"Yankovic remembers an issue of TV Guide arriving at the house that contained a photograph of an actress in a bikini. Mary took out a felt pen to fill out the suit. Did he ever do drugs? No. Because his parents told him not to."
From "Was ‘Weird Al’ the real star all along?/After nearly 40 years of parodying celebrities, the accordion-playing nerd has become a legend in his own right"(WaPo).
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I loved his parodies growing up. Still do today.
No relation to Frankie Yankovic.
I continue to cheerlead that Weird Al belongs in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It's a damn travesty every day he's not.
My friends and I loved him in school and now my kids do. Husband ran into him in an airport lounge and he was delightful. Good dude.
When my kids were little, we would cozy up on the couch and play "Eat it" and "Fat" - Weird Al's 2 big Michael Jackson parodies, and they would laugh and sing till tears came to their eyes.
Gotta love Weird Al!
Christian bashing is so in vogue. Why those strict, strict non fun loving Christians. No sense of humor. Just ask any of our intellectual celebrity giants who screw anything in sight. Now that's risque, why even animals do it.
Not one of Weird Al's better known parodies, but I think one of his better: Dare to be Stupid, his parody of Devo.
When you watch the video, it's obvious that the members of Devo were all on-board with the parody, to the point of providing props.
I thought he was just entertaining until he did the Beverly Hillbillies theme to the tune of Money for Nothing. That's the moment I realized he was a genuine genius.
Weird Al is a really nice guy. I had heard this about him before. A product of the "bourgeois values" and "cultural script" that Amy Wax has been so criticized for by the left-wing media and the academy.
When you watch the video, it's obvious that the members of Devo were all on-board with the parody, to the point of providing props.
I believe he asks permission before doing the parodies, believe it or not. I heard Eminem turned him down once and he was crestfallen but didn't go ahead on his own.
It's pretty clear the "Eat It" video used a lot of the sets, props, and even some people from the Michael Jackson "Beat It" video. Or they just matched things up better than I'd guess is possible.
Saw his show a few years ago. He's clearly a very talented musician. Some of his original writing (try out "Hardware Store" or "Bob", a song made completely out of palindromes) is genius-level clever.
Hey - YH - I believe Devo did NOT give permission, and Mark Mothersbaugh (sp?) was at least annoyed by the parody. Or so I heard, some years ago.
I'd love to see him do the Super Bowl halftime show.
@Jon,
Mark Mothersbaugh (sp?) was at least annoyed
Doesn't MM give you the impression that he's often annoyed at something or another?
Mark Knopfler gave Weird Al permission to parody "Money for Nothing", provided he got to do the guitar solo.
My junior high age son was in to Weird Al, which exposed me "My Baby's in Love with Eddie Vedder". That song alone should get him into the R&R HoF.
That's a great appreciation of Weird Al. I sorta feel like I've read it already. I think there's been more than one of these write-ups on Alfred Yankovich's lasting power.
Unintentionally funny line from the article:
Paul McCartney dissuaded Yankovic from turning “Live and Let Die” into “Chicken Pot Pie.” The former Beatle, a vegetarian and animal rights activist, suggested “Tofu Pot Pie.”
Oh! THAT Paul McCartney. The one that's a former BEATLE.
Of course Live and Let Die is not a Beatle's song. It's a Paul McCartney and Wings song. The former Beatle had a former Beatle career.
"Was ‘Weird Al’ the real star all along?"
Sure, you think l'm a big hero. Do any of you understand how a man can hurt inside?
Frank, they're not here for you. 'Weird Al' Yankovic is on the plane.
Henry,
You mean Paul McCartney was in another band before Wings?
John Henry
Jon said...
Hey - YH - I believe Devo did NOT give permission, and Mark Mothersbaugh (sp?) was at least annoyed by the parody. Or so I heard, some years ago.
If so, an interesting lack of reciprocity on Mothersbaugh's part.
The Story Behind Devo’s Iconic Cover of the Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction”
Mothersbaugh put the tape in a boom box and pressed Play. As the sounds of the cover filled the room, Jagger sat stone-faced. What he was hearing didn’t sound much like the “Satisfaction” he’d written. Keith Richards’s iconic riff was gone, and the original melody was nowhere to be found. Was this a homage, Mick must have wondered, or were they mocking him?
“He was just looking down at the floor swirling his glass of red wine,” Casale recently remembered, adding, “He didn’t even have shoes on, just socks and some velour pants. I don’t know what his habits were then, but this was early afternoon and it looked like he had just gotten up.”
For thirty seconds or so, the men sat in silence, listening to the weird robo-funk coming from the boom box. Then something changed. “He suddenly stood up and started dancing around on this Afghan rug in front of the fireplace,” Casale said, of Jagger, “the sort of rooster-man dance he used to do, and saying”—he impersonated Jagger’s accent—“‘I like it, I like it.’ Mark and I lit up, big smiles on our faces, like in ‘Wayne’s World’: ‘We’re not worthy!’ To see your icon that you grew up admiring, that you had seen in concert, dancing around like Mick Jagger being Mick Jagger. It was unbelievable.”
“We were less than nothing,” Mothersbaugh said. “We were just these artists that nobody had ever heard of, from Akron, Ohio.”
And if you like Weird Al, you'll love Dr. Demento - the Allan Freed of the goofy, juvenile, but funny music genre.
If he truly grew up in a strict household, there would have been no TV Guide because there would have been no television in the house.
Since Al wasn't doing a direct parody of a Devo song, permission wasn't needed. Just like he did "Dog Eat Dog" but not need permission from the Talking Heads.
I've taken my kids to see Al twice, and it was a great performance both times.
Comedy is hard to do. It's easy to write a tragic song, but to be witty and musically capable and enlist others to provide artwork, props, and their talents takes organizational ability and leadership.
And to do this for 40 years without falling apart? And deliver a consistently funny product? In the music world?
Amazing.
We're gonna miss him when he's gone.
Ditto to what Bill Peschel said. Funny for 40 solid years, most of the people he started out parodying are through but his last album was his first number one. Talking about the props used on "Fat", apparently Michael Jackson was a HUGE fan and arranged for Al to shoot on the same set where they shot the "Bad" video. Also, I read that Madonna herself suggested the title "Like A Surgeon".
(FYI, I feel like I read this article months ago, though I couldn't find a date on it.)
"I'd love to see him do the Super Bowl halftime show"
I've said and posted that for years. He does a killer show - it's guaranteed to be family friendly and would be far more fun than anything they've ever had.
Bill Peschel- he didn't NEED to ask permission for his parodies. He asked because he's Weird Al.
I never heard Mothersbaugh was unhappy. The instance I heard regarding permission was that there was a miscommunication with Coolio over Gangster's Paradise and Coolio hadn't given his blessing.
I think his best was Smells Like Nirvana.
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He's a lot like Frank Zappa. He plays better than what he is parodying. Very tight music.
0_0 said...
Bill Peschel- he didn't NEED to ask permission for his parodies.
Bit late for me to come back, but, yes, I understand that. I was trying, ineffectually, to distinguish between direct parodies of an artist's song, and writing an original song in an artist's style.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but "Dare to be Stupid" does not parody a Devo song. Nor does "Dog Eat Dog" parody a Talking Heads song. Hence, no need to ask permission. That's the point I was trying to make.
I never heard Mothersbaugh was unhappy.
I'd heard he was only unhappy that Weird Al had managed to write a song more Devo than Devo did.
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