Weird Al in I want My MTV Book

DrDecay · Post by **DrDecay** » Fri Nov 11, 2011 6:16 am

I am surprised that there isn't a topic about Als contributions to the Book "I want my MTV." He shares his experience about being on MTV during the golden era 1981 to 1992. I want to mention what he says but I don't wanna spoil it. However its really awesome.

Post by **Kevbo1987** » Fri Nov 11, 2011 6:24 am

I say please spoil away. Put it in spoiler tags if you wish, but I'm sure there are people, myself included, who don't plan on buying the book but would love to know about Al's contribution.

crazygurl14 · Post by **crazygurl14** » Fri Nov 11, 2011 6:34 am

Kevbo1987 wrote:I say please spoil away. Put it in spoiler tags if you wish, but I'm sure there are people, myself included, who don't plan on buying the book but would love to know about Al's contribution.

I second that!!

Yankomaniac · Post by **Yankomaniac** » Fri Nov 11, 2011 7:41 am

HalifaxKat · Post by **HalifaxKat** » Sat Nov 12, 2011 5:18 am

Yes, please share!!

Interrobang · Post by **Interrobang** » Sun Nov 13, 2011 4:19 pm

I fifth it, please share with us!

DrDecay · Post by **DrDecay** » Mon Nov 14, 2011 5:23 am

Sorry it took so long for me to get back. I am about 75% into the book right now so this is what was said by him

"I was living in a $300-a-month apartment in Hollywood wit a Murphy bed and a tiny TV, but man I wan, I wanted my MTV. It was a luxury for me to get cable TV. I would watch all day long. At the time, MTV felt like a local, low budget station. The Vjs would make glaring errors, or forget to tirn off their mics. I mean it was horribly produced and great. I felt like, this is Television for me." - About MTV in the beginning.

"I think everybody in North America has a small crush on Martha Quinn." - About Wat MTV VJS were and how they came to be stars.

"Devo was in heavy rotation, not because MTV loved Devo, but because it was a 24 hour network and they needed product."- On MTV launching music videos, and the artist who were making them in the early years.

"On "Ricky," my parody of "Mickey," the budget was $3000. We shot on video at somebody's house in the San Fernando Valley, very much like a porno. My friends were extras in the video. There was one scene where I'm supposed to be shaking maracas and nobody had bothered to get maracas. But we had bowling pin. I thought, "maybe if I shake it fast enough, it'll look like a maraca." Apparently, it was good enough for MTV." On how record companies were not giving their artist much money to work with on video shoots because it was still a new form of media. Back then no one thought MTV would last and that making videos was a dumb idea. MTV of course loved Weird Al because he was making entering video's when many artist still weren't.

"People became intimately familiar with every nuance of a video, which made it easy to do a parody. I could tweak something a bit and people would get the joke. Michael Jackson was the biggest artist in the world and I thought it would be great to parody "Beat It." As it turned out, Michael had a great sense of humor and he personally signed off on "Eat It," which blew my mind. All of a sudden, if a manager gave us static, we could say, Michael Jackson gave his permission, so I guess you feel like your more important than Michael Jackson. As soon as "Eat It" went into heavy rotation, my life changed. It was overnight fame." On Michael Jackson impact on MTV in the mid 80's and how parodying the "King of Pop." changed his life.

That's about as much info as I have right now on what he said in the book, word for word (your welcome). If he say's anything else I will let everyone know.

DrDecay · Post by **DrDecay** » Mon Nov 14, 2011 11:04 pm

aaaaand here is the rest of what he said in the book. I had a feeling there was more but had to wait until the bitter end.

"My manager was having a very tough time getting Nirvana's management to return his phone calls, and I very much wanted to do my "Smells Like Teen Spirit" parody. So I called Victoria Jackson, who I'd just done a movie with- she was on Saturday Night Live and Nirvana was performing there. And I said, "If you get Kurt Cobain alone in a room, please put him on the phone with me." And she did. So I talked to Kurt and he said "Is it going to be a song about food?" I said, "Actually, it's going to be about how nobody can understand your lyrics. And he's like "That's great. Go ahead." That was the last video of mine MTV put in heavy rotation." - On the chapter on how grunge impacted MTV and how large the movement had grown.

"I haven't really followed the programing since it became the all-reality, all-Snooki channel. But I very much miss the old MTV." - His statement on the last chapter about how much people missed the golden era of MTV.

HalifaxKat · Post by **HalifaxKat** » Tue Nov 15, 2011 12:22 am

Wow, I wasn't expecting you to actually type out the whole thing... not that I'm complaining!! Thanks for putting in all that effort.

DrDecay · Post by **DrDecay** » Tue Nov 15, 2011 12:51 am

Meh, it was no problem! I figured I would put everything that was said on here because the book itself isn't for everyone. I mean its about MTV in the 80's there was a lot of rock n' roll excess throughout the entire book.

World of Weird Al Yankovic