World of Weird Al Yankovic

This is just mind-boggling. Viacom has proven numerous times that they still have the original specials in their archives, and they should still have the rights to most all of the music videos, so why hasn't VH1 Classic played any of the original AL-TV specials in any form?

One thing is for sure, they need to. Their programming, from the first time I've started watching, has been very repetitive. Whenever you watch "Metal Mania", you are bound to see the same videos you saw a day or two prior. They constantly promote new countdowns, shows, and documentaries, and once those air they play the crap out of them. They buy the rights to 2nd rate 80s comedies that have nothing to do with classic rock and air them constantly. Whenever they played Behind The Music, they only played the episodes for Ratt and Pantera, usually on the same night and once in a blue moon. Now they have 'remastered' 5 or 6 episodes and play the crap out of those.

They are in desperate need of 'new' programming. AL-TV is a perfect fit for the channel and will put to use footage that has been sitting around for 25 years.

Either they play the specials in as close to their original format as possible (possibly cutting out some non-essential videos for commercial time), or air a series of "The Best Of AL-TV" specials. Maybe have Al come in and do some brief intros and play some of the interviews, Harvey bits, tampered videos, or other skits.

Remember when VH1 went gaga over Al in the later 90s? VH1 Classic should be doing it now. I finally saw an Al video on the channel a few weeks ago for the first time in 3 years. That is ridiculous, why aren't they using anything? They have oodles of Al related materials that haven't seen the light of day on the network.

Something must be done...

yes, that would be nice...but the only reasons I can think of that they haven't played AL-TV at all is that maybe they would need to get permission from the original artists who's videos Al has "tampered" with or maybe they're worried Al's "horrible shtick" from the eighties might not hold up as well...or maybe they just don't have the four hour gaps necessary in their programming schedule that need to be filled...

Al isn't a marketable guy. It's a sad but true fact of being fans of his. We sure want it, but we're not the general public.

Your average programming exec and viewer is only going to see "Hosted by "Weird Al" Yankovic" and think "Wierd Al Yankovich = Lame copier of songs = not funny = no point in watching".

Al isn't a marketable guy. It's a sad but true fact of being fans of his. We sure want it, but we're not the general public.

Your average programming exec and viewer is only going to see "Hosted by "Weird Al" Yankovic" and think "Wierd Al Yankovich = Lame copier of songs = not funny = no point in watching".

I don't agree at all. "White & Nerdy" was a top 10 single, remember, and he sells out all over the country. Very few people are as OBSESSED with him as we are, but he's a pop culture icon that people generally tend to like. His niche isn't going anywhere, and programmers love appealing to solid niches without spending too much money doing so.

I think you've got something there, Ryan. They probably couldn't get away with just showing the specials wholesale, but an "AL-TV Classic" series, featuring clips from various specials mixed with Al's own music videos, would be incredibly entertaining, and best of all, CHEAP to make (this is premium cable we're talking about here). And not just AL-TV, but also the "Weird Al Video Collection," "Fairway To Heaven" and "VH-AL" specials from 1999 have a wealth of funny Al material to choose from.

FredHuggins wrote:I don't agree at all. "White & Nerdy" was a top 10 single, remember, and he sells out all over the country. Very few people are as OBSESSED with him as we are, but he's a pop culture icon that people generally tend to like. His niche isn't going anywhere, and programmers love appealing to solid niches without spending too much money doing so.

That is true, I'm not going to try and deny any of that.

However, I'm not sure how well of a marketing move it would be to have a four-hour long rerun of a show at least 4 years old, simply to appeal to a niche market, especially if they aren't as large as their other markets that they're pandering to. Not only that, but there might be rights issues that might come up. I'm not saying it's not something to be trying for -- It's definitely a great idea. I just have my doubts as to if it'll ever happen.

Rights are indeed an issue, but not an insurmountable one; IIRC, a couple years ago VH1 Classic ran a marathon of 80s videos for three days straight over a holiday weekend. They did this alphabetically by artist, and every time they'd fill a segment with a single artist's videos, they'd open that segment with a vintage clip of that artist appearing on MTV. When they got around to Al, they showed the intro to AL-TV 1987. So it's not impossible to show these clips on TV again.

However, I'm not sure how well of a marketing move it would be to have a four-hour long rerun of a show at least 4 years old, simply to appeal to a niche market, especially if they aren't as large as their other markets that they're pandering to.

They'll never show the original unedited four-hour specials again, that's for sure. I'm talking more like a weekly hour-long show, made up of clips from AL-TV, and other Viacom-owned highlights from Al's career, played in between various Al videos. Call it "AL-TV Classic."

Actually, if I was a programmer at VH1 Classic, I'd promote the release of Album #13 with a three-hour "The Top 27 Weird Al Videos Ever" countdown, voted on by fans at vh1.com, with classic AL-TV segments in between the videos. A fan can dream, right?

Well, VH1 Classic does a show called All Time Top Ten, where they play the ten 'best' videos/songs from a given artist. They have ranged from Bon Jovi to Madonna to Duran Duran to John Mellencamp, and I take this show, as well as their One Hit Wonders series, as them putting old videos to good use. Why Al hasn't had an episode of the Top Ten series, and considering how they mainly focus on an artist's 80s videos and Al did 13 during that time, is surprising.

But, yeah, a weekly AL-TV compilation series, and I'm digging the name AL-TV Classic, is what they should do. And considering how almost every time a nostalgic 80s act is releasing new material VH1 Classic promotes it in some form, doing Al related programming would be smart.

VH1 Classic is a great suggestion. Maybe the folks at VH1 just haven't thought of the idea yet. Has anyone contacted VH1 to let them know? For the four hours ones, they can split them into four one-hour segments and broadcast them one a day, Monday through Thursday, or a four-hour block in one day. When they used to do the Top 100 countdowns on VH1, they usually broke them down into five segments of 20 videos each, so there's precedent.

Dave