Trivia / Off the Deep End

• Approval of God: Kurt Cobain once claimed that he hadn't felt as though he'd "made it" until "Smells Like Nirvana". When he and the other members of Nirvana saw the video for "Smells Like Nirvana," they literally rolled on the floor laughing.
• Channel Hop: With the release of this album, Al was shifted away from his old label, Rock 'n' Roll Labels, and onto their parent label, Scotti Bros, thanks to the latter closing Rock 'n' Roll after shifting distributors from Columbia Records to BMG. Scotti Bros. had previously handled European releases of Al's catalog since Dare to Be Stupid.
• Creator's Oddball: Due to his earlier songs being well-known about eating or related to it, when Al asked for permission to parody Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit", Kurt Cobain had this question:
  Kurt Cobain: It's not going to be about food, is it?
  Al: No, it's going to be about how no one understands your lyrics.
• Enforced Method Acting: Al had exactly one take to smash a $1,000 Ovation guitar at the end of the "You Don't Love Me Anymore" music video. His anger at it being harder to break than he thought, and the Aside Glance he gives to the camera after he does so are authentic.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: Good luck finding any extended copies of this album, where the Jump Scare parody of Nirvana's "Endless, Nameless", "Bite Me" is tagged at the end.^note How to tell? If the last track, "You Don't Love Me Anymore" says it's over 14 minutes long, instead of its original 4 minutes, then "Bite Me" will be there. The "song" itself can be found on YouTube, but that's about it.
• One-Take Wonder: Al smashes a $1,000 Ovation guitar at the end of the "You Don't Love Me Anymore" music video. He was only going to do this in one take, because he was only going to destroy one guitar with that price tag.
• Saved from Development Hell: Al had problems with this album due to rejections from Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney (though both were very respectful about it), and after his hiatus following the commercial failure of UHF, wanted to come back strong with a parody of a major hit. Cue "Smells Like Teen Spirit", which became a top ten hit; and thus, "Smells Like Nirvana" was born and the album got on the release track.
• Technology Marches On: "When I Was Your Age" references fax machines and "Nintendo" (aka video games) as fancy new technology he didn't have growing up. Waterbeds have also fallen well out of popularity.
• Throw It In!: In the video for "You Don't Love Me Anymore," bassist Steve Jay chipped one of his teeth biting into a piece of ham (watch carefully — he noticeably winces as he does so). Since it fit with everything else, it was kept.

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