![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.2){kind=small}
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif?v=92.2){kind=small}
Let me take you back to January 26, 1998...
The 25th Annual American Music Awards, hosted by Drew Carey, are on ABC. According to Al's official website, at some point in the show Drew will enlist Those Darn Accordions!, Dick Contino and our pal AL to join him in an accordion-based tribute to a bunch of past AMA winners. Sounds awesome, right?
Well, the show airs. An hour or so of suffering through the pop and rock of the day. Puff Daddy, Enrique Iglesias, nothing special. Then, Drew Carey comes out on stage with an accordion. AWESOME, right? He introduces Those Darn Accordions! They start playing. Then Dick Contino joins in. Then...
...the medley ends. NO AL.
The hell? Did Al fall ill or something? He was mentioned in the show intro amongst the performers. What happened to him?
Stop the tape, rewind, watch again. Maybe Al was in the background somewhere...no! Just Drew, Dick and TDA rocking out. Rewind, watch again...surely Al's got to be in there somewhere...scan for frizzy hair, glasses, moustache, Hawaiian shirt...NOTHING! Just Drew, Dick, and the guys from Those Darn Accordions again, including that one member with the shiny shirt who looks kinda like Varna the Squirmese Cook, and it looks like he stole Al's accordion or something...
Wait a minute.
Is that....................................
Yes, hard as it was to fathom at the time, Al had ditched the glasses, grown the biggest goatee I've ever seen on him, and apparently gained a bit of weight from the Weird Al Show post-production process. To compound the confusion, Drew's mike was out when he yelled "Al Yankovic!" so the reveal was blown. For the first, last and only time in his life, the new "Inconspicuous Al" Yankovic simply blended in with the rest of the band.
This was his first national TV appearance EVER with the new look, and it traumatized me and made me fear change forever.
Enjoy!
Until next week,
November 2 2007, 15:37:10 UTC 4 years ago
November 2 2007, 17:08:52 UTC 4 years ago
I pretty much lost all of 1998 and half of 1999 to the unfathomable black abyss known as freshman and sophomore year of college, so I didn't know about the "new look" until someone showed me "The Saga Begins". (*hangs head in shame*)
But the moment of revelation was strong enough that I still remember it.
My first thought: "This is great! Who is this guy? He's a cutie."
My second thought: "OMG, I just thought Weird Al is cute!...cool."
So, it wasn't such a traumatic experience for me. ;-P
(PS...I love AL-Tube Fridays...Thanks!)
November 2 2007, 17:20:11 UTC 4 years ago
Not crazy about the goatee, but he's still so cute.
November 3 2007, 03:43:06 UTC 4 years ago
November 4 2007, 11:55:51 UTC 4 years ago
Also, I'm no longer "GuyWhoIsAnonymous" or "GuyWhoIsUnknown", I'm now "ImAmerica".
November 7 2007, 18:14:35 UTC 4 years ago