Couch Potato (lost production materials of unreleased Weird Al Yankovic music video; 2003)

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Yankovic - Poodle Hat.jpg

Cover art of Poodle Hat.

Status: Lost


Weird Al" Yankovic is an American comedy musician known for his parodies of popular hit songs at the time his albums were released. He got his start back in the 1970s, when he recorded original songs on his accordion and sent them to The Dr. Demento Show, and since then has become the show's most-requested artist. Since then, he has released fourteen studio albums of parodies, original compositions and polka medleys. Among those is 2003's Poodle Hat, featuring a parody of Eminem's "Lose Yourself", titled "Couch Potato".

Yankovic, in a 2004 interview, stated that during the production of a music video for the track, Eminem expressed concerns, objecting to its creation and release, fearing that it may somehow damage his career.[1] Production was forced to stop, and the video was scrapped entirely, leaving the only video for any song on Poodle Hat to be the one for album cut "Bob", a homage to the musical stylings of Bob Dylan.

In response to Eminem's disagreement, Yankovic soon afterwards filmed a scathing mock-interview for his show Al TV, in which he posed several questions to Eminem, only to have them answered by out of context clips, taken from an actual Eminem interview (a segment that was frequently done for Al TV). He mentions the music video and its subsequent cancellation several times in the mock-interview, with the implication that Eminem's supposedly positive views on artistic expression had rendered him a hypocrite, on account of his prior objection to Yankovic's own artistic expression.

It isn't entirely certain as to exactly how far along in development the music video had come, though most sources seem to imply that it was scrapped early in production. Additionally, Yankovic has revealed that the video would have contained a patchwork quilt, consisting of scenes from Eminem's own music videos.[2] No footage, storyboards, scripts, or anything else of the sort from the music video have ever surfaced.

Gallery

Weird Al Yankovic's 2003 mock-interview with Eminem


References

  1. "Is the King of Pop losing it?". Chicago Sun-Times. October 14, 2004. Archived from the original on October 16, 2004.
  2. "Weird Al Disappointed Eminem Nixed Video". Yahoo! Music. May 9, 2003. Archived from the original on April 20, 2005.