"Weird Al" Yankovic is a comedic singer-songwriter known for parodying other people's songs and also for original songs that parody different styles, such as polka. He has played the accordion on many of his songs. His inspiration for playing such music came from listening to Dr. Demento, a syndicated radio show that specialized in playing novelty songs. His parody of Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust," called "Another One Rides the Bus," was recorded live on Dr. Demento in September 1980. Among other songs, he also parodied Toni Basil's "Mickey" as "Ricky," (an homage to I Love Lucy) a video favorite during the early years of MTV.
Yankovic's biggest hit however, came in 1984 when he released "Eat It," a parody of Michael Jackson's number-one hit from the previous year, "Beat It." The parody lyrics are about a parent trying to get their fussy child to eat anything, much less eat properly. The video for "Eat It" even parodies the original, including the red jacket. Unfortunately, the video doesn't allow playback on other sites, so here is the link. There is also this "coverage take" video:
"Weird Al" also wrote and starred in the 1989 movie UHF and had The Weird Al Show on CBS in 1997, as well as producing two satirical movies on his life, The Compleat Al in 1985 and the recent biopic Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, with Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe as Yankovic.
8 comments:
It's amazing how Weird Al has managed to make an entire career out of parody songs and videos. He's the king of novelty songs alright.
My sons introduced me to Weird Al who is very clever and fun to listen to.
Loved that look back at "Eat It"! Thanks for sharing it today.
Weird Al does some great songs. This is one of his best! Happy weekend Jamie.
I love Weird Al. He is still great. And that's saying something. So many celebrities from that era (that I admired) turned out to be trash people (with trash political opinions) Weird Al? Nope. He's still one of the good ones.
Fun song. I think I heard another one of Weird Al's song but can't remember the name but I remember it was fun to listn.
Thanks for stopping by my a-z post. Have a lovely day.
I saw his concert in St. Augustine, Florida in '16 with my daughter, her husband and his parents. It was one of the best concerts I've been to and I've been to a lot of concerts.
I love Weird Al and his parodies. In this song, he actually got the original dancers from the Beat It video to be in this parody. I love the Nerd One and when Donny Osmond shows up, I just cracked up.
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