Here’s a masterpiece of a movie.
I didn’t think so the first time I watched it.
I was a little preoccupied.
But this time I had a reason to be more emotionally invested.
Mops!
That’s right, mops.
Mops play a big role in this movie.
Spatulas also make a sort of cameo.
But mops predominate.
In particular, there is a special mop which is almost like a character in this film.
It doesn’t talk.
It doesn’t have a name.
But it is more than a MacGuffin.
Stanley Spadowski (the true star of this movie) received the mop in question for his 8th birthday.
And, apparently, he used that mop well into adulthood.
He decorated it with various bits of colored electrical tape.
And it was with this mop that he dutifully fulfilled his role as janitor at a major local TV news station: Channel 8.
But one day, Spadowski (played brilliantly by Michael Richards) found himself to be, in the tradition of Hitchcock, “the wrong man”.
Spadowski did nothing wrong.
He was not careless.
Even though he didn’t possess a notable intellect per se, he gave his all to his janitorial profession.
…and he actually enjoyed it.
Mopping.
Scrubbing.
Stanley Spadowski took pride in his work at Channel 8.
But, as “the wrong man”, he suddenly found himself blamed and scapegoated.
Though his unscrupulous employer made no effort to prove Spadowski’s guilt, Spadowski could not PROVE his innocence.
It was a quick exchange…
Q: Did you do this?
A: No.
Q: I don’t believe you. You’re fired.
Something like that.
Very capricious.
And, thus, Spadowski was crushed.
But the most crushing blow for Stanley was when the station owner’s son (also an employee [l’il bit ‘o nepotism]) confiscated Stanley’s mop as “station property”.
It was not.
But Stanley was helpless.
Thunderstruck.
Aghast.
Stanley had no one to stand up for him.
Yet, though he didn’t get what the wanted (to retain his job at Channel 8), he got what he needed: a new job as janitor of the UHF station 62.
And all of this because one man observed the pitiable scene of Stanley being deprived of his tool of the trade (which he had used since childhood).
That man was “Weird Al” Yankovic.
As in the movie (where “Weird Al” is the station manager of “U62”), Yankovic was also the brains behind this movie itself.
He wrote it.
With someone named Jay Levey.
Mr. Levey directed this “cult classic”.
If it tells you anything, Levey still does not have a Wikipedia page in English…41 years after this movie came out.
So I am going to assume that Levey did not go on to bigger and brighter things in the film industry.
That being said, it appears this film actually realized a 20% profit (box office – budget = x [x/budget = profit as a %]).
But let’s get back into Stanley Spadowski (a character “Weird Al” or Levey must have invented).
I’d bet money that Yankovic came up with this character.
But this character could not have come to life without the talents of Michael Richards.
No one, and I mean NO ONE, could have pulled it off.
Michael Richards is a very underrated actor.
If you look on iTunes, you are apt to see a mere two films in which Richards plays anything approximating a significant role.
One is this: UHF.
The other is another sort of “diamond in the rough”: Transylvania 6-5000.
The latter would be a mostly-unwatchable, tedious comedy were it not for Richards’ breakout performance.
Richards distinguished himself as Fejos in that film four years prior to UHF.
Indeed, just a fortnight before UHF was released in 1989, Seinfeld premiered as The Seinfeld Chronicles.
Richards played the role of Kessler.
As The Seinfeld Chronicles became Seinfeld, Kessler became Kramer.
The world, in general, knows Michael Richards as [Cosmo] Kramer.
The show ran for nine years.
But let’s adjust our tack a bit here.
Who is Stanley Spadowski?
I would argue that he is the “cousin” (so to speak) of Carl Spackler: the groundskeeper in 1980’s Caddyshack.
Where Spackler is laconic, Spadowski is prone to frenzy.
And yet, these two characters are cut from a similar cloth.
Spackler (Bill Murray) always has his impermeable camouflage bucket hat.
And usually a dirt-and-sweat-stained T-shirt.
Baggy cargo shorts.
And combat boots.
Appearing in 1980, Carl Spackler would have probably been seen as a nutty Vietnam vet.
Indeed, Spackler is tasked by his boss (the HEAD groundskeeper) to take care of the golf course’s gopher problem.
In hilarious fashion, Spackler goes after the gophers…even employing plastic explosives.
Spadowski is also a T-shirt guy.
With suspenders.
Always suspenders.
And whether they are real or fake (I think fake), Spadowski has noticeable (and endearing) bucked teeth.
He can hardly keep them in his mouth.
He is awkward.
He usually speaks slowly.
But when he gets excited, he is like a fire hydrant that’s just been opened.
What’s important about Spadowski and Spackler is that they are everymen.
They are most certainly underdogs.
And UHF, at its heart, is an underdog story.
U62, the channel, is an underdog.
It is not a network affiliate.
UHF (as opposed to VHF) was the television equivalent of AM radio (as opposed to FM).
Local stations.
Questionable programming.
Shoestring budgets.
You could find ANYTHING on UHF television or AM radio.
Anything was possible.
There was less control.
Today, in my town, my favorite radio station is run by a Methodist church.
Their format (vaguely) is “oldies”.
But their programming swings a bit wildly…and usually I love them for it.
They play songs I’ve never heard.
Occasionally a similar station will pop up in the same range of the dial using this “none of the hits–all of the time” approach (only to disappear back into the ocean of static which separates one clear-signal island from another).
U61 is this sort of beast.
Which makes sense.
Because it is run by a dreamer: George Newman (“Weird Al”).
George starts off this film flipping burgers.
This may be a reference to the 1982 film Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
“Weird Al” gets fired.
The tone of the scene is very similar to Fast Times…
Which brings up an important point.
UHF is a pastiche.
It is stream-of-consciousness.
The narrative shifts wildly with non sequitur episodes interpolated here and there.
UHF makes continuous reference to the pop culture of its day: the 1980s.
And this makes sense because the creator of this film was “Weird Al”: best known as a musician specializing in parodies (usually of contemporary hits).
I hate to get all artsy-fartsy here, but I would dare say there is a modicum of post-modernism in “Weird Al”‘s filmic approach.
And, perhaps more importantly, a noticeable measure of Thelonious Monk (autism?) in Stanley Spadowski.
Idiot-savant.
And so UHF is a work of art which captures awkwardness in some of the same ways that Napoleon Dynamite and Poto and Cabengo do (respectively).
The message is: be yourself.
You have value.
There is a person out there for you.
There is a job that is right for you.
There are no guarantees.
But you won’t be happy anyway if you’re not being yourself.
-PD
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