"Weird Al" Yankovic/Trivia

• Approval of God: His parodies sometimes have this reaction:
  • Michael Jackson was a big fan and enjoyed the parodies of his work. He even lent the set for his "Bad" music video for Al to use for his parody "Fat".
  • Chamillionaire told the Houston Chronicle: "It's one thing to go platinum. Where do you go from there? Then Weird Al calls."
  • In general, this is the attitude toward his work in the industry. If he parodies one of your songs, then you've made it.
  • The creation of "Like A Surgeon", a parody of "Like a Virgin", was partly due to Madonna herself asking if Weird Al was going for it.
• Development Hell: A minor example with Off The Deep End: Al had the problems with Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney detailed below (though they were very respectful about it) and after his hiatus at the time wanted to come back strong with a parody of a major hit. Cue "Smells Like Teen Spirit" becoming huge, and thus "Smells Like Nirvana" was born and the album got on the release track.
• Executive Meddling:
  • Essentially the cause of Coolio's beef with Weird Al. Al usually got permission directly from celebrities for his parodies (even though he does not legally have to) but occasionally relied on the studio heads to do that for him. His producer got permission from Coolio's producer but not Coolio. After that incident, Al goes directly to the artist for permission.
  • Used in the more traditional sense with the song "You're Pitiful" which was supposed to be a parody of James Blunt's "You're Beautiful". James said yes, but the higher-ups said no, and the song was only released on Al's website for free.
  • Happened with his parody of Lady Gaga's "Born This Way." Al thought Gaga had not given him permission to put his parody on his new record, when what actually happened was her manager hadn't given Gaga the song to listen to in the first place, just assuming she would hate it. Once Gaga finally heard the song, she loved it.
  • Al's record label insisted that he include a Cyndi Lauper parody on Dare To Be Stupid, resulting in "Girls Just Wanna Have Lunch", a parody which he later admitted was "forced". Another instance on this album is his cover of the theme to "George of the Jungle"; apparently the label suggested that he do a cover song.
  • One album later, they wanted a Christmas song. The result, naturally, was "Christmas At Ground Zero".
• One of Us: The "White And Nerdy" music video alone proves this as only a real nerd would have known some of these things. Knowing about the Star Wars Holiday Special and why you would need to bootleg it is some serious nerd cred.
  • Actually zig-zagged in "White & Nerdy". While he does reference the Star Wars Holiday Special, he also claims in the song that he's a "champion at D&D." While some may disagree, Dungeons & Dragons isn't supposed to be a competitive sport.
  • His bandmates, too. "Bermuda" Schwartz, for example, helped maintain Al's original web page and participated in Al's Usenet fan group.
  • And then there's "All About The Pentiums", which came out earlier and is labeled as one of the earliest nerdcore songs ever.
  • He's a Brony, if rumours are true.
    • Which would be Hilarious in Hindsight for those who heard "Stop Forwarding That Crap to Me", in which one of the lyrics implies that he doesn't care about unicorns. Doubly funny when you consider that he actually tweeted a fanmade music video that joins Friendship Is Magic and Polkarama - thereby making HIM the one "forwarding unicorns".
    • There are fans who insist the show cast him as Pinkie's father. That would be awesome if it weren't for that little detail of her father actually being seen in a flashback as a stern, conservative Amish farmer. But hey, he seemed to let loose a bit at the end of said flashback, so anything can happen at this point.
• Throw It In: In the video for "You Don't Love Me Anymore," one of Al's bandmates really did hurt themselves biting into a piece of ham - since it fit with everything else, it was kept.
• What Could Have Been:
  • A parody of Paul McCartney's "Live and Let Die", entitled "Chicken Pot Pie", was denied since it was about eating meat, as McCartney is a vegetarian.
  • While "Buckingham Blues" sounds like a typical blues song, the opening lines and insistent references to the prince and princess as Chuck and Diane make it clear that it was originally conceived as a parody of John Cougar Mellencamp's "Jack and Diane". Al later used a parody of that song in his Simpsons cameo.
  • Imagine if Prince had okayed any of Al's parody ideas!
  • As mentioned above, Al got accordion lessons for his seventh birthday. However, he could've gone with guitar lessons instead. Imagine that...
• Very juvenile and outdated joke from the 1980s:

Q: What's the difference between Michael Jackson, Weird Al, and Lionel Richie?
A: Michael Jackson beats it, Weird Al eats it, and Lionel Richie plays with it all night long.