Hey guys It's Mike
also known as Monk and you're watching
Flame On. Sparks of culture from a Gay
dude's geeky perspective.
So what set me on fire this week? Weird
Al Yankovic.
This guy was thee geek before nerd was
cool.
Wait, what? Weird Al Yankovic has
bombarded the internet this past week by
releasing
a video a day for the past four days and
will be releasing
four more videos from his new album
"Mandatory Fun".
So far the king of parody has lampooned
Lordes'
"Royals" as an ode to aluminum foil,
Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines" by appealing to
all those grammar nazis out there with
the song called "Word Crimes",
Iggy Azalea's "Fancy" with the little
fixer-upper called "Handy",
and Pharrell's "Happy" with a plethora of
guest stars
such ask Jack Black, Margaret Cho and
Eric Stonestreet
of Modern Family showing how "Tacky"
they really are. Weird Al started his
career
when at the age of 16 Dr. Demento 
came to talk at his high school.
Dr. Demento who is known for curating
comedy and strange and unusual songs for his
radio show
was given a tape. Tape... remember those?
Dr. Demento was given a tape by Weird Al
containing original songs and parodies,
one of which was "Belvedere
Cruising"
about his parents' car. Dr. Demento loved
the song so much he put it on
air, thus launching Weird Al's career.
But it wasn't until his parody of The Knack's "My Sharona"
with "My Bologna" that his career
started to accelerate. The lead singer
of The Knack, Doug Feiger
liked the song and convinced Capitol
Records to sign Weird Al to a
six-month contract
and the rest is history. Although I've
lost track of his releases
since his spectacular lampooning of the
legendary band Nirvana
in "Smells Like Nivana", his songs
have embedded themselves into my
cultural landscape,
many of them I love. In my youth his parody of Michael Jackson's "Beat It"
as "Eat It" was the pinnacle for me
recreating shot-for-shot
the original video, with "Fat" a parody of
Michael Jackson's "Bad"
and "Like a Surgeon" a parody of Madonna's
"Like a Virgin"
coming in a close second. By the way,
Weird Al normally doesn't take
suggestions for parodies from fans let
alone the original artists,
but "Like a Surgeon" was the only
exception.
According to several sources, since Weird Al was on a roll with many of his
parodies,
Madonna jokingly said to one of her
friends, I wonder how long its gonna be
before Weird Al changes "Like a Virgin"
into "Like a Surgeon".
Mutual friends of Weird Al and Madonna...
Mutual friends of Weird Al
and Madonna? Eh? Mutual friends of Weird Al and Madonna
pass the word on to Al and he
jumped at the opportunity.
Since then he's propped up with several
parodies such as
"Perform This Way" which lampoon's Lady
Gaga's "Born This Way"
and the seminal geek anthem "White
and Nerdy" which parodies "Ridin'" by Chamillionaire,
which is by the way the highest charting
song that Weird Al has
ever had in his music career topping at
number nine on the Billboard Top 100,
but unfortunately all good things must
come to an end.
"Mandatory Fun" will be the last album
from Weird Al,
one because, well, he's getting older
and two, well, his recording contract is up,
so yeah, there's that. But he has
promised to do EP's
and singles in the future so, you know,
fingers crossed.
In this age where YouTube is filled with
parodies,
the now-defunct DWV and Sherri Vine come to mind,
and original comedy songs are plenty, the
SNL spinoff group The Lonely Island
is a prime example of that,
Weird Al might seem like, well, a dinosaur.
But in reality his discography as well
as many others such as
Julie brown and Adam Sandler
helped pave the way too many of those out
there who are waiting to hit that upload
button
to that next viral video that you
may see. So congrats Weird Al
on the new album, although I do have one
gripe. I wish there were more songs about
food.
Although, now that he's a vegan, I guess his options are a little bit more limited.
What is he gonna sing? Everybody is tofu
biting?
That was bad. Sorry. Anyways, I should
probably and this video the same way
I usually do,
which is, if you like what you see, like,
subscribe, comment in the comment section
below
and hopefully I'll see you guys in next
video.
Alright. Take care. Have a good one.
Bye.
