Beginning in the 1980s, “Weird Al” Yankovic appeared on MTV with a series of television specials he called AL TV, which featured music videos, sketches, and fake interviews with various celebrities. He resurrected this format beautifully yesterday, in the form of a new song called “Bad Hombres, Nasty Women.” Using footage from the final presidential debate, Yankovic not only pretends to interview Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, but autotunes the result to turn the entire thing into a fantastic music video.
Weird Al moderates the last presidential debate, accidentally opens a portal to hell
But it took Weird Al to realize the true potential of autotuning the election.
The video comes from Schmoyoho, a YouTube channel that autotunes just about everything. The channel actually autotuned the first two debates as well: the first with Debbie Harry & Chris Stein of Blondie, the second with Joseph Gordon-Levitt. But it took Weird Al to realize the true potential of autotuning the election.
This is Weird Al in his element and it feels like it has the potential to be a classic, like his interviews with Eminem or Snoop Dogg. He kicks things off by belting out a note in B-flat minor, before ending up with a portal to hell being opened. What’s great about this is that like his earlier “interviews,” Weird Al takes part in the debate, asking if the candidates would thumb wrestle Vladimir Putin and who they’d pick for the Supreme Court nomination. (He humbly takes himself out of the running for the Supreme Court seat because he’s a “busy dude.”)
This is the type of thing Weird Al has built his career around: dialing the camp up to 11 and having a blast.
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