September 21, 2006

More of Weird Al’s fantabulous Polka Medleys have been videofied by cool kids with way too much time on their hands, using the original artists’ video performances, synced to polka-speed:

from OzShadow:

The Original “Polkas on 45″ (1984) featuring Devo’s “Jocko Homo (Are We Not Men?)”, “Smoke on the Water”, Berlin’s “Sex (I’m a…)”, “Hey Jude”, “L.A. Woman (Mr. Mojo Rising)”, “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida”, “Hey Joe (Where You Goin’ With That Gun in Your Hand)”, “Burning Down the House”, “Hot Blooded”, “Every Breath You Take”, “Should I Stay or Should I Go”, “Jumping Jack Flash” and (big finish) “My Generation”.

“Hooked on Polkas” (1985) featuring “State Of Shock”, “Sharp Dressed Man”, “What’s Love Got to Do with It?”, “Method Of Modern Love”, “Owner Of A Lonely Heart”, “We’re Not Gonna Take It”, “99 Luftballons”, “Footloose”, “The Reflex”, “Metal Health (Bang Your Head)” and (big big finish) “Relax”.

“Polka Party” (1986) featuring “Sledgehammer”, “Susudio”, “Party All the Time”, “Say You Say Me”, “Freeway of Love”, “What You Need”, Harlem ShufflePolka”, “Venus”, “Nasty Boys”, “Rock Me Amadeus”, “Shout” and (big finish) “Papa Don’t Preach”.

“Hot Rocks Polka” (1989) the all-Rolling Stones polka featuring “It’s Only Rock’n Roll”, “Brown Sugar”, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”, “Honky Tonk Women”, “Under My Thumb”, “Ruby Tuesday”, “Miss You”, “Sympathy for the Devil”, “Get Off My Cloud”, “Shattered”, “Let’s Spend the Night Together” (using the Ed Sullivan ‘Let’s Spend Some Time Together’ clip – genius!) and “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”.

And “Bohemian Polka” (1993) based on “Bohemian Rhapsody”… this one was way too easy.

Then there is the apparently-authorized “Alternative Polka” (1996) (from a show on the Channel Formerly Known as MuchMusic) featuring “Loser”, “Sex Type Thing”, “All I Wanna Do”, NIN’s “Closer”, “Bang And Blame”, “You Oughta Know”, “Bullet With Butterfly Wings”, the Chili Peppers’ “My Friends”, “I’ll Stick round”, “Black Hole Sun” and (semi-big finish) “Basket Case”

From ediazrod (I have no idea how to pronounce that): “Polka Power” (1999) featuring “Wannabe”, “Flagpole Sitta”, “Ghetto Supastar”, “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)”, “Walkin’ On The Sun”, the Beasties’ “Intergalactic”, “Tubthumping”, “Ray Of Light”, Matchbox 20′s “Push”, “Semi-Charmed Life”, Marilyn Manson’s “The Dope Show”, “MMMBop”, “Sex And Candy” and (obvious finish) “Closing Time”.

“Angry White Boy Polka” (2003) edited by Aaron Roszczewski (suffering from the heartbreak of too many consonants) featuring Papa Roach’s “Last Resort”, SoaD’s “Chop Suey!”, The Vines’ “Get Free”, The Hives’ “Hate To Say I Told You So”, White Stripes’ “Fell In Love With A Girl”, The Strokes’ “Last Nite”, Disturbed’s “Down With The Sickness”, RATM’s “Renegades Of Funk”, Limp Bizkit’s “My Way”, Staind’s “Outside”, Kid Rock’s “Bawitdaba”, POD’s “Youth Of The Nation” and (big slim finish) Eminem’s “The Real Slim Shady”.

And the previously noted “Polkarama” featuring “Let’s Get It Started”, “Take Me Out”, “Beverly Hills”, “Speed Of Sound”, Modest Mouse’s “Float On”, “Feel Good Inc.”, “Don’t Cha”, “Somebody Told Me”, Velvet Revolver’s “Slither”, “Candy Shop”, “Drop It Like It’s Hot”, Rihanna’s “Pon de Replay”, and (big but bawdlerized finish) “Gold Digger”. Not sure if this one was homemade or professional (especially considering the other far-less-good work put up by this YouTuber).

Oh, and the “Straight Outta Lynwood” CD will include a bonus DVD with music videos of all the non-parody songs on the album, done by some pretty impressive animators like… this guy. Could be dangerous. Will be awesome. Forget my pleading for a b-day girft, I’m ordering this pile of wonderful weirdosity NOW and will spend my birthday wallowing in weirdness. Don’t come over to visit.

The results are in from the Katie Couric Sign-Off Contest held by TVSquad.com, and I was awarded Third Place and got an extra star next to my name whenever I comment there! I’d like to thank the academy, but I won’t. Interestingly, my winning entry was repurposed into the contest from the list I wrote at the bottom of this blog post in which I listed what were, IMHO, the best entries before me, which I believe creates an infinite loop that will require the entire Internet to be rebooted.

Anyway, my semi-winning entry: “Will Iraq fall to Civil War? Will the Housing Bubble burst? Will Paris Hilton say something else stupid? Find out tomorrow on our next episode!” Nothing like a little old-old-old school TV talk.

The two entries that beat me: “I’m Katie Couric, and that’s my colon” and “I’m Katie Couric, suck it Charlie Gibson.” Now, if I were judging all the entries except my own, I’d have preferred:
?I?m Katie Couric, and I say thumbs up to colon health!?
?I?m Katie Couric and I?m gonna make it after all!? (Throws Hat in Air)
?I?m Katie Couric and I?m contractually obligated to say something strong or witty at the end of this broadcast.?
?Goodnight, good luck and good riddance.?
?I?m Katie Couric and you?re just jealous!?
Or she should rip open her blouse and look down and say: ?Good night, Chet. Good night, David.?

No word yet on the CRACKED Magazine contest. And that’s the way I am. (Dang. I forgot that one: “I’m Katie Couric and that’s the way I am.”)

In other news, (WHAT A SEGUE!), my self-conscious effort to outdo the ubiquitous Jeff Green at EdgeCurve’s Caption Contest didn’t work out as well as I’d hoped, in spite of my midnight inspiration orgy that produced sixteen captions for this silly picture:

Neither I nor my bitter rival who-probably-doesn’t-even-know-he’s-my-bitter-rival came up with the WINNING CAPTION (“Joe decided to dress up like a spleen for halloween.”) or the RUNNER-UP (“Ben and Jerry’s newest flavor … “Ben”.”). Ubiquitous Jeff got the Honorable Mentions #1 (“Ragu’s new “Fresh and Hairy Original Italian Man Sauce” never made it past the FDA.”), #4 (“You would smile too if you had just been extra virgin olive oiled.”) and #23 (“Who Knew! Ex members of the latin music group MENUDO are actually used in the Menudo.”). I got five Honorables, but lagged behind the Green Guy at #3 (“Good. Now keep your eyes closed and keep repeating “I am a tortellini.” “I am a tortellini.” “), #7 (“This was one time the theme ingredient on “Iron Chef” was REALLY going to be a surprise…”), #12 (“The job of Strawberry Jam Inspector was the most envied in all of Smuckers. “), #20 (“Ernest? Are you in the kitchen? I hope you haven’t gotten into the Spaghetti Sauce I made for the church potluck!”) and #21, in which I foolishly invoked my rival’s name! (“Jeff Green, huh? Well you’re Jeff RED now!”)

My other eleven captions that didn’t make the grade:
(Let me be the one of dozens to say…) “Waiter, there’s a guy in my soup!” (and somebody else’s variation on the obvious joke was Honorable Mention #5)
“After the guy who fell into a vat of chocolate got world-wide attention, copycats were inevitable.” (I really really liked that one)
“We’ll make it a contest: ‘Find the jar of Prego with Patrick Warburton’s head in it’, and, uh, win Patrick Warburton’s head!” (because the guy looked like Patrick Warburton to me…)
(So…)Elaine: “Okay, Puddy, what’s the big surprise you’ve got for me in the bedroom?”
“You did a crappy job of painting that stucco wall… I can still see Arlo’s face!”
“No, we’re replacing both the guy playing the stiff AND whoever made up the fake blood.”
“I’m ready for my close-up, Mister Tarantino!”
“So the dismembered guy and the buckets of blood will get us an R, but if we pan down and see his penis, it’ll be NC-17. Got it.” (this was so-o-o-o topical!)
“Francesco Rinaldi. Made by Italians. And made WITH Italians.”
“The tomato jelly is just one aspic of my performance. Get it? Aspic? Aspect? Huh?” (sometimes, you just gotta go for silly)
(and one of the few entries to acknowledge the unidentified object next to the guy’s head) “Honey! I found your purse!”

The next contest features a picture of dogs on a bus. I’m not even going to show the picture here. It’s dogs on a bus. I’ve come up with ten captions, none of which I have much pride in. Dogs on a bus. Yes, I did the “Snakes on a Plane sequel” line. But so did several thousand other people, including Jeff Green.