"Weird Al" Yankovic will be ham for the holidays

Thanks to "Weird Al" Yankovic, air raid sirens and shouted death threats conjure images of the holiday season as much as jingling bells and the click-click-clicking of reindeer paws. But even if he hadn't recorded cult carols "Christmas At Ground Zero" and "The Night Santa Went Crazy," Yankovic's 30 years of skewering pop culture would still qualify him to team up with former Mystery Science Theater 3000 writer-performers Bill Corbett, Kevin Murphy, and Mike Nelson to poke fun at the malformed stocking stuffers featured in RiffTrax LIVE: Christmas Shorts-Stravaganza! Before the show goes live in more than 480 movie theaters on Wednesday, Dec. 16, The A.V. Club spoke to Yankovic about treasured Christmas traditions, giving the gift of his latest greatest-hits compilation, and playing to what is arguably his biggest audience ever.
The A.V. Club: You're going in front of a huge nationwide audience as part of the RiffTrax Christmas special. How do you feel about playing to that many people at once?
"Weird Al" Yankovic: [Laughs] Oh, gosh. I've never done an event quite like this. It's like a pay-per-view sort of thing. This should be a better experience than the proposed grudge fight with Kevin Federline which we were going to do a simulcast for. That never materialized.
AVC: Do you know exactly what you'll be riffing on yet?
WAY: I actually just got the DVD in the mail yesterday. It's basically a pork-based musical. It's sort of a singing infomercial. I don't want to give away too much, but it's a very bizarre piece of cinema.
AVC: How does that tie into Christmas?
WAY: I'm not really even sure how Christmas-y it is. It seems like it's an evening full of Christmas-related material and then a musical about pork. I'm not quite sure how that all fits in.
AVC: Are you a fan of Christmas movies in general?
WAY: Gosh, I watch Jingle All The Way pretty much every other week. It kind of informs my life.