The Weird Al Show

Yankovic and his manager first pitched the idea of a children's show around 1984, around the time of recording "Eat It", but it took until the 1990s for CBS to show interest.

CBS commissioned the show specifically to meet new FCC rules requiring broadcast networks to air a certain amount of Educational/Informative (E/I) programming, which Yankovic called "the deal we made with the devil".

The show was pitched to director Peyton Reed as similar to Pee-wee's Playhouse, and CBS even brought in Wayne White, the production designer of Pee-wee's Playhouse, to build the set.

The series was filmed at NBC Studios in Burbank on the same sound stage once used for The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, and down the hall from Jay Leno's Tonight Show taping.

Because it was hard to book guests, Yankovic sometimes approached Jay Leno's guests backstage to ask them to appear on his show, which is how he secured Drew Carey's appearance.

CBS producer Dick Clark frequently demanded changes to the show's visual humor, fearing it depicted "imitable behavior" for children, and insisted every episode state a clear moral at the start.

To satisfy CBS's demand for a stated moral while keeping their preferred tone, Yankovic had voice actor Billy West scream the moral at the very start of each episode before letting the rest of the episode play out as intended.

Writers deliberately wrote scenes they expected censors to cut, including a sketch where Baby and Papa Boolie commit suicide after hearing one too many Fred Huggins songs; the network actually considered using it before it was rewritten so Papa Boolie instead calls a mental hospital for Fred.

Although CBS wanted more music parodies, the network refused to pay royalties for original songs, so Yankovic only produced one new parody for the show, "Lousy Haircut", based on The Prodigy's "Firestarter".

The show featured an early TV performance by Hanson shortly after "MMMBop" made them famous, leading to a lasting friendship with Yankovic, who later helped direct some of their music videos.

The Weird Al Show featured the first television broadcast appearance of the Barenaked Ladies, and Yankovic was surprised CBS allowed the band's full name to be used on air.

Yankovic planned a Star Wars segment claiming he played Luke Skywalker's "annoying younger brother" in cut scenes, using green-screen footage inserted into the original film; George Lucas and Alec Guinness approved it, but Mark Hamill refused, so the bit was scrapped.

The three-second "Bite Me" audio clip heard after each episode's Ear Booker Productions logo originally appeared as a six-second hidden track on the CD version of Yankovic's 1992 album Off the Deep End, itself a parody of Nirvana's hidden track on Nevermind.

The show's animated theme song combined three different techniques: traditional animation by Jireh Animation, 3D computer animation by DNA Productions, and claymation by Mark Osborne and Scott Nordlund, who had previously created Yankovic's "Jurassic Park" music video.

The show was cancelled after just one season because CBS felt it didn't follow the formulaic pattern of Pee-wee's Playhouse, and the production team found the constant network conflicts too stressful.