I went to his feed to look for this (also amusingly modest):
I respect how great the @warriors are, but it’s boring seeing the same team win every ti...ohhh, I get it now— James Holzhauer (@James_Holzhauer) June 8, 2019
And here's the great Weird Al parody of a song no one would remember without the parody (but is actually cheesily enjoyable):
The Weird Al song predates the Alex Trebek version of the ancient game show. And:
The song has been referenced several times on the game show itself, including once as a category on the current Alex Trebek-hosted version, and later when Yankovic appeared on Rock & Roll Jeopardy!....
The video takes place on a re-creation of the original set from the 1964-75 version of the quiz show Jeopardy! (for some reason, the exclamation point used in the show's original logo was missing). The video also depicted a "behind-the-scenes" look at the show, and featured cameo appearances by original Jeopardy! host Art Fleming and announcer Don Pardo, Yankovic's mentor, Dr. Demento, members of Yankovic's band, his real-life parents and a brief cameo by Greg Kihn [writer of the original song, "(Our Love's in) Jeopardy"] at the end....
Yankovic lands in the back seat of an Alfa Romeo Spyder convertible driven by Kihn himself, with the license plate reading "LOSER". In the original ["(Our Love's in) Jeopardy" video, Kihn drives away with a female bride in an MG MGB convertible, with the license plate reading "LIPS"...
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Life is good.
Thanx for the song, Professor Althouse! that was fun
My rough recollection was that 40-50 years ago, Dr. Demento had a syndicated radio show on Sunday nights out of Westwood (LA) that played all these silly, bawdy songs and was laugh out loud funny. "The Burger Rap", "Shaving Cream", "Pencil Neck Geek" were some of the favorites. And then, with the advent of MTV and music videos (early 80s), Weird Al took it to another level. Silly, funny stuff that appealed to teenagers, probably politically incorrect.
I met Art Fleming once, back in around 94 or so. He moderated one of our academic team meets in high school. Seemed like a nice guy. Now I'm scared to look him up online, because it seems like when you do that you find out awful things you didn't want to know. So I'll just stick with my initial potentially wrong impression of him.
Weird Al, on the other hand, I can't imagine learning anything about him that would reduce my opinion of him. The man's a legend, deservedly so. Still not gonna look him up, just to be safe.
Potpourri for $100
The question is What is the Lorenz Transformation?
I still haven't seen the episode where Holzhauer loses. I rarely watch the episodes when they air and instead catch up in batches on DVR a couple of times per week. Inevitably, I knew his loss would be spoiled since it would be in the headlines before I could get to the episode. After news of him losing broke, I have yet to watch what I have on DVR. Odd.
And here's the great Weird Al parody of a song no one would remember without the parody
Quite a few years ago, I made a playlist for my iPhone that contained all of Weird Al's parodies and (if I could track them down) the original songs they parodied. There were a lot of original songs that I'm pretty sure I had never listened to even once before making this playlist.
Most interesting was "Pretty Fly for a White Guy" (which Al parodied as "Pretty Fly for a Rabbi"). The original is itself a humorous song -- very much like a lot of Al's original songs -- and may well have the conceptual (not musical) inspiration for "White and Nerdy" some years later.
Holzhauer made almost 2½ million dollars from his raid on Jeopardy!, so I do not understand all this harping on his "losing." To the contrary, I think his luck with his risky strategy held out longer than he expected, and he is quite happy with the return on his investment in time and energy, including that spent preparing.
Al's a national treasure. I saw Holzhauer early and for just a few shows, and respect his accomplishment and his good humor, but took the opportunity to revert to my normal pattern--watch a few times a week for a few months, and then forget about it for a few months.
I do think a lot of the questions are too pop-culturey both ways--too current for the oldsters, too old for the youngsters.
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I guess it evens out
They don't rhyme like that anymore
My opinion of Holzhauer just went up by an order of magnitude.
Anybody who can make fun of himself — in a very public way — is okay in my book.
Nah, people remember the Greg Khin original song because it the music video featuring zombies was on heavy rotation on MTV.
Weird Al found a niche, and did he ever make it his own. Dr. Demento was a gem, btw.
How could his character not know "This German baroness could suck the chrome off a fender"?
I don't know if she really was an accordion player, though.
I think anyone who was a teenager in 1983 would remember the original song today- it was a big hit at the time, though I think the Yankovic parody is probably remembered more.
"Nah, people remember the Greg Khin original song because it the music video featuring zombies was on heavy rotation on MTV."
I watched MTV in the 80s and I wouldn't remember that song without the Weird Al parody. The zombies video I don't remember at all. The song came out in 1983, and I started watching MTV (getting cable for the first tie) in 1984. If the song is remembered, I think it's only because Al gave it an extended life.
"I think anyone who was a teenager in 1983 would remember the original song today"
People in their 40s...
People in their 40s and 50s is, by definition, not "no one".
Weird Al didn't do parodies of most top 5 songs, and, yet, most people who grew up with those songs remember them today. Don't you remember the big hits of your teen years, Ms. Althouse?
I mean, seriously, I remember the Greg Kihn Band's first top 40 song from 1981 which wasn't a big hit. I bet the commenters my age here will remember it, too.
From Wikipedia: Jeanette Schmid (6 November 1924 – 9 March 2005) was a professional transgender whistler.
What did the other professional transgender whistlers think of him? (Yes, him. At the current rate, Quaestor will own the last non-rotten brain in the West.)
I know Weird Al's parodies, and enjoy them, much more than any of the original songs. In some cases I may never have heard the original.
Like the professor, I got cable in the mid-80s and watched MTV regularly (not frequently of constantly, but some of the videos were very creative), and Weird Al's were among the best.
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Mid-70s to mid-80s rock/pop is almost a complete mystery to me . . . did I miss anything?
The original song peaked at #2 in May of 1983 behind the number 1 song, "Beat It" by Michael Jackson, which Weird Al also made into a parody "Eat It".
If the song is remembered, I think it's only because Al gave it an extended life
That song was an earworm. Heavy rotation don't begin to describe the play it got on MTV and rock radio.
“seriously, I remember the Greg Kihn Band's first top 40 song from 1981 which wasn't a big hit. I bet the commenters my age here will remember it, too.”
Uh, uh, uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh!
I think that’s right....
Cracker, yep. They don't write them like that anymore.
I still have that Greg Kihn album, "Kihnspiracy". Not bad.,
Yeah, I started liking Greg Kihn with "The Breakup Song", which I still love to hear.
Speaking of Greg Kihn, check out his song Madison Avenue Man (not Madison, Wisconsin). Could have been the theme song for Mad Men.
I recently read an interview with Greg Kihn (although I don't think it was a recent interview), in which he spoke highly of "Weird Al" and his parody of Kihn's song.
He spoke about filming his cameo for Al's video, and mentioned that the girl in the car with him (the one in Al's video, not the one in Kihn's own original video), only a few months later, became very famous herself as a member of an all-girl Hollywood-based rock band. He refused to identify her beyond that, but my money's on Susanna Hoffs.
The Greg Kihn original was all over AOR and even top 40 radio that year. It’s pretty distinctive. Memorable, you might say.
I never heard the Weird Al version until many years later. I ignored MTV completely. All of my friends in those days fit this profile, too.
So, no, it’s just not the case that no one remembers the original.
A 2nd UCSD reference in two days ... Greg Kihn played UC San Diego as part of the TGIF series at The Hump in front of the gym. They were pretty big in SoCal in the early '80s, including the Jeorpardy song. "The just don't write 'em like that anymore."
Anybody here remember Harry Nilsson?
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Joy, to the world
I can’t live without Harry Nilsson.
"I Can't Live Without You" is one of my top 10 favorite songs. In the movie adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis' novel, "The Rules of Attraction", the song is used to devastating effect in the suicide scene. Incredibly powerful.
I keep watching the third of the three babes who taunt Al for NOT winning, and think she's someone who later made it pretty big on TV.
Anyone know?
Weird Al is great because he parodies both the music and the video
Figured the professor who be a fan of "Word Crimes"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gv0H-vPoDc
Late to this thread, but that was Al's most successful period. A lot of people knew the parody more than the original for sure. Even when the original comes on the classic rock station I sing along to the Weird Al version.
Weird Al is a national treasure.
It's a good parody, but the funk track is far better in the original. Yankovic's backing musicians got better later in his career.
Thinking about it, I wonder if Yankovic might have done that on purpose. If you're working in a world where "Weird Al Yankovic parodies famous songs" isn't a thing, you might want to use a simpler arrangement to focus attention on your clever lyrics. Less chance for listener confusion or accusations of theft. Or maybe he could just afford better backing musicians after he had some success.
Wholelottasplainin' - Audrey Landers?
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