WHAT IS UHF?

UHF is a 1989 comedy movie conceived by Weird Al and his manager Jay Levey. After passing around their idea to various studios, they finally landed a deal with Cinecorp and Orion Pictures who offered to make their film as long as they kept it cheap.

After about a year of hard work, UHF hit theaters on July 21, 1989 to a mediocre response as it drowned under the box office hits (ex. “Ghostbusters 2” and “Honey I Shrunk the Kids”). It was bad enough to put Orion Pictures into bankruptcy and flung Weird Al into a 3-year creative slump. Luckily for UHF, it developed a cult following after the film’s home release and now it is loved by most Weird Al fans.

The flick starts with George Newman (played by Weird Al), a chronic daydreamer who can’t seem to hold a job. After Goerge and his best friend Bob Steckler (played by David Bowe ) get fired from their local burger joint, they are swiftly saved by a new job opportunity given to them: a manager position at U-62, a UHF station won by George’s uncle in a game of poker.

George and his girlfriend Teri (played by Victoria Jackson) go to scope out the station at night and find the station in disrepair along with the station engineer/mad scientist Philo (Anthony Geary) who lives there.

George and Bob go off to the station for their first day of work and meet receptionist Pamela Finklestein (Fran Drescher), who’s pretty disgruntled over the lack of consistency in the workplace, keeping her from leveling up to her dream position of a news reporter.

George goes to deliver a package to Channel 8 where he meets the freakishly evil owner R.J. Fletcher (Kevin McCarthy), who yells at him for no reason. Leaving the building, George finds Stanley Spadowski (Micheal Richards), the recently fired janitor being harassed by Fletcher’s son. George feels bad for Stanley so he hires him to be the janitor at their station.

George and Bob stress over the U-62, failing to make any good original programming (ex. their awkward kid’s show pilot “Uncle Nutsy's Clubhouse”.) Teri also breaks up with George (wah). Almost broke and about to lose yet another job, George throws Stanley out to do their show while he goes to drink his sorrows away. George and Bob are at the bar when they see Stanley doing his thing on the tv, getting positive attention from everyone.

With newfound fame, George and Bob start creating more weird shows to broadcast, with each one more popular than the last. But this doesn't go without catching the attention of Fletcher who seeks to destroy this new competition.

Will the station survive and will George and Teri get back together and blah blah blah go watch the movie.

THIS MOVIE IS GREAT

UHF makes me so incredibly happy. Al and Jay Levey managed to make a amalgamation of a lot of things I like in a movie: likable characters, a simple yet enjoyable plot, a lack of edginess, CLASSIC TELEVISION, MAD SCIENCE, SILLY 80S PRACTICAL EFFECTS….. Sure the flick isn’t exactly high art with somewhat underdeveloped characters and more emphasis on gags than plot, but it leaves the fandom with some space to mold the characters ourselves with fanfic and headcanons and stuff. It’s like… one of those ‘finish drawing the picture’ sheets you’d get as a kid at Olive Garden.