While still an architecture student at CalPoly in Pomona, Al recorded parodies of " My Sharona" and "Another One Bites The Dust." As legend has it, one of them was recorded in the college restroom. As MTV was still a few years away from exploding, Al's first spins were courtesy of Dr. Demento, whose radio show provided teen-agers and juvenile delinquents at heart with such classics as "Friendly Neighborhood Narco Agent", "Existential Blues" and the obligatory Cheech and Chong bits, introduced the young Weird Al to an unsuspecting world. Once MTV hit the scene a few years later, Al was a natural, as the classic Al TV episodes of the early '80s prove. Among his memorable first videos are Eat It and Ricky, a send-up of Toni Basil's "Mickey" and the "I Love Lucy" TV series. The attention to detail in the videos is extraordinary, as though every frame was studied for maximum comic effect. The albums of the MTV era "Weird Al Yankovic In 3-D" and "Dare To Be Stupid" sold well, both going gold. The video for "Dare To Be Stupid's" title track, a spot-on lampooning of Devo, featured Al and the band in chemical suits with lyrics like "settle down /raise a family /join the PTA/buy some sensible shoes and a Chevrolet/then party til you're broke and they drag you away/it's ok/you can dare to be stupid/
After Al's popularity flourished in the mid-80s, he signed to do his first feature film, UHF. This foray into the movies was, unfortunately, a failure at the box office Recently released on DVD, it proves hilarious despite being dated, with over the top performances by Michael Richards (as janitor Stanley Spadowski), Tony Geary, Gedde Watanbe and Kevin McCarthy.
