I discovered ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic with Eat It, and the first album of his I purchased was Dare To Be Stupid, which got played a lot. In fact, I know his song Yoda, better than the original on which it is based, Lola.

In 1989, Yankovic wrote and starred in his only feature film to date, UHF. Joining him on the writing side of the film were the director, Jay Levey, and Charles Holloway. The story plays perfectly to Yankovic’s style and allows him and the story to deliver lots of laughs, gags, parodies and jokes. The opening parody of Raiders of the Lost Ark is pretty solid and shows the attention to detail visually that Yankovic always lends to his music.

Yankovic is George Newman, a bit of a dreamer he and his pal Bob (David Bowe) have problems holding onto jobs. This is mainly George’s fault, and having been ejected from their most recent place of employment they are floundering (again).

But things turn around when George’s uncle, Harvey (Stanley Brock) wins a local UHF television station in a poker game. His aunt (Sue Ane Langdon) gives it to George to manage, and this is where Yankovic’s wonderful sense of humour and love of parody comes into play.

After a rocky start, the station begins to make a name for itself, they have a news division overseen by Pamela (Fran Drescher) and Noodles (Billy Barty), there are gameshow hosted by Kuni (Gedde Watanabe) and children’s programming hosted by Stanley (Micheal Richards).

This attracts the notice of the local Channel 8 crew, owned by R.J. Fletcher (Kevin McCarthy) and competition begins. Fletcher is determined to take down the UHF station, legally or otherwise, and if possible he plans to buy it out right from under George.

It’s fun, goofy, the parodies, as one would expect, are very well done and totally on point, The Beverly Hillbillies music video, riffing on Dire Straits Money For Nothing, is perfect.

I’ve always liked Yankovic, but I haven’t watched this one since just after it came out. I remember thinking it was okay. This time around when I watched it, it really hit for me, and I laughed my ass off the whole way through it. Yankovic is a delight, and not only does the film bring back a whole bunch of nostalgia for me, it was exactly what I needed that day.

Just goofy fun.