Friday, March 22, 2013

Rockin' Funnies: I Lost on Jeopardy! (1984)

With April Fool's Day following Easter this year, let's start the celebration of silly with a dose of Weird Al Yankovic.

From his 1984 "In 3-D" CD, Yankovic takes on Greg Kihn's "Jeopardy" from a year earlier and skewers that other Jeopardy!. Three months before the hallowed game show franchise returned, Yankovic was able to coax original host Art Fleming out of retirement, bringing along announcer Don Pardo (still chugging along on Saturday Night Live nearly 30 years later), and a cameo appearance from Kihn himself in a sendup of the final scene from his "Jeopardy"  video.

"I Lost on Jeopardy!" (italics mine, of course) peaked at an unsightly #81 on the Hot 100. Some people just didn't get it:

2 comments:

magicdog said...

At the time, most kids my age didn't know about that version of Jeopardy - and the current version hadn't aired yet, so only people in their 20s and up might have gotten the entire joke. At least Don Pardo is able to cross generational lines!

I still found the Jeopardy song funny and seeing Greg Kihn being a good spot by doing a cameo in the video was a nice touch.

If anything, I prefer this version of the song to the original Jeopardy song - which I am still at a loss for why it was a number 1 hit back in the day.

hobbyfan said...

Kihn's "Jeopardy" was another broken-hearted guy song, just like his other hit, "The Breakup Song" from a couple of years prior. The video was what drove it to #1, IMPO.

I grew up with the original Jeopardy! and Art Fleming. I've got to remember to do a review on that sometime. Classic quiz game, and they're talking about getting Matt Lauer to succeed Alex Trebek when the latter retires?! Oy!