Friday on My Mind: "Weird Al" Yankovic!

It’s time again for Friday on My Mind. Our weekly blog post where we look at videos centered around one common theme. This is a collaborative effort between KEXP and King 5 News.

This week we are celebrating "Weird Al" Yankovic, the clown prince of parody. This man has had an epic run, and he keeps turning out hits destined for viral video popularity. His first comedy song aired in 1976, and he has gone on to sell millions of records. When his latest album, Mandatory Fun, was released this past July 15th, it became his very first number one album during its debut week. Yankovic got his start in music when a travelling salesman came to his family’s home offering guitar or accordion lessons. Yankovic, one day shy of 6 years old, was set up with the accordion, which would later become a signature instrument for his polka medleys of rock and pop tunes. Famed southern California syndicated radio personality Dr. Demento gave a young Weird Al his first break in 1976, playing a bedroom demo of Yankovic’s “Belvedere Cruisin’” on his show. A few years later Yankovic parodied The Knack’s hit “My Sharona” with his version “My Bologna”, which led to a recording contract for Weird Al and launched his career in music and comedy.

One of the many endearing things about Weird Al is that his parodies rarely make fun of the original song or artist, or when they do they are done in such a clever way as to be reverential. More often, he skewers himself or popular culture to the tune of hit songs. The man has outlasted many of the artists he has parodied, and somehow manages to keep his goofy shtick relevant. And countless kids have heard a Weird Al version first, and wondered who the heck was covering his songs with such weird lyrics when they later hear the original. The man is a national treasure.

Eat It

One of the first glimpses that many of us had of Yankovic was during the 1980’s when he took on the likes of Michael Jackson. When Jackson’s Thriller reigned supreme, Yankovic asked for permission to parody “Beat It” and with Jackson’s permission, “Eat It” was born. Just as “Eat It” and Thriller were commercial successes for Jackson, “Eat It” and “Weird Al” Yankovic in 3-D, were successful for Yankovic. “Eat It” won him his first of three Grammys and the album was his first to reach gold status. The music video to accompany “Eat It” was a frame by frame re-shoot of the official “Beat It” video, but with exploding guitars and sandwiches.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcJjMnHoIBI

Smells Like Nirvana

Kurt Cobain had stated that he thought that Yankovic was a musical genius, and Dave Grohl has said that having Yankovic parody Nirvana’s music made the band feel that they had “made it”. Yankovic’s take on “Smells Like Teen Spirit” was to go the route of pointing out how difficult it was to understand the lyrics. The official video for Yankovic’s “Smells Like Nirvana” ended up being nominated for Best Male Video during the 1992 MTV Video Music awards, which put it up against the original video for “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FklUAoZ6KxY

Tacky

Mandatory Fun is the brand new album from Yankovic. One of Yankovic’s most recent parodies from this new album is of Pharrell's “Happy”. Yankovic’s version of the song was shot in the same exact one-take style as Pharrell’s video and features cameos from the likes of Jack Black, Kristen Schaal of Flight of the Conchords and Bob’s Burgers, Aisha Tyler of Archer, Margaret Cho, and Modern Family’s Eric Stonestreet. It was also shot in the same location where scenes were shot for the apartment belonging to Julianne Moore’s character, Maude Lebowski in The Big Lebowski. Check out all of these stars in all their tacky fashion glory here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zq7Eki5EZ8o

Honorable Mentions

Amish Paradise

For the longest time Coolio was not happy with his “Gangsta’s Paradise” being parodied by Weird Al as “Amish Paradise”. The two didn’t make peace for a good ten years after the 1996 release of “Amish Paradise” and now Coolio even admits that he finds the parody really funny. Check out the video with Yankovic in his Amish garb and a guest appearance from the one and only Florence Henderson.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOfZLb33uCg

Fat

“Bad” was the second of Michael Jackson’s songs that Yankovic was granted permission to skewer. Not only did Jackson give his blessing for “Fat” to be made, he also gave Yankovic access to the same exact set where the “Bad” video was shot

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2mU6USTBRE