To celebrate the 25th anniversary of Weird Al Yankovic’s 1989 film UHF, The A.V. Club has a new oral history out today on the film that includes interview excerpts with Yankovic, director/co-writer Jay Levey, Michael Richards, Emo Phillips, and more that’s a detailed behind-the-scenes look at how the movie went from a box office bomb to smash cult hit. Here’s an excerpt from Yankovic:
It’s been extremely gratifying for me. I’m not sure exactly why I was lucky enough to have this become a cult classic, because for years it was just… you know, a failed movie, a big box-office bomb. But somehow, it’s really found its audience. And again, I’m not sure why it’s resonated with people like that, or why it was such a slow build, but it’s meant a lot to me. Because it was traumatic for the movie to do as poorly as it did upon release, and the fact that now it’s so beloved by so many people, that certainly heals a lot of the wounds I had at the time, and I’m very proud of it now.
Read the rest over at The A.V. Club.
