Underplayed Gems

The Compleat Al (1985)

The Compleat Al poster
Directed by
Robert K. Weiss
Genre
mockumentary, musical film
Country
United States
Runtime
1h 40m
Rated
NR
Rating
6.5 of 10 from 14 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

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How it feels

This mockumentary traces the fictionalized life of musician Weird Al Yankovic from his birth through 1985. It blends real details with invented stories presented as fact, and includes clips from his early music videos and TV specials.

playfulsatiricalupbeatself-awareaffectionategoofyfast-pacedwhimsical

What happens

The Compleat Al is a mockumentary about the life of "Weird Al" Yankovic, from his birth in 1959, to 1985. It was partially written by Yankovic and directed by Jay Levey. An abbreviated version premiered on August 7, 1985 on the Showtime network before the full film was released on video on September 25, 1985. The title of the film is a parody from the 1982 documentary The Compleat Beatles. Although it is a mockumentary, it is roughly based on Yankovic's real life. For example, Yankovic was raised in Lynwood, California, and has a degree in architecture from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. His real-life parents appear in the mockumentary, as does a picture of his real-life childhood house. Because of the mixture of Yankovic's real life and fiction, much of the film's fabricated information was accepted by fans as real, for example, the false information that Yankovic was born in a Saint Vitus hospital (the Catholic patron saint of comedy), or the film's pun which claimed his birth in an elevator signified his "rise to the top." The mockumentary also contains clips from the first three AL-TV specials, and all of Yankovic's music videos up to 1985: "Ricky", "I Love Rocky Road", "Eat It", "I Lost on Jeopardy", "This Is the Life", "Like a Surgeon", "One More Minute", and "Dare to Be Stupid". It also contains an extended version of “Mr Popeil.” The parody also extends to the technical aspects of the film, such as the copyright warning message which starts routinely but escalates to warnings that copying the video may result in damage to your VCR, smoke may come out of your TV set, escalating to possible destruction of the planet due to the greed of the viewer. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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