"All the little girls and boys love that wonderful crunching noise."

November 27, 2014 7:00 PM

As if we needed more proof that Weird Al Yankovic has more fun at his job than most people, here's a nine minute behind-the-scenes look at the recording of his 2006 "Straight Outta Lynwood" album.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI (12 comments total)

It was linked in another thread, but - the first take of Donnie Osmond dancing in "White and Nerdy" is hysterical. Apparently Al had no idea what he was doing behind him until they were watching the footage after and laughed hysterically and said "I have no notes, this is perfect."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:24 PM on November 27, 2014 [22 favorites]

Mazel tov on his success.
posted by boo_radley at 7:30 PM on November 27, 2014 [2 favorites]

This is so well edited.
posted by Evstar at 7:38 PM on November 27, 2014 [1 favorite]

Shot by Al's wife, Suzanne, and with daughter Nina at the end. Al edited the video. Obviously, in 8 years, nina's grown up, family's looking great.

This film is a bonus item on SOL, which is why it looks so nice and is available. I always like how well it shows how seriously he and the band take what they do.
posted by jscott at 8:03 PM on November 27, 2014

What a great way to wrap up Thankgiving hangouts -- thanks so much for pointing this out!
posted by Narrative Priorities at 8:08 PM on November 27, 2014

Love it. Looks like fun!

Also, EmpressCallipygos's link to Donnie Osmand dancing is amazing. Donny is hitting the beat so hard!
posted by greenhornet at 11:10 PM on November 27, 2014 [1 favorite]

Thanks for posting this, I hadn't seen it. Al banging away on the toy piano is a fantastic image.
posted by uncleozzy at 5:15 AM on November 28, 2014

This is fantastic in so many ways. It's especially good to see so much live instrumentation. Real horn licks! Real percussion and mouth harp! Real celery crunch! Real handclaps! There are probably more live instruments on his songs than on the originals that he parodies.
posted by googly at 6:57 AM on November 28, 2014 [6 favorites]

Yep, that Broadway musical's overdue.
posted by droplet at 9:44 AM on November 28, 2014 [1 favorite]

That toy piano looks a LOT like the one I had as a child (and still have in a closet somewhere). Oh please, universe, let me own the same toy piano as Weird Al. I need this.
posted by Coatlicue at 1:12 PM on November 28, 2014

Donnie Osmond and Buzz Lightyear have very similar faces.
posted by ocherdraco at 4:57 PM on November 28, 2014 [2 favorites]

For being so wacky, he seems really, really smart to me. He really seemed to know about/understand lots of different instruments even he doesn't play them. He knows all the mixing boards and whatever else they use to produce albums. And his music is really just a novelty thing, I really respect and admire that he's engineered such a long-lasting career out of it. Makes me think of it those types of performers whose act is to pretend to be bad at their skill - I want to say people like Red Skelton maybe - to perform something badly you have to be really good at it, if that makes sense.
posted by Beti at 11:56 PM on November 28, 2014 [2 favorites]