Few other entertainers are as universally beloved as “Weird Al” Yankovic. As a continuously popular act for almost four decades, It would be fair to call him an institution at this point. Yankovic’s level of fame has waxed and waned over his career, but that’s to be expected for an artist with his staying power. Yankovic is as relevant as he’s ever been, with his most recent album, Mandatory Fun, becoming his first number one record on the Billboard charts in 2014. However, he hasn’t released any new material since then. Thankfully, this drought is about to end with the release of his satirical biopic, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, this fall.

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While Yankovic has released over 50 music videos in his career (including classics like “Eat It,” “Fat,” “Amish Paradise,” “White & Nerdy,” and many more), he’s only made one full-length feature film, 1989’s UHF. The movie completely flopped commercially and critically upon release, which explains his lengthy absence from the big screen. Despite the initially poor reception, the film has become a cult classic over the years since its disappointing release. Looking back, it’s easy to see UHF as the missing link between the Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker spoofs of the 1980s and the irreverent parodies from the likes of David Wain & Michael Showalter and The Lonely Island from the 2000s. With the recent release of the trailer for his second movie, there’s no better time to look at what made UHF so brilliant and ahead of its time.

UHF is Wildly Irreverent

     Orion Pictures

There had been plenty of satirical and parody films before UHF’s release in 1989, but few were as zany as Weird Al’s approach. Legendary comedies from the era just before UHF like Airplane, The Naked Gun, and This is Spinal Tap all poked fun at specific movies or genres. UHF is much more scattershot in its approach, using its bare-bones plot about a low-budget TV station to string along parodies of films like Indiana Jones and Rambo, children’s television programs, game shows, and more.

And while its story mostly exists to string along with the different sketches, a lot of effort was put into making the audience care about the characters and their ultra-high frequency channel. This allows the film to be at least somewhat coherent and all over the place at the same time. UHF often has more in common with the absurdist experimental films of Robert Downey Sr. (like 1969’s Putney Swope) than its contemporaries. Comedy has only gotten more irreverent since UHF, but it still feels energetic and dynamic today.

UHF Features Bite-Sized Parodies

Weird Al’s previous experience with music videos was clearly a huge influence on how he made UHF. The film is full of daydreams and clips of TV shows that last about three or four minutes, the same length as one of Yankovic’s songs. This barrage of different parodies put off the audiences of the late eighties, but in the era of YouTube and TikTok, it works incredibly well.

UHF’s variety feels shockingly modern thirty years after its release. It captures the capricious experience of browsing the internet, even though it was made before its widespread adoption by the masses. The movie is restless, never content to stay on one thing for too long. Its energy is infectious and demands the viewer’s attention.

UHF’s Prescient Casting

UHF’s supporting cast is small, but it includes two comedians before the sitcom roles that would make them famous. Fran Drescher plays Pamela Finklestein, the TV station’s receptionist, while Michael Richards is Stanley Spadowski, a janitor whose show becomes a surprise hit on the network. The same year as UHF, Richards became a household name with his memorable role as Kramer on Seinfeld, and Drescher would have the leading role in her sitcom, The Nanny, a few years later. Audiences in 1989 couldn’t have known that UHF’s cast had two of the biggest sitcom stars of the nineties, but it’s remarkable in retrospect. It’s hard not to see the similarities to Kramer in Richards’ exaggerated and silly portrayal of the clueless Stanley. Like its comedy, UHF’s casting was ahead of its time.

A sequel to UHF will probably never happen, at least according to Weird Al himself, but it doesn’t really need a follow-up; the film is as funny today as it was upon release, maybe even more. Yankovic and director/co-writer Jay Levey made a rare parody film that has aged like fine wine (well, at least for the most part). The film’s unpredictable and rapid-fire approach to comedy might have put off audiences at the time, but it is ironically part of what makes the film stand the test of time.

Hopefully, the second film from our foremost musical satirist performs better than the first, but UHF is proof that a movie can be hilarious no matter how well it does at the box office.