Customer Reviews

Bad Hair Day [VHS]

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

"Weird Al" only improves with age! If you can't see him live in concert, then see his videos. I have seen 3 of these 4 and they are some of his best. Videos on the tape are, Amish Paradise, Gump, Headline News, Money For Nothing/Beverly Hillbillies.

The videos included on this collection illustrate how Weird Al is able to evolve with the whole music video scene. "Amish Paradise" is one of Al's best parody's to date and every video contains subtle gags and spoofs that you don't catch the first time. You'll watch this tape over and over again and enjoy it more each time. Weird Al is certainly one of the most creative and talented musicians of our day. Take his weirdness VERY seriously!

This collection contains one of Al's most remarkable videos, "Amish Paradise". Although I don't find it quite as funny as some of his other videos, there's one sequence that had me marveling at his comedic talent. There's one part in "Amish" where everything was filmed, and then played backwards on the video. It starts with Al falling UP from the ground, and 'walking forward' while farm animals in the background are trotting backward. And all through this sequence, he lip-synchs the chorus perfectly! I found it really mind-blowing that he learned how to lip-synch the lyrics in reverse, and then reverse the film to make it look like he was singing them 'forward'. Amazing. Oh yeah, it was also mighty decent of him to give Florence Henderson some work in this video, too... such a considerate lad, that Al.

The 'Gump' spoof's pretty good too, a take-off of the one-hit-wonders the Presidents of the USA's 'Lump'. The guy playing Gump in the video has a pretty good- although not uncanny- likeness of Tom Hanks' most memorable movie character.

'Headline News' is one of my top-fave Al videos, sung to the tune of Crash Test Dummies 'Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm'. It makes fun of the Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan attack, the guy who got caned for spraypainting graffiti in Singapore, and the Bobbit-ectomy. The best part was 'John Wayne Bobbit' looking through his fridge for his missing- um, you know-, picking up a package of hot dogs, and giving them a longing stare for an instant before resuming his search. It's a scene I'll always remember, no matter how hard I try to forget...

Last, and probably least, is the Dire Straits 'Money for Nothing' parody, 'Beverly Hillbillies'. Although I consider it one of Al's more mediocre efforts, I did find it to be one of the few bright spots in the abysmally unfunny 'UHF' movie. There's also an interesting piece of rather useless and insignificant trivia about this song that you might want to throw at your fellow Al addicts: Dire Straits front man Mark Knopfler does the lead guitar for the spoof, earning him the singular distinction of being the only artist to perform in both the original song and the Weird Al parody of the same song. Knopfler's involvement was the result of an agreement that Al could satirize "Money For Nothing" as long as he could play the lead guitar part.

'Late

My children and I are big Weird Al fans, and I surprised them with this tape. It contains four Weird Al videos: 1) Amish Paradise (parodying Coolio's Gangster's Paradise with an Amish man gone bad!), 2) Gump (parodying The Presidents of the United States of America's Lump with Forrest Gump!), 3) Headline News (parodying the Crash Test Dummies' Mmm, Mmm, Mmm, Mmm with truth-stranger-than-fiction news items Nancy Kerrigan & Tonya Harding, Michael Fay (caned in Singapore for vandalism), and John & Loreena Bobbit), and finally Beverly Hillbillies (parodying Dire Straight's Money for Nothing with the Beverly Hillbillies!).

These are four great videos! As always with Al, knowing the videos being parodied and the new theme (Forrest Gump, Beverly Hillbillies, etc.) makes the viewing a better experience, but it really isn't necessary. There is a legitimate complaint that these four videos add up to only about 13 minutes, but for me it was still a good buy.

Amish Paradise is hilarious, with its highly ironic look at the Amish, with Florence Henderson and a fantastic reverse scene thrown in. Gump is great, with an excellent look at both the song and the movie. Headline News is just plain goofy, and hits the Crash Test Dummies right on the nose. And, Beverly Hillbillies, which was drawn straight out of the movie UHF, is a masterpiece at parodying both the song and the show. Overall, I love this tape, and I highly recommend it to you!

This a great video including

AMISH PARADISE: This is a very good music video its amazing how al was singing forward while everything in the background is going backwards
GUMP: Great funny video
HEADLINE NEWS: Funny video
BEVERLY HILLBILLES: Good song but the video is plain and not funny

After his very succesful Weird Al Video Library Tape, which released every Weird Al video to date at that point, it was only natural for him to continue on the trend of releasing brillient and creative videos for our viewing pleasure. Think of this as more of an add on to the pervious tape then a sequal as there are only four vidoes total found here. But not a bad one in the bunch.

The first song is probably one of this greatest ever done. A very infamous situation between Weird Al and Coolio over this song and video. A mix up in Al getting permission and Coolio having a problem with him spoofing a personal song of his. Either way it turned out great. The song being Amish Paradise. A great video to a great song by Al. See for yourself what life in an Amish village is like first hand. Building barns, selling quilts, and a special apperance by Brady Bunch mother Florence Henderson. This song alone makes this a worthwhile purchase.

Second song on this tape is Gump. A spoof of the song Lump by The Presidents of the United States of America and turned into a Forrest Gump homage. The video follows along the original it is spoofing pretty well but also has a lot of clips like former presidents in the background and some guy who is portraying Gump in the video pretty accurately. It's another great song and actualy pretty amusing at points.

The next song is intersting in not everyone got to hear this song as it was only available in the greatest hits CD set that Weird Al released. It was also released on tape on a single and a greatest hits tape but never on an original Weird Al album. The song is called Headline News and is a spoof of a song that was popular for a nice period of time named Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm by the Crash Test Dummies. The song is dated a bit in that the song itself pretty much just takes 3 of the biggest media frenzy stories of the year when Al was writing this . Tonya Harding trying to get Nancy Kerrigan, the guy who got caught in Singapore for spray painting there..and another one but I'll leave that for you to see as it makes me cringe thinking about it :).

Last song is one most will have seen if you call yourselves a Weird Al fan and isn't very new as it's Money for Nothing/Beverly Hillbillies taken right from the movie UHF. So it's a filler video yes, but hey it's still very good. I thought it was a great way to spoof the I want my MTV video usign the same effects and even having the actual guitar player from Dire Straights playing .

The only complaint here would be that there is really nothing more then the 4 videos that equal about 14 minutes or so all together. Would have been nice if there were some extras or things to find after the videos ended. Don't get me wrong, the videos are great and more then worth it but like I said, seemed more like an add on to his previous and that works just as well for me. Definitely worth the price if you don't have a DVD player and want his videos look no further. Bad Hair Day the videos is a must have for any Weird Al fan.

Please remove that idiot's post.. Anyways.. Weird Al produces more great music video parodies, but there is one major downside to all his VHS videos, there's not enough music videos on them! Come on, Al, stop worrying about profits, and just spit out one reasonably-priced tape that has a complete collection of all your music videos to date!

I guess I should have found out more about this video before I bought it, because I was extremely disappointed. Four songs for ten bucks--PLUS--one of the songs was the Beverly Hillbillies song from the movie UHF--which should not have even been put on there. If they did not have enough songs to make a video, then they should have waited until they did. I have always loved Weird Al, but it saddens me that I now feel ripped off.

This video is one of Weird Al's best. Below is a separate review for each song.

Amish Paradise: One of my favorite Weird Al videos. Very well-planned and funny.

Gump: Good, but not great.

Headline News: Pretty good, but it was too painful for me to watch the Bobbit-ectomy part.

Money For Nothing/ Beverly Hillbillies: Not funny at all.

Just to let you know, this is a great display of Weird Al's talent. While there are only 4 video's on this tape, I'd say 3 are good. The last one kinda sucks. But this has two great vidoe's on it, Amish Paradise, and Gump. Get it and watch.