Al Needs More Biographies!

[weird user]

Who agrees with me that Al needs more official biographies released? Many celebrities and filmmakers have had lots of biographies, in book and visual form. Al has been in the music buisness since 1979, and he's only had two written biographies, and only four visual biographies:

His two written biographies are The Authorised Al and the booklet that came with Permaneant record: Al in the Box. His visual biographies are The Complete Al (which combines facts with fiction), his Behind the Music special, his VH1 Video Timeline special, and his Driven special.

He needs more! I don't think he'd be the right celebrity for his own E! True Hollywood Story documentary, but he could write his own autobiography (I wonder if he would be interested. He does provide audio commentary on his DVDs, and responds to Ask Al, so I don't think he'd be against writing about his past works). If he's not interested, Bermuda would be my second choice for a book writer.

I wonder how a new documentary would turn out. Maybe he could have his own A&E Biography special.

Who agrees with me?

[anthontherun]

An updated Behind the Music/Permanent Record booklet would probably suffice.

Although if he did decide to do an autobiography, now would be the perfect time since "Straight Outta Lynwood: The True Story of a White and Nerdy Guy" would be a great title/tie-in.

[Limecat]

That'd be a good title!

I'd definitely buy it if he made one!

[weird user]

I can't remember if I've posted this idea before or not, and I think that Behind the Music is no longer in production, but it would be great if Al got a secodn Behind the Music special. It could be called Behind the Music: Weird Al Yankovic... Continued. And it could be a continuation of the first one, maybe on it's premier it could be shown immediately after a rerun of Al's existing Behind the Music special.

I don't know if there is much to talk about Al to fill a second hour. Obviously, Poodle Hat and Straight Outta Lynnwood would be mentioned. The fact that Straight Outta Lynnwood was a dual-disc release and features more music videos than any previous album would be a good thing to talk about for ten minutes. I don't know if the special would talk about his marriage, and I don't think Al would want it to talk about Al's parents death.

Of course, since the producers of Behind the Music apparantly like to be over-dramatic in it's documentaries, a second documentary would probably be over-dramatic about Emeniem not allowing a Couch Potatoe music video, and maybe about Al not getting permission to release You're Pitiful (but would VH1 be able to get the rights to feature the song in the special?).

If it's a continuation, then it would be weird to mention stuff that wasn't mentioned in Al's existing special. That one had so much that should have been discussed, like:
*Ricky (Al's first music video, not even a clip is featured)
*Christmas at Ground Zero (Al's directorial debut, banned from many radio stations)
*Peter and the Wolf (not that noteworthy, though)
*Headline News
*The Weird Al Show (not even a clip is shown, despite the fact that Al had his own series was mentioend throughout the special)
*The Theme from Spy Hard

[scottidog]

I don't know if the special would talk about his marriage,

I don't know why not. The first one addressed his singleness.

and I don't think Al would want it to talk about Al's parents death.

I don't know how it could not be mentioned. But hopefully it would be addressed tastefully. Perhaps with a plea to install carbon monoxide detectors.

[weird user]

Well, I think that Al didn't draw much attention to his marriage, though I think he hinted at it, and hasn't drawn much attention to the birth of his daughter. There are hardly any photos of her on the official website (last time I checked the photo gallery). She briefly appears in the Straight Outta Lynnwood behind the scenes feature, though her face is obscurred. Based on these facts, I would think that he wouldn't want to draw much attention to them. But I could be wrong.

[stupidsurgeon27]

I wouldn't mind something in book form or to that effect. It was strange that I actually used the Authorized Al as a reference for a speech I did on Al freshmen year of college. I needed one book reference...so I used that.

[Bruce the Duck]

Does VH1 even do "Behind the Music" anymore? I haven't seen an episode of that in ages.

It was strange that I actually used the Authorized Al as a reference for a speech I did on Al freshmen year of college. 

Out of all the documents, books, and articles advocating, discussing, and being the subject of free speech....and THAT is the best you could come up with?

[twinkieweinersandwiches24_7]

Does VH1 even do "Behind the Music" anymore?  I haven't seen an episode of that in ages.

I think the last one (or one of the last ones) they made was for Kid Rock. Lovely. But they hardly ever show them. And when they do, they show the same one for 8 hours in a row for a whole week. >:S

I honestly don't think that VH-1 would make another Behind the Music or Driven for Al, or almost any other artist for that matter. Not a WHOLE one, anyway. But they do have those little BtM update shows, which I think they mentioned Al getting married in, but that's about it.

A new book or video biography would be very possible, though. Some artists that have been around half as long as Al have twice as many biographies. And it would probably be more successful than say something really obscure like TWAS (I still love it, though ).

[stupidsurgeon27]

Out of all the documents, books, and articles advocating, discussing, and being the subject of free speech....and THAT is the best you could come up with? 

I could have all the article references I wanted, but the professor insisted on a book reference too. It was a informative speech on Al's life. I needed some book.