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Things change when a depressed George carelessly puts station janitor Stanley Spadowski in charge of the channel's early-morning kids' show; to everyone's surprise, Stanley's [[Cloudcuckoolander]] antics become an instant hit [[Periphery Demographic|across all demographics]]. Emboldened, George unleashes the full force of his creativity with a line of unique, oddball shows to fill out the rest of the schedule, with Stanley as their flagship superstar. These moves quickly catapult U62's ratings to #1 in town -- which prompts Channel 8 head honcho R.J. Fletcher to take them down by any means necessary...
Like Weird Al's music, the film focuses its comedy on oddball humor and [[Satire, Parody, Pastiche|satire, parody, and pastiche]] of pop culture. Released in 1989, at the height of Weird Al's popularity, the film was expected to be a summer blockbuster, but barely broke even at the box office (opening against the 1989 ''[[Batman (Film)|Batman]]'' movie, after all) and instead became a [[Cult Classic]].
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=== Trope examples include: ===
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* [[Grumpy Old Man]]: R.J. Fletcher himself.
* [[Harpo Does Something Funny]]: Aside from one action sequence, Michael Richards' part is entirely ad libbed because "it was funnier than anything we could write."
* [[Hey, It's That Guy!]]: The cast includes Michael Richards and Fran Drescher before either was well known.
** David Proval from ''[[The Sopranos]]'' is one of the kidnappers of Stanley.
** And the guy from ''[[Invasion of the Body Snatchers]]'' now owns a network affiliate.
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* [[Scary Librarian]]: ''CONAN: THE LIBRARIAN''
{{quote| '''Conan:''' Don't you know dah dew-ay dec-ihm-ahl sys-tahm?}}
* [[Science Marches On]]: An interesting tidbit in the very beginning at Big Edna's. You can see a sign in the background saying that they cook all of their meat "medium with a pink center unless otherwise specified". This was in 1989 and ''not a joke'', as it was before the 1993 [
** Though to be fair, ''pink'' beef can still be hot enough to kill bacteria. It's ''red'' beef that's trouble.
** [[Technology Marches On]]: The UHF band in general.
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* [[Severely Specialized Store]]: Spatula City.
* [[Shouting Shooter]]: In the ''[[Rambo]]'' parody.
* [[Shout
** The scene where Stanley first goes on air has a shout-out to [[Network]]. The whole concept of an station/network rising to instant unscripted prominence could be considered one, too.
** Philo is named after Philo Farnsworth, the inventor of the television.
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