With his seemingly endless optimism and light-hearted
satire, Weird Al Yankovic has a power that
goes beyond innovative lyrics and catchy tunes:
he makes people happy.
"He who is tired of Weird Al is tired of life."
But Weird Al Yankovic's path to success hasn't
always been smooth sailing.
Here are the weirdest moments in Weird Al's
journey from a nerdy, accordion-playing teen
to the Prince of Parody.
Dr. Demento
Weird Al has had a longer and more illustrious
career than many of the artists he's parodied,
but it's likely that none of it ever would
have happened without Barry Hansen, also known
as Dr. Demento.
Demento's syndicated radio show was one of
the only places to hear comedy and novelty
records in the '70s, and in early 1976, Demento
received a submission from a 16-year-old high
school senior named Alfred Yankovic.
The song was too weird to resist: a kid playing
the accordion and singing about the virtues
of his family's Plymouth Belvedere.
The tune was a big hit with Demento's fans,
but it wasn't until Al got to college that
he began doing his signature wacky parodies.
He kept Demento's fans supplied with them,
and they kept asking for more.
"Ladies and gentlemen, Weird Al Yankovic."
Weird Al remains to this day the most requested
artist in the history of the Dr. Demento Show,
all because he wrote a silly song in high
school.
Bathroom success
Weird Al's first big parody success was "My
Bologna," a sendup of The Knack's song "My
Sharona," which was extremely popular at the
time.
"My Bologna" was the first song that brought
Weird Al national attention...and he recorded
the whole thing in the bathroom.
"And I recorded that song, 'My Bologna,' in
the men's bathroom across the hall from our
college campus radio station."
Why?
Because it didn't cost anything, which was
all he could afford as a 19-year-old college
student.
While a more fleshed-out version with a full
rhythm section would make its way onto his
self-titled debut album, Dr. Demento's listeners
were treated to an early glimpse of what one
musical genius and his accordion could do.
Voice actor
Since Al somewhat resembles a living cartoon,
most of his guest roles on cartoons over the
years have been...well, himself.
He's appeared as himself in shows as diverse
as Robot Chicken, My Little Pony, and of course,
The Simpsons.
But he's also gained a respectable body of
work voicing other characters.
He's voiced a ton of DC Comics villains.
He's appeared as the Riddler, Dollmaker, and
Darkseid in various animated series and shorts.
"Oh wow thank you my throat feels so much
better."
He also voiced a Transformer in the 2007 animated
series and Banana Man in Adventure Time.
More recently, he voiced Captain Peanutbutter
on the Netflix series Bojack Horseman, and
is currently the lead on the Disney XD series
Milo Murphy's Law.
Band-mates forever
One of Al's biggest hits during his Dr. Demento
days was "Another One Rides the Bus," featuring
Al and his squeezebox with a guy banging on
the accordion's case for rhythm accompaniment.
That guy was Jon "Bermuda" Schwartz, and he's
played on every single one of Weird Al's records.
Al picked up the rest of his band right around
the same time, including guitarist Jim West
and bassist Steve Jay, who have played with
him since 1982.
He's also had the same keyboardist for 22
years, who Weird Al calls "the new guy."
The Saga Begins
The Phantom Menace had its good and its bad
points, but its greatest legacy?
It inspired Weird Al to write "The Saga Begins,"
a sprawling ode that somehow manages to stick
precisely to the complex structure of Don
McLean's "American Pie," while offering a
complete synopsis of the film.
That's impressive on its own, but even more
impressive?
Yankovic wrote the song before the movie was
released, relying on nothing but Internet
rumors.
And he totally nailed it:
"And the Jedi I admire most met up with Darth
Maul and now he's toast."
In the end, the hard work paid off.
The song became a hit, with even Don McLean
calling it "marvelous."
According to Weird Al, McLean's kids listened
to the parody version so much that he had
to to watch himself to keep from slipping
into Al's lyrics while performing "American
Pie."
Top 10 triumph
Weird Al has been a pop culture icon for what
feels like forever now, but he hasn't always
been culturally popular.
Some of his most beloved songs have peaked
at shockingly low positions on the charts.
"Amish Paradise" only hit #53, and "Smells
Like Nirvana" topped out at #35.
Even the recent "Word Crimes," still climbing
at 36 million YouTube views, only reached
#39.
Weird Al finally managed a Top 10 hit with
"White and Nerdy," which hit #9, and in 2014,
he achieved his first number one album with
Mandatory Fun—the first comedy album to
reach that spot in over 50 years, with over
100,000 sales in its first week.
The UHF bomb
Much of the world has forgotten that Weird
Al once made a movie.
1989's UHF is the story of a loser who inherits
a failing local TV station and makes it over
in his own zany image, and it plays like a
complete distillation of Weird Al's comic
sensibility.
With appearances from celebrities like Michael
Richards, Victoria Jackson, and Fran Drescher,
UHF combined slapstick, sketch comedy, music
parody, and sheer lunacy in a way that contemporary
audiences perhaps weren't ready for.
It was received terribly upon its theatrical
release, sending Al into a three-year creative
slump that didn't end until he came out with
"Smells Like Nirvana."
UHF has since become a cult comedy classic,
and Weird Al has only gotten more famous in
the intervening years.
We mean, the guy's won four Grammy's for making
fun of other people's songs.
Who else but Weird Al could pull that off?
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