think they would scrap the old hits altogether, and plus there needs to be some kind of big ending to the show rather than just abruptly ending the special without Al saying goodbye. Add in the fact that the credits will probably roll over the end of the last song, and there's plenty of space to add in two hits instead of WBUL.

[crazygurl14]

Have they begun showing commercials for this yet? I don't watch that channel a lot but i had it on for a second yesterday and just saw the commercial for the Charlie Sheen Roast. I guess if they arent showing it yet they probably will after the roast airs.

[TMBJon]

Right, all of the on air promos will be for the Sheen roast for the next week or so. After that, I bet they will start airing the Weird Al promos.

[FredHuggins]

Fred, you have a good thesis but I do think Wanna B Ur Lovr would probably be scrapped in favor of maybe Amish Paradise and either Fat or Yoda. I don't think they would scrap the old hits altogether, and plus there needs to be some kind of big ending to the show rather than just abruptly ending the special without Al saying goodbye. Add in the fact that the credits will probably roll over the end of the last song, and there's plenty of space to add in two hits instead of WBUL.

Comedy Central NEVER rolls credits over content from the actual show anymore - even on hit shows like South Park and The Daily Show, they ALWAYS annoyingly shuffle the credits off to the left half of the screen while showing an ad for another show in the top right corner. But you're probably right about the goodbye - I'll concede that Fat or Yoda (most likely Yoda, for the chant) are strong contenders, but I SEVERELY doubt they'd cut WBUL. It's a HUGE audience favorite, and also one of the most "jokey" songs in his catalog. They'll more likely cut a couple of less-well-known songs from Alpocalypse, like TMZ or Skipper Dan, since that album will still be VERY well represented.