Portions of this review originally appeared in INsite magazine, October, 2006.
The Weird Al Show was gaudy, obnoxious, and nerdier than the Drafthouse on anime night. It was obviously a kids’ show, which was okay, because it was far funnier than its Saturday morning time slot deserved. It was 1997, about six years since tabloid TV “news” had demolished Pee-Wee’s Playhouse. Someone needed to fill the void. For one season, “Weird Al” Yankovic would deliver a fairly worthy successor. Sure, it had lame guest stars like Drew Carey and Hanson, but it was still better than anything your kids have been subjected to since. The new three-disc DVD comes with commentaries and some behind the scenes stuff. Fire up the accordion, fix some Twinkie wiener sandwiches, put on a Hawaiian shirt and do a rubber man dance. Perhaps Al-TV won’t be too far behind.
Speaking of Paul Ruebens, you can’t go wrong with his Playhouse prototype, The Pee-Wee Herman Show. This is the HBO special from 1981, several years before the silver screen, the weekly series, or all those jokes about Abraham Lincoln. He wasn’t quite the guy from Nice Dreams anymore, but this was no kids’ show, either. Shoe mirrors, fake dog doo, a Shaft reference, Kaptain Karl getting blitzed, Jambi’s joke about his new hands: it’s all risqué, perhaps even more so today than when it was new. (If that last thought makes you shudder, we should hang out.) There are no extras, but the show itself is brilliant, and the price tag is low. Plus, you get guest stars like Phil Hartman, John Paragon, a barely recognizable Tito Larriva, and the incomparable Lynne Stewart.
Mike Patton must have seen The Pee-Wee Herman Show, as it contains a classic children’s educational film about minding your manners, lest you become a “Mr. Bungle.” Patton would reach a larger audience with Faith No More, who has a double-feature DVD out now. Live at the Brixton Academy, London was on VHS and CD during the band’s Real Thing heyday, and features a fantastic concert with songs from the era. Patton flops like a fish during “Epic,” breaks wind into the microphone and swears it was real, and even belts out a couple of tunes originally sung by Faith No More’s first frontman, Chuck Moseley. Who Cares a Lot? The Greatest Videos covers the band’s entire career, and made me wonder why these guys had to break up. I mean, we lose an innovative, imaginative, songwriting machine like Faith No More, but the Chili Peppers get to release the same album every few years?
I haven’t watched McMahon, but I know it exists, because I’ve seen it in stores. I even held it in my hands, but I put it down before the curse could affect me.
Let’s face it: I’m a big dork for wrestling. You know those anime guys I made fun of in the first paragraph? They have nothing on wrestling fans when it comes to utter silliness. Some of us have limits, though. Mine is McMahon. He runs the whole show, some old robber baron’s version of action storytelling, where the racial and gender stereotypes are worse than anything that upset Pauline Kael. And he gets away with creating really bad television (and now, really bad movies, thanks to Lion’s Gate and Fox), because he’s the last one left. (TNA? Please. I’d love to see those guys succeed, but I’m not staying up until eleven on a Thursday night – or whenever they’re on this week – in the hopes that Impact will at least be slightly better than Raw or WWECW.)
So, no, I won’t be paying money to watch the old fart pretend he can wrestle. I also won’t be buying any autobiographical DVD’s from Steve Jobs or Rupert Murdoch. I love wrestling, but there’s better, more entertaining stuff out there.
The Big Buy: Tom DeLay’s Stolen Congress is for fans of an entirely different variety of wrestling. Our state’s favorite disgraced congressman finally gets his own movie, and it’s an eye-opener. This is the guy who said, in 1994, that having no federal government at all would suit him just fine. Over the course of a decade, DeLay did all he could to make this happen. The movie comes from Disinfo, the same bunch who brought you Outfoxed. Check it out, especially for the killer jazz score.
