Trivia / Alapalooza

• Approval of God:
  • Steven Spielberg personally gave Al his blessing for "Jurassic Park." Al, in turn, made sure the clay-mated Spielberg didn't get eaten in the music video.
  • Jimmy Webb approved of the song too, and has twice started to sing "Macarthur Park" in concert only to bring Al on stage for him to perform "Jurassic Park".
• Creator Backlash:
  • After some time, Al admitted he wasn't fond of "Achy Breaky Song", feeling that it was a bit mean-spirited.
  • Al was understandably peeved when E! asked him to write a theme for Talk Soup only for the network to balk at using his song for the show.
  • Al also stated that it was hard for him to listen to "Young, Dumb, And Ugly" due to him singing well above his natural vocal range. When performing the song on the Ridiculously Self Indulgent tours, Al lowered the key from F# to B.
• Creator-Driven Successor: According to Al, "Jurassic Park" was a deliberate attempt to repeat the formula of "Yoda", combining a classic hit with a recent blockbuster — in this case, blending Richard Harris' "MacArthur Park" with Jurassic Park instead of mixing The Kinks' "Lola" with The Empire Strikes Back. Al stated that the idea came to him when "Lola" came on the radio while driving and he realized how much fun he had with "Yoda".
• Real-Life Relative: Al's Aunt Dot is the jumping cave woman in "Bedrock Anthem".
• What Could Have Been:
  • Mr. Lawrence was originally going to direct the video for "Jurassic Park" but was too busy with Rocko's Modern Life, so he recommended his colleague Mark Osbourne instead.
  • "Talk Soup", about the E! show of the same name, was originally written as its potential theme song at the network's request. After it was submitted, E! told Al they loved the song, and then proceeded to never use it.
• Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: The claymation video for "Jurassic Park" had an extremely tight deadline, with only two months of production to have it ready by October of 1993. Mark Osbourne and Scott Nordlund had to create a production facility from scratch in a private residential house in Reseda, then work round the clock, sleeping in shifts.

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