90. UHF

Jay Levey, 1989

“Nothing! Absolutely nothing! Stupid!”

Sadly, this is the one and only film on the list featuring “Weird Al” Yankovic in the leading role. It is not the only Fran Drescher movie on the list. It is also far from the only Billy Barty, midget extraodinare, movie on the list. And what a movie it is folks! Weird Al is put in charge of his local UHF station. To say that hilarity insures would be an understatement. The plot is a bit thin, but it’s really only there to hang the wacky comedy on, all of which clearly follows in the Airplane! tradition. You have general hilarity in the form of Michael Richards’ dimwitted janitor and his love for his mop and in things like the ingenious twinkie-wiener sandwich and watching Imo Phillips cut his finger off, but the real gems here are the TV and movie parodies. Since this is a movie about running a TV station, they fit in perfectly, and since you have the insane mind of Weird Al and his writing partner Jay Levey behind it, well, you get gold. I know, I know. Some of you are thinking, “How funny can these so-called parodies be? We saw Stay Tuned, you know, the one where John Ritter goes to TV hell, and that wasn’t funny. How can this be?” Well nay sayers, it just is. You get such terrific bits as the commercial for Spatula City (“We sell spatulas. . . and that’s all!”), Conan the Librarian (“Don’t you know the Dewey Decimal system?”) Gandhi 2 (“Gimme a steak. Medium rare.”), Raul’s Wild Kingdom (“Did you the turtle is nature’s suction cup?”), and best of all Wheel of Fish. Wheel of Fish is a game show, wherein contestants spin a wheel on which are attached several fish. It is hosted by Al’s neighbor and karate instructor Kuni, played by Long Duk Dong himself. A contestant spins the wheel and wins the fish they land on, in the case of Miss Weaver it is the red snapper. Very tasty. Weaver has the choice of keeping the fish or she can go for what’s in the box that Hiro-San is bringing down the stairs right now! Weaver, of course, picks the box. What’s in the box? Nothing! Absolutely nothing! Stupid!

Genius.