The "Spatula City" Commercial from UHF is a Perfect Thing of Beauty. I'm 100% Serious.
In the summer of 1989, Orion was in trouble. They needed a hit. For reasons I’m sure no one can truly explain, they turned to Weird Al Yankovic. Al gamely gathered up a group of misfits and set out to make his set-piece laden, unapologetically bizarre underdog story about a little TV station that could, UHF.
Armed with bits like Stanley Spadowski’s Clubhouse, Wheel of Fish, and Twinkie wiener dogs, Al set out to battle the likes of no other than Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Ghostbusters II, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Lethal Weapon 2, Batman, Licence to Kill, When Harry Met Sally and Do The Right Thing.
What could possibly go wrong????
Well, the movie flopped critically and commercially and Al hit a career skid until a few years later when he picked up the phone and called Kurt Cobain asked if he could do a parody of Smells Like Teen Spirit.
I just re-watched UHF and aside from the flood of warm fuzzy nostalgia for the days when I used to bump my In 3-D cassette in my family’s first boombox purchased at the Sears Roebuck Co., I was pleasantly surprised how much I enjoyed it. Most of the set pieces were judiciously edited, not overstaying their welcome like those of countless comedies of its ilk.
But one piece stands above the rest. I consider it one of the greatest commercial parodies of all time- delightfully lean, sublimely silly and spot on in its tone. My friends, I present….
Spatula City!
Just beautiful! This is a video I’ve turned to when I needed a laugh on a dark day, along with other old reliables like the George Brett Shit Story and I’m a Man! I’m 40!
I realize those two examples don’t have a lot to do with Spatula City, except that I can always rely on them to remind me that if the world contains this sort of ridiculousness, maybe shoving my head in the oven can wait.
One thing I adore about this is they had to actually put up that Spatula City billboard and dress that storefront- no CGI in ‘89. That means the art department spent hours and hours constructing these signs. Placing each spatula on the shelves just so. Hours and hours of labor- for a fake commercial about a damn store that just sells spatulas. If ever love and labor were perfectly intertwined, this is it.
The repeated shots of the manic hordes rushing into the stores, the romantic spatula, the way the kids bounce with glee in the backseat….
And the president- that guy’s on screen for maybe five seconds and for my money gets one of the biggest laughs of the whole movie.
I’m getting ready to shoot some commercial parodies now and while this is from a bygone era, it’s still my lodestar.
This is how it’s done, kids.
See ya next Monday.
Linoleum City on Santa Monica Blvd in LA, where its been since the 1940s. Perhaps an inspiration???
Tubin’ Linx
Another One Rides The Bus on Tomorrow with Tom Snyder
From UHF- Emo Phillips Mr Butterfingers
Here’s Weird Al’s hilariously non-scandalous VH1’s Behind the Music.