Ancient Web: A Weird Al Fan Catalogued Every Episode of His 1997 Show

Part of the Ancient Web Collection.

The Weird Al Show ran for only thirteen episodes in 1997. Someone nevertheless decided that every guest, hamster stunt, snack, and appearance of the number 27 deserved a place on the web.

Visit the Unofficial Weird Al Show Home Page.

The landing page is difficult to read through some browsers, but substantial sections survive under the site's episode guide. Rather than stopping at a brief synopsis, the fan maintains separate indexes of episode dates, guest actors, characters, sound clips, pictures, stunts, and running jokes.

A reference desk for very silly television

Consider the entry for “He Ain't Heavy, He's My Hamster”. Alongside its story about Al losing his temper with Harvey the Wonder Hamster, the page identifies guests including Dweezil Zappa, Emo Philips, and Dr. Demento. It records chocolate lasagna as the episode's food, Harvey's rooftop jump, and the show's educational message.

Another entry, “Al Plays Hooky”, notes an almost-cooked hamster, an appearance by Fabio, and the fact that no numerical 27 reference was found. This is deep-fan cataloguing, not merely a television listing.

The site's sound index still describes audio clips in both WAV and RealAudio formats. RealAudio is a particularly good period marker, though its presence on an index is not a guarantee that a modern browser will play each old recording.

The 27 references page says it was created on September 27, 1997, and invites visitors to email newly spotted examples. That is unusually direct evidence of early fan participation.

Before a searchable streaming catalogue

The series was not a long-running television institution. That makes the site's attention to minutiae more interesting. A viewer could use these pages to reconstruct what was shown on a Saturday morning, including guest appearances and jokes unlikely to survive in general television histories.

The archive is also a record of how fandom organized information before modern episode databases standardized the fields. A webmaster could add a column for whatever mattered to this particular audience—even Harvey's most inadvisable stunts.

The result is a lovingly excessive record of a short-lived show, preserved in a layout that still feels like the television era it describes.

Browse all thirteen episode summaries.

Part of the Ancient Web Collection.