Hacker Cinema
UHF
1989 · Film · 97 min
Directed by Jay Levey
The eccentric new manager of a UHF television channel tries to save the station from financial ruin with an odd array of programming.
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18 comments on Hacker News
After having seen movies like UHF and Anchor Man, I was at an outdoor event covered by the local news, and saw one of the cameramen having some trouble lugging his equipment over the terrain, when several employees from other TV stations helped him with it. The contrast from those movies surprised me, despite having grown up with a friend who's parents' were in the broadcast industry, and having met several of their co-workers that were all very kind.
We tend to think everyone competing dislikes each other, but in reality many fields have a small pool of experienced works, so they only have a few companies to choose between. Combine that with the modern HR strategy of prioritizing promoting from outside the company, and add on California not recognizing non-compete agreements, and you end up with a pool of workers that have mostly been co-workers with each other, at some point in the past. The higher up you get, the smaller the pool, so you end up with a lot of overlap.
My favorite nearby shopping center has a Trader Joe's and a Grocer Outlet, with the former being founded by Joe Coulombe and the latter growing significantly with him on their board. (See his book: Becoming Trader Joe) He had a lot of influence on both, with both still having a noticeably similar obsession with cheap wine and a short time of availability for any given item, but they're both different enough to warrant being in the same shopping center, and are both worth visiting.
Yeah that's all true and I agree with you. I just thought it would be fun to be able to create a television station. I always liked the weird al movie UHF as a kid, and I thought maybe it would be fun to have some kind of tv station manager simulator.
It's a long game for the Weird Al Yankovic tie-in, but I'll take it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UHF_(film)
Shoah - a 9.5 hour documentary about the Holocaust https://letterboxd.com/film/shoah/
Sügisball - an Estonian movie that introduced me to the works of Bohren & der Club of Gore, now my favorite band https://letterboxd.com/film/autumn-ball/
Fitzcarraldo - Werner Herzog moves hell and earth in this film https://letterboxd.com/film/fitzcarraldo/
Chungking Express and In the Mood for Love - Wong Kar-Wai's movies affected me so much that when I went to Hong Kong about half my trip was just looking for the filming locations https://letterboxd.com/film/chungking-express/ & https://letterboxd.com/film/in-the-mood-for-love/
UHF - Probably the reason I like underdogs https://letterboxd.com/film/uhf/
In some markets, they are still operating off of NTSC tape formats and equipment. They have a device to upres the content to HD right before going to the transmitter. All because they are in such a small market, and there's not enough money to justify buying HD equipment.
Everyone seems to think that TV stations are all on the same level of the flagships for each network. Some of them still are less than what you'd see in the movie UHF.
Weird Al's latest movie is a mess, but so surreal I keep remembering it months after watching it. It as if the UHF movie carved a niche in my brain for his weird movies.
I was hoping to learn this too.
We're left to speculate.
...But I hope it was Weird Al's first film, "UHF".
And Army of Darkness is a comedy slapstick action movie. Right up there with UHF. Fantastic film!
My first thought on reading this was the scene from the movie UHF: "WHO WANTS TO DRINK FROM THE FIREHOSE?!?!?!"
Really love UHF, which this is taken from. The adverts in that movie are ridiculous as well.
> There's just one place to go for all of your spatula needs! Spatula city!
Back in the day, if you bought a commercial film on VHS, in most cases it was recorded at SLP (super long play, 6 hours to a standard tape) and then they would just put 1/3 of the normal amount of tape inside, to save money.
If you wanted to same movie recorded at SP (Standard play, 2 hours per tape) you usually had to pay extra, often double, and you couldn't find them in stores, you had to order them.
My dad was a bit of an audiophile, so for movies where quality mattered, he'd special order the SP versions. One that I remember was UHF (the Weird Al vehicle) and another was Indiana Jones. Which we ordered again on SP SVHS once we got an SVHS player.
So of you're planning to collect VHS, make sure you look at the recording speed. You might find a great deal if you find an SP tape.
Due to my age when I watched UHF I had not seen many of the movies that it referenced: Conan the Barbarian, Rambo, Indiana Jones & The Temple of Doom, Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Close Encounters - only over time did I come to appreciate it.
I love UHF. This is a truly great funny movie. Thanks for that Weird Al!
Don't feel like dealing with the paywall, so I'm not sure if it's mentioned, but his movie UHF is ... not bad. It's got some funny scenes, and an early Michael Richards (aka Kramer from Seinfeld).
It would be interesting to see some data on recent prices for TV station license transfers. The market value of AM radio station licenses has plummeted in recent years. I suspect the same is happening to TV stations, in particular the little independents that live off of syndicated feeds and Star Trek re-runs. (I've seen TV control rooms far, far, less luxurious than the station in Weird Al's movie "UHF"...)
I also have to mention UHF. If you haven't seen this film, run and go watch it now. It's hilarious.
Fair enough. For some reason Wierd Al's old movie UHF comes to mind, where he has a fake ad for a store that specializes in just spatulas. I bet San Fran and New York have one of these, too. ;-)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=2XbCWmY0eqY
So, in total seriousness: I'm an amateur baker, I own six spatulas, and only one of them is very good. My second favorite was doing great until I was making a double batch of muffins and the wooden handle came out of the silicone head, and then some muffin batter got into the slot where the handle used to be, and it was obvious that I was never going to get it clean again so I had to throw it away.
(Funny thing about this is I vaguely remember Alton Brown predicting this in his own review of spatulas. And then it happened just like he said.)
The good one is from Zyliss and is a silicone spatula firmly fused to its plastic handle. I have stirred some pretty viscous tubs of stuff with this spatula and it holds up, plus it's flexible enough to scrape well. My only problem with it is that it's wearing out after a few years; silicone isn't permanent and it develops nicks on the edge. I should go order three more while I'm thinking about it.
So I don't think reading ladle reviews is that farfetched at all. (Though for ladles, as for many things, I'd start at the local restaurant supply store. Those stores are big on utility and not as big on hype and markup. And, truthfully, ladles are not a hard thing to get right. Now dishers, on the other hand...)
(For some reason I am now having fond memories of Weird Al Yankovic's movie UHF. Fans will know why. ;)