"Weird Al" Yankovic

Alfred Matthew Yankovic ( /ˈjæŋkəvɪk/   yang  -kə-vik; born October 23, 1959),[1]  better known by his stage name "Weird Al" Yankovic, is an American singer-songwriter, musician, parodist, record producer, satirist, actor, music video director, film producer, and author. He is known for his humorous songs that make light of popular culture and often parody specific songs by contemporary musical acts, original songs that are style pastiches of the work of other acts, andpolka medleys of several popular songs, featuring his favored instrument the accordion.

Since his first-aired comedy song in 1976, he has sold more than 12 million albums (as of 2007),[2]  recorded more than 150 parody and original songs,[3] [4] [5] and has performed more than 1,000 live shows.[6]  His works have earned him three Grammy Awards and a further 11 nominations, four gold records, and sixplatinum records in the United States. Yankovic's first top ten Billboard album (Straight Outta Lynwood) and single ("White & Nerdy") were both released in 2006, nearly three decades into his career. His latest album, Mandatory Fun (2014), became his first number one album on its debut week.

Yankovic's success comes in part from his effective use of music video to further parody popular culture, the song's original artist, and the original music videos themselves, scene-for-scene in some cases. He directed later videos himself and went on to direct for other artists including Ben Folds, Hanson, The Black Crowes, and The Presidents of the United States of America. With the decline of music television and the onset of social media, Yankovic usedYouTube and other video sites to publish his videos; this strategy proved integral helping to boost sales of his later albums including Mandatory Fun. Yankovic has stated that he may forgo traditional albums in favor of timely releases of singles and EPs following on this success.

In addition to recording his albums, Yankovic wrote and starred in the film UHF (1989) and The Weird Al Show (1997). He has also made guest appearances and voice acting roles on many television shows and video web content, in addition to starring in Al TV specials on MTV.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-MTV_Bio_1-1" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[1]  He has also written two children's books.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">

Contents
[hide]  *1 Early life <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">
 * 2 Career
 * 2.1 Dr. Demento and early fame
 * 2.2 Band and fame
 * 2.3 New look and career to present
 * 3 Personal life
 * 4 Music career
 * 4.1 Music videos
 * 4.2 Reactions from original artists
 * 4.2.1 Positive
 * 4.2.2 Negative
 * 4.2.3 Refused parodies
 * 4.3 Live performances
 * 5 Other work
 * 5.1 UHF
 * 5.2 Notable television appearances
 * 5.3 Directing career
 * 5.3.1 Canceled Cartoon Network feature film
 * 5.4 Writing
 * 5.5 Web media
 * 5.6 Other media
 * 6 Misattribution and imitators
 * 7 Fan-driven campaigns
 * 8 Discography
 * 9 Videography
 * 10 Filmography
 * 10.1 Film
 * 10.2 Television
 * 10.3 Video games
 * 11 References
 * 12 External links

Early life
<p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">Yankovic was born in Downey, California and raised in Lynwood, California. He is the only child of Nick Louis Yankovic (June 4, 1917 – April 9, 2004)<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-faq_7-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[7]  and Mary Elizabeth Yankovic (née Vivalda; February 7, 1923 – April 9, 2004).<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-faq_7-1" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[7]  His father was born in Kansas City, Kansas, of Yugoslavian<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-faq_7-2" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[7] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Conrad_8-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[8]  descent, and began living in California after serving during World War II;<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-booklet_9-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[9] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-10" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[10]  he believed "the key to success" was "doing for a living whatever makes you happy" and often reminded his son of this philosophy.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-booklet_9-1" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[9]  Nick Yankovic married Mary Elizabeth Vivalda in 1949. Mary, who was of Italian and English descent, had come to California from Kentucky, and gave birth to Alfred ten years later.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-booklet_9-2" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[9]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">Al's first accordion lesson, which sparked his career in music, was on the day before his sixth birthday. A door-to-door salesman traveling through Lynwood offered the Yankovic parents a choice of accordionor guitar lessons at a local music school. Yankovic claims the reason his parents chose accordion over guitar was "They figured there should be at least one more accordion-playing Yankovic in the world", referring to Frankie Yankovic, to whom he is not related directly.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-autogenerated1_11-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[11]  Yankovic said that "[his] parents chose the accordion because they were convinced it would revolutionize rock."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Conrad_8-1" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[8]  He continued lessons at the school for three years before continuing to learn on his own.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-faq_7-3" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[7]  Yankovic's early accordion role models included Frankie Yankovic and Myron Floren (the accordionist on The Lawrence Welk Show).

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">In the 1970s, Yankovic was a big fan of Elton John and claims John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album "was partly how I learned to play rock 'n roll on the accordion."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-booklet_9-3" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[9]  As for his influences in comedic and parody music, Yankovic lists artists including Tom Lehrer, Stan Freberg, Spike Jones, Allan Sherman, Shel Silverstein and Frank Zappa "and all the other wonderfully sick and twisted artists that he was exposed to through the Dr. Demento Radio Show."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-faq_7-4" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[7] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-12" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[12]  Other sources of inspiration for his comedy come from Mad magazine,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-booklet_9-4" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[9]  Monty Python,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-13" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[13]  and the Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker parody movies.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-14" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[14]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">Yankovic began kindergarten a year earlier than most children, and he skipped the second grade. "My classmates seemed to think I was some kind of rocket scientist so I was labeled a nerd early on", he recalls.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-booklet_9-5" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[9]  As his unusual schooling left him two years younger than most of his classmates, Yankovic was not interested in sports or social events at school. He was valedictorian of his senior class.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-booklet_9-6" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[9] Yankovic was active in his school's extracurricular programs, including the National Forensic League, a play based upon Rebel Without a Cause, the yearbook (for which he wrote most of the captions), and the Volcano Worshippers club, "which did absolutely nothing. We started the club just to get an extra picture of ourselves in the yearbook."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-booklet_9-7" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[9]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">Yankovic attended California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo where he earned a degree in architecture.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Conrad_8-2" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[8]

Dr. Demento and early fame
<p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">Yankovic received his first exposure via southern California and syndicated comedy radio personality Dr. Demento's radio show, saying "If there hadn't been a Dr. Demento, I'd probably have a real job now."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-15" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[15]  In 1976, Dr. Demento spoke at Yankovic's school where the then 16-year-old Yankovic gave him a homemade tape of original and parody songs performed on the accordion in Yankovic's bedroom into a "cheesy little tape recorder". The tape's first song, "Belvedere Cruisin'" - about his family's Plymouth Belvedere - was played on Demento's comedy radio show, launching Yankovic's career. Demento said, "'Belvedere Cruising' might not have been the very best song I ever heard, but it had some clever lines [...] I put the tape on the air immediately."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-booklet_9-8" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[9] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-unlabeled_tape_16-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[16]  Yankovic also played at local coffeehouses, saying: <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:inherit;">It was sort of like amateur music night, and a lot of people were like wannabe Dan Fogelbergs. They'd get up on stage with their acoustic guitar and do these lovely ballads. And I would get up with my accordion and play the theme from 2001. And people were kind of shocked that I would be disrupting their mellow Thursday night folk fest.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-17" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[17] <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">During Yankovic's sophomore year as an architecture student at Cal Poly at San Luis Obispo, he became a disc jockey at the university's radio station, KCPR. Yankovic said he had been nicknamed Weird Alby fellow students and "took it on professionally" as his persona for the station.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-booklet_9-9" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[9]  In 1978, he released his first recording (as Alfred Yankovic), "Take Me Down", on the LP, Slo Grown, as a benefit for the Economic Opportunity Commission of San Luis Obispo County. The song mocked famous nearby landmarks such as Bubblegum Alley and the fountain toilets at the Madonna Inn.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">In mid-1979, shortly before his senior year, "My Sharona" by The Knack was on the charts and Yankovic took his accordion into the restroom across the hall from the radio station (to take advantage of theecho chamber acoustics) and recorded a parody titled "My Bologna". He sent it to Dr. Demento, who played it to good response from listeners. Yankovic met The Knack after a show at his college and introduced himself as the author of "My Bologna". The Knack's lead singer, Doug Fieger, said he liked the song and suggested that Capitol Records vice president Rupert Perry release it as a single.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-booklet_9-10" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[9]  "My Bologna" was released as a single with "School Cafeteria" as its B-side, and the label gave Yankovic a six-month recording contract. Yankovic, who was "only getting average grades" in his architecture degree, began to realize that he might make a career of comedic music.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-booklet_9-11" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[9]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">On September 14, 1980, Yankovic was a guest on the Dr. Demento Show, where he was to record a new parody live. The song was called "Another One Rides the Bus", a parody of Queen's hit, "Another One Bites the Dust". While practicing the song outside the sound booth, he met Jon "Bermuda" Schwartz, who told him he was a drummer and agreed to bang on Yankovic's accordion case to help Yankovic keep a steady beat during the song. They rehearsed the song just a few times before the show began.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-booklet_9-12" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[9]  "Another One Rides the Bus" became so popular that Yankovic's first television appearance was a performance of the song on The Tomorrow Show (April 21, 1981) with Tom Snyder. On the show, Yankovic played his accordion, and again, Schwartz banged on the accordion case and provided comical sound effects.

Band and fame
<p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">1981 brought Yankovic on tour for the first time as part of Dr. Demento's stage show. His stage act in a Phoenix, Arizona, nightclub caught the eye of manager Jay Levey, who was "blown away".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-booklet_9-13" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[9]  Levey asked Yankovic if he had considered creating a full band and doing his music as a career. Yankovic admitted that he had, so Levey held auditions. Steve Jay became Yankovic's bass player, and Jay's friendJim West played guitar. Schwartz continued on drums. Yankovic's first show with his new band was on March 31, 1982.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-livepage_6-1" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[6]  Several days later, Yankovic and his band were the opening act for Missing Persons.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">Yankovic recorded "I Love Rocky Road", (a parody of "I Love Rock 'n' Roll" as recorded by Joan Jett and The Blackhearts) which was produced by Rick Derringer, in 1982. The song was a hit on Top 40 radio, leading to Yankovic's signing with Scotti Brothers Records. In 1983, Yankovic's first self-titled album was released on Scotti Bros. The song "Ricky" was released as a single and the music video received exposure on the still-young MTV. Yankovic released his second album "Weird Al" Yankovic in 3-D in 1984. The first single "Eat It", a parody of the Michael Jackson song "Beat It", became popular, thanks in part to the music video, a shot-for-shot parody of Jackson's "Beat It" music video, and what Yankovic described as his "uncanny resemblance" to Jackson. Peaking at number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 on April 14, 1984,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-18" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[18]  "Eat It" remained Yankovic's highest-charting single until "White & Nerdy" placed at number 9 in October 2006.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-19" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[19]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">In 1985, Yankovic co-wrote and starred in a mockumentary of his own life titled The Compleat Al, which intertwined the facts of his life up to that point with fiction. The movie also featured some clips from Yankovic's trip to Japan and some clips from the Al TV specials. The Compleat Al was co-directed by Jay Levey, who would direct UHF four years later. Also released around the same time as The Compleat Al was The Authorized Al, a biographical book based on the film. The book, resembling a scrapbook, included real and fictional humorous photographs and documents.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">Yankovic and his band toured as the opening act for The Monkees in mid-1987 for their second reunion tour of North America. Yankovic claims to have enjoyed touring with The Monkees, even though "the promoter gypped us out of a bunch of money."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-20" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[20]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">Yankovic also appeared on the Wendy Carlos recording of Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf" as the narrator in 1988. The album also included a sequel to Camille Saint-Saëns's composition The Carnival of the Animals titled "The Carnival of the Animals Part II", with Yankovic providing humorous poems for each of the featured creatures in the style of Ogden Nash, who had written humorous poems for the original.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">Rubén Valtierra joined the band on keyboards in 1991, allowing Yankovic to concentrate more on singing and increasing his use of the stage space during concerts.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">A factual biographical booklet of Yankovic's life, written by Dr. Demento, was released with the 1994 box set compilation Permanent Record: Al in the Box.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-booklet_9-14" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[9]  The Dr. Demento Society, which issues yearly Christmas re-releases of material from Dr. Demento's Basement Tapes, often includes unreleased tracks from Yankovic's vaults, such as "Pacman", "It's Still Billy Joel To Me" or the live version of "School Cafeteria".

New look and career to present
Yankovic's "classic" look before eye surgery: with glasses, mustache and short, curly hair. He used it from 1979 to 1998.<p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">On January 24, 1998, Yankovic had LASIK eye surgery to correct his extreme myopia.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-21" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[21]  When Running with Scissors debuted in 1999, he unveiled a radically changed look. In addition to shedding his glasses, he had shaved off his moustache and grown out his hair. He had previously shaved his mustache in 1983 for the video of "Ricky" to resemble Desi Arnaz, and 1996 for the "Amish Paradise" video. Yankovic reasoned, "If Madonna's allowed to reinvent herself every 15 minutes, I figure I should be good for a change at least once every 20 years."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-22" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[22]  He parodied the reaction to this "new look" in a commercial for his nonexistent MTV Unplugged special. The commercial featured Yankovic in the short-haired wig from the music video for Hanson's "River", claiming his new look was an attempt to "get back to the core of what I'm all about", that being "the music".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-23" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[23]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">Four of his latest albums feature the longest songs Yankovic has ever released. The "Albuquerque" track from Running with Scissors is 11 minutes and 23 seconds; "Genius in France" from Poodle Hat runs for 8 minutes and 56 seconds; "Trapped in the Drive-Thru" from Straight Outta Lynwood is 10 minutes and 53 seconds long; "Jackson Park Express" from Mandatory Fun is 9 minutes and 5 seconds long. Before 2007 (apart from a one-off performance of "Albuquerque" inAlbuquerque, New Mexico),<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-setlists_24-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[24]  these "epic" songs were not performed live in their entirety because of their length and complexity. (See Live performances for details)

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">Yankovic has also started to explore digital distribution of his songs. On October 7, 2008, Yankovic released to the iTunes Store "Whatever You Like", a parody of theT.I. song of the same title, which Yankovic said he had come up with two weeks before. Yankovic said that the benefit of digital distribution is that "I don't have to wait around while my songs get old and dated—I can get them out on the Internet almost immediately."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-25" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[25]  In 2009, Yankovic released four more songs: "Craigslist" on June 16, "Skipper Dan" on July 14, "CNR" on August 4, and "Ringtone" on August 25. These five digitally released songs were packaged as a digital EP titled Internet Leaks, with "Whatever You Like" retroactively included in the set.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-26" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[26]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">In 2011, Yankovic completed his thirteenth studio album, titled Alpocalypse, which was released on June 21, 2011.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-27" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[27]  The album contains the five songs from the previous Internet Leaks digital download release, a polka medley called "Polka Face", a song called "TMZ" for which Bill Plympton created an animated music video, and five other new songs.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-rs_13th_album_28-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[28] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-coedmag_plympton_29-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[29]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">Yankovic had reported an interest in parodying Lady Gaga's material,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-bb_30-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[30]  and on April 20 announced that he had written and recorded a parody of "Born This Way" titled "Perform This Way", to be the lead single for his new album. However, upon first submitting it to Lady Gaga's manager for approval (which Yankovic does as a courtesy), he was not given permission to release it commercially. As he had previously done under similar circumstances (with his parody of James Blunt's "You're Beautiful"), Yankovic then released the song for free on the internet. Soon afterwards, Gaga's manager admitted that he had denied the parody of his own accord without forwarding the song to his client, and upon seeing it online, Lady Gaga granted permission for the parody. Yankovic has stated that all of his proceeds from the parody and its music video will be donated to the Human Rights Campaign, to support the human rights themes of the original song.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Gaga_Parody_Permission_31-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[31] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Gaga_Parody_Update_32-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[32]  Yankovic was also a judge for the 10th annual Independent Music Awards to support independent artists' careers.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-33" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[33]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">Yankovic stated in September 2013 that he was working on a new album, but gave no details.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-34" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[34]  In 2014, he used social media websites to hint at a July 15 release of this new album, as noted by Rolling Stone.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-35" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[35]  The album artwork and title, Mandatory Fun, were affirmed by his publisher.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-36" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[36]  Yankovic said in an interview promoting the album that, with the end of his recording contract, it is likely his last traditional album, in the sense of recording and releasing that many songs at a time; future songs and EPs, he said, will likely be distributed digitally, which offers more immediate release opportunites as Yankovic considers his parodies in particular as something that can become dated by the time of release.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-37" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[37]  Mandatory Fun was released to strong critical praise and was the #1 debut album on theBillboard charts the week of its release, buoyed by Yankovic's approach for releasing eight music videos over eight continuous days that drew viral attention to the album as described below.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-billboardnews_38-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[38]  It became Yankovic's first #1 album in his career. Additionally, the song "Word Crimes" (a parody of Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines") reached #39 on the Top 100 singles for the same week; this is Yankovic's fourth Top 40 single, and makes him only the third artist, after Michael Jackson and Madonna, to have a Top 40 single in each decade since the 1980s.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-bb_word_crimes_39-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[39]

Personal life
<p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">Yankovic changed his diet to become a vegan in 1992, after a former girlfriend gave him the book Diet for a New America and he felt "it made [...] a very compelling argument for a strict vegetarian diet."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-40" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[40] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-rolling_stone_house_41-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[41] When asked how he can "rationalize" performing at events such as the Great American Rib Cook-Off when he is a vegan, he replied, "The same way I can rationalize playing at a college even though I’m not a student anymore."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-42" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[42]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">Yankovic married Suzanne Krajewski in 2001 after being introduced together by their common friend Bill Mumy.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-rolling_stone_house_41-1" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[41]  Their daughter, Nina, was born in 2003.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-NCT_43-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[43]  They also have a pet cockatiel named Bo Veaner<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-faq_7-5" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[7]  and a dog named Bambu. They used to have a pet poodle, named Bela (pictured atop Yankovic's head on the cover of his album, Poodle Hat). Yankovic identifies as Christian and has stated that a couple from his church appeared on the cover of Poodle Hat.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-44" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[44] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-45" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[45]  Yankovic's religious background is reflected in his abstinence from alcohol, tobacco, drugs, and profanity.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-46" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[46]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">On April 9, 2004, Yankovic's parents were found dead in their Fallbrook, California, home, apparently the victims of accidental carbon monoxide poisoning from their fireplace that had been recently lit. The fluewas closed, which trapped the carbon monoxide gas inside the house, suffocating them.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-NCT_43-1" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[43]  Several hours after his wife notified him of his parents' death, Yankovic went on with his concert in Appleton, Wisconsin,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-official_tour_dates_47-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[47] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-48" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[48] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-49" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[49]  saying that "since my music had helped many of my fans through tough times, maybe it would work for me as well" and that it would "at least ... give me a break from sobbing all the time." Although Yankovic played the concert as planned, a meet-and-greet following the concert was canceled.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-50" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[50] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-51" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[51]

Music career
Yankovic, photographed by Kyle CassidyMain article: List of songs by "Weird Al" Yankovic<p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">While Yankovic's song parodies (such as "Eat It") have resulted in success on the Billboard charts (see List of singles by "Weird Al" Yankovic), he recorded an equally large number of original humorous songs ("You Don't Love Me Anymore" and "One More Minute").<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-faq_7-6" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[7]  His work depends largely on the satirizing of popular culture, including television (see The TV Album), movies ("The Saga Begins"), food (see The Food Album), popular music ("Bohemian Polka", "Polkarama"), and sometimes issues in contemporary news ("Headline News"). Yankovic claims he has no intention of writing "serious" music. In his reasoning, "There's enough people that do unfunny music. I'll leave the serious stuff to Paris Hilton and Kevin Federline."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-hub_52-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[52]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">Although many of Yankovic's songs are parodies of contemporary radio hits, it is rare that the song's primary topic lampoons the original artist as a person, or the song itself. Most Yankovic songs consist of the original song's music, with a separate, unrelated set of amusing lyrics. Yankovic considered that his first true satirical song was "Smells Like Nirvana", which references unintelligible lyrics in Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-avclub_setlist_53-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[53]  Other satirical songs include "Achy Breaky Song", which refers to the song "Achy Breaky Heart", "(This Song's Just) Six Words Long", which refers to the repetitious lyrics in "Got My Mind Set on You", the unreleased "It's Still Billy Joel to Me", and "Perform This Way", set to Lady Gaga's "Born This Way".

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">Yankovic's humor normally lies more in creating unexpected incongruity between an artist's image and the topic of the song, contrasting the style of the song with its content (such as the songs "Amish Paradise", "White & Nerdy", and "You're Pitiful"), or in pointing out trends or works which have become pop culture clichés (such as "eBay" and "Don't Download This Song").

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">Yankovic is the sole writer for all his songs and, for "legal and personal reasons", does not accept parody submissions or ideas from fans.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-faq_7-7" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[7]  There exists, however, one exception to this rule in the case of "Like a Surgeon". Madonna was reportedly talking with a friend and happened to wonder aloud when Yankovic was going to turn her "Like a Virgin" into "Like a Surgeon". Madonna's friend was a mutual friend of Yankovic's manager, Jay Levey, and eventually Yankovic himself heard the story from Levey.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-booklet_9-15" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[9]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">Unlike other parody artists such as Allan Sherman, Yankovic strives to keep the backing music in his parodies the same as the original. While Sherman reproduced them orchestrally, Yankovic and his band essentially play the original song with new lyrics. Instead of using instrumental versions of the original songs, Yankovic and his band transcribe the original song by ear and re-record the song for Yankovic's parody version.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-54" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[54]  Sometimes artists whose work Yankovic parodies perform on the recordings, e.g. Dire Straits members Mark Knopfler and Guy Fletcher perform on Yankovic's parody of Dire Straits' "Money for Nothing" and "Money for Nothing/Beverly Hillbillies*".

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">Yankovic also includes a medley of various songs on most albums, each one reinterpreted as a polka, with the choruses or memorable lines of various songs juxtaposed for humorous effect. Yankovic has been known to say that converting these songs to polka was "...the way God intended". Because the polkas have become a staple of Yankovic's albums, he has said he tries to include one on each album because "fans would be rioting in the streets, I think, if I didn't do a polka medley."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-55" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[55]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">Some of Yankovic's original songs are "style parodies" for which he chooses a band's entire body of work to honor/parody, rather than any single hit by that band. Such bands include Rage Against the Machine with "I'll Sue Ya" (which features many aspects of the hit song "Killing in the Name"), Devo with "Dare to Be Stupid", Talking Heads with "Dog Eat Dog", Frank Zappa with "Genius in France", Nine Inch Nails with "Germs", and Queen with "Ringtone".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-56" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[56]  Others are style parodies in the style of a genre of music, rather than a specific band (for example, country music with "Good Enough For Now" andcharity records with "Don't Download This Song").

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">Yankovic has contributed original songs to several films ("This Is the Life" from Johnny Dangerously; "Polkamon" from the movie Pokémon: The Movie 2000, and a parody of the James Bond title sequence inSpy Hard), in addition to his own film, UHF. Other songs of his have appeared in films or television series as well, such as "Dare to Be Stupid" in The Transformers: The Movie.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">One of Yankovic's recurring jokes involves the number 27. It is mentioned in the lyrics of several songs, and seen on the covers for Running With Scissors, Poodle Hat<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-57" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[57]  and Straight Outta Lynwood. He had originally just pulled the number 27 as a random figure to use in filling out lyrics, but as his fans started to notice the reuse of the number after the first few times, he began to purposely drop references to 27 within his lyrics, videos, and album covers. He explains that "It's just a number I started using that people started attaching a lot of importance to."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-58" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[58]  Other recurring jokes revolve around the names Bob (theAl TV interviews often mention the name,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-59" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[59]  David Bowe's character in UHF is named Bob, and a song called "Bob", done in the style of Bob Dylan, is featured on Poodle Hat), Frank (e.g. "Frank's 2000" TV"), and the surname "Finkelstein" (e.g. the music video for "I Lost on Jeopardy", or Fran Drescher's character, Pamela Finkelstein, in UHF). Also, a hamster called Harvey the Wonder Hamster is a recurring character in The Weird Al Show and the Al TV specials, as well as the subject of an original song on Alapalooza. Other recurring jokes include Yankovic borrowing, or being owed, $5. In a number ofAl TV interviews, he often asks if he can borrow $5, being turned down every time. This motif also occurs in "Why Does This Always Happen to Me?", in which his deceased friend owes him $5. Another recurring joke is his attraction to female nostrils or nostrils in general. This also appears in numerous Al TV interviews as well as in several of his songs ("Albuquerque" and "Wanna B Ur Lovr" to name a few.) Yankovic also asks his celebrity guests if they could "shave his back for a nickel." This also appears in the song "Albuquerque". Yankovic has also put two backmasking messages into his songs. The first, in "Nature Trail to Hell", said "Satan Eats Cheez Whiz"; the second, in "I Remember Larry", said "Wow, you must have an awful lot of free time on your hands."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-60" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[60]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">Yankovic's career in novelty and comedy music has outlasted many of his "mainstream" parody targets, such as Toni Basil, MC Hammer, and Men Without Hats.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-61" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[61] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-62" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[62]  Yankovic's continued success (including the top 10 single "White & Nerdy" and album Straight Outta Lynwood in 2006) has enabled him to escape the one-hit wonder stigma often associated with novelty music.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-63" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[63]

Music videos
<p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">While Yankovic's musical parodies generally do not include references to the songs or the artists of the original songs, Yankovic's music videos will sometimes parody the original song's music video in whole or in part.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-64" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[64]  Most notably, the video for "Smells Like Nirvana" uses an extremely similar set to Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit", including using several of the same actors. This video contended with "Smells like Teen Spirit" at the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards for Best Male Video. Other videos that draw directly from those of the original song include "Eat It", "Fat", "Money for Nothing/Beverly Hillbillies*", "Bedrock Anthem", "Headline News", "It's All About the Pentiums", "Amish Paradise", "Like a Surgeon", and "White & Nerdy". The video for "Dare to Be Stupid" is, as stated by Yankovic, a style parody in general of Devo videos.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-65" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[65]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">Several videos have included appearances by notable celebrities in addition to Yankovic and his band. Dr. Demento appeared in several of Yankovic's earlier videos, such as "I Love Rocky Road" and "Ricky". Actor Dick Van Patten is featured in both "Smells Like Nirvana" and "Bedrock Anthem"; Drew Carey, Emo Philips and Phil LaMarr appeared in "It's All About the Pentiums"; Keegan-Michael Key, Jordan Peele,Donny Osmond, Judy Tenuta and Seth Green appeared in "White & Nerdy"; and Ruth Buzzi and Pat Boone appeared in "Gump". The video for "I Lost on Jeopardy" includes an appearance by Greg Kihn, the artist whose song, "Jeopardy", was being parodied, along with Don Pardo and Art Fleming, Jeopardy's original announcer and host, as themselves. Florence Henderson plays an Amish seductress in "Amish Paradise".

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">While most videos that Yankovic creates are aired on music channels such as MTV and VH1, Yankovic worked with animation artists to create music videos for release with extended content albums. TheDualDisc version of Straight Outta Lynwood features six videos set to songs from the release, including videos created by Bill Plympton and John Kricfalusi; one video, "Weasel Stomping Day" was created by the producers of the show Robot Chicken, and aired as a segment of that program. For the 2010 Alpocalypse, Yankovic produced videos for every song; four of those were previously released for each of the songs on the EP Internet Leaks, with the videos for the remaining songs released via social media sites and included in the deluxe edition of Alpocalypse. These live-action and animated videos were produced by both previous collaborators such as Plympton for "TMZ",<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-coedmag_plympton_29-1" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[29]  video content providers like Jib-Jab and SuperNews, and other directors and animators.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">To help promote his 2014 album Mandatory Fun in social media circles, Yankovic produced eight music videos for the album releasing them over eight consecutive days with release of the album, believing it "would make an impact because people would be talking about the album all week long".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-foxnews_8days_66-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[66] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-67" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[67]  RCA Records opted not to fund production of any of these videos, and Yankovic turned to various social media portals including Funny or Die and CollegeHumor which he had worked with in the past; these sites helped to cover the production cost of the videos with Yankovic foregoing any ad video revenue. He chose to distribute the videos to different portals to avoid burdening any single one with all of the costs and work needed to produce them. This approach proved to be successful, as the total collection of videos had acquired more than 20 million views in the first week.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-adage_68-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[68]  This release strategy was considered by The Atlantic as a "web-enabled precision video delivery operation, and evidence of some serious digital distributional forethought" as it allows the videos to be seen by different sets of audiences for each site.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-atlantic_69-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[69]  The approach was considered to be essential to promoting Mandatory Fun to reach the #1 position on the Billboard charts on its debut week.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-billboardnews_38-1" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[38]  Businessweek attributed the sales success of Mandatory Fun to the viral music video campaign.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-businessweek_70-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[70]  ABC World News elaborated that Yankovic's success is in part due to the Internet's interest in viral and humorous videos catching up with what Yankovic has been doing for his entire career.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-world_news_71-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[71]  Yankovic himself was amazed with the response he got from the album and video releases, stating that "I've been doing the same thing for 30 years and all of a sudden I'm having the best week of my life"<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-world_news_71-1" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[71]  and that he "kind of stumbled on my formula for the future".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-adage_68-1" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[68]

Reactions from original artists
<p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">Under the "fair use" provision of U.S. copyright law, affirmed by the United States Supreme Court, artists such as Yankovic do not need permission to record a parody.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-72" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[72]  However, as a personal rule and as a means of maintaining good relationships, Yankovic has always sought permission from the original artist before commercially releasing a parody.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-faq_7-8" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[7]  These communications are typically handled by his manager Jay Levey, but at times Yankovic has asked the artist directly, such as flying to Denver, Colorado to attend one of Iggy Azalea's concerts and speak to her personally about parodying her song "Fancy".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-73" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[73]  He claims that only about two to three percent of the artists he approaches for permission deny his requests,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-wired_gaga_74-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[74]  while many of the rest who approve consider Yankovic's parodies to be a badge of honor and rite of passage in the music industry.

Positive
<p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">Michael Jackson was a big fan of Yankovic, and Yankovic claimed Jackson "had always been very supportive" of his work.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-wired_gaga_74-1" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[74]  Jackson twice allowed him to parody his songs ("Beat It" and "Bad" became "Eat It" and "Fat", respectively). When Jackson granted Yankovic permission to do "Fat", Jackson allowed him to use the same set built for his own "Badder" video from the Moonwalker film. Though Jackson allowed "Eat It" and "Fat", he requested that Yankovic not record a parody of "Black or White", titled "Snack All Night", because he felt the message was too important. This refusal, coming shortly after the commercial failure of Yankovic's movie UHF in theaters, had initially set Yankovic back; he later recognized this as a critical time as, while searching for new parodies, he came across Nirvana, leading to a revitalization of his career with "Smells Like Nirvana".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-wired_gaga_74-2" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[74]  Yankovic has performed a concert-only parody "Snack All Night" in some of his live shows.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-setlists_24-1" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[24]  Yankovic had a cameo appearance, along with many other celebrities, in Jackson's music video for "Liberian Girl".

Yankovic performing "The Saga Begins" in Auckland, New Zealand, on March 10, 2007.<p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">Dave Grohl of Nirvana said that the band felt they had "made it" after Yankovic recorded "Smells Like Nirvana", a parody of the grunge band's smash hit, "Smells Like Teen Spirit".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-faq_7-9" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[7]  On his Behind the Music special, Yankovic stated that when he called Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain to ask if he could parody the song, Cobain gave him permission, then paused and asked, "Um... it's not gonna be about food, is it?" Yankovic responded with, "No, it'll be about how no one can understand your lyrics." According to members of Nirvana interviewed for Behind the Music, when they saw the video of the song, they laughed hysterically. Additionally, Cobain described Yankovic as "a musical genius".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-75" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[75]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">Mark Knopfler approved Yankovic's parody of the Dire Straits song "Money for Nothing" for use in the film UHF on the provision that Knopfler himself be allowed to play lead guitar on the parody which was later titled "Money for Nothing/Beverly Hillbillies*".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-76" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[76]  Yankovic commented on the legal complications of the parody in the DVD audio commentary for UHF, explaining "We had to name that song 'Money for Nothing 'slash' Beverly Hillbillies 'asterisk' because the lawyers told us that had to be the name. Those wacky lawyers! What ya gonna do?"<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-77" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[77]  The Permanent Record: Al in the Box booklet referred to the song's "compound fracture of a title."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-booklet_9-16" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[9] When a fan asked about the song's title, Yankovic shared his feelings on the title, replying "That incredibly stupid name is what the lawyers insisted that the parody be listed as. I'm not sure why, and I've obviously never been very happy about it."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-78" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[78]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">The Presidents of the United States of America were so pleased with "Gump", Yankovic's parody of their song "Lump", that they ended the song with his last line instead of their own ("And that's all I have to say about that") on the live recording of "Lump" featured on the compilation album Pure Frosting. In 2008, Yankovic directed the music video for their song "Mixed Up S.O.B."

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">Don McLean was reportedly pleased with "The Saga Begins", a parody of "American Pie", and told Yankovic that the parody's lyrics sometimes enter his mind during live performances.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-79" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[79]  His parody not only replicates the music from the original Don McLean song, but it replicates the multi-layered rhyming structure in the verses and chorus. Additionally, George Lucas loved the song and a Lucasfilm representative told Yankovic, "You should have seen the smile on his face."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-80" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[80]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">Chamillionaire was also very pleased, even putting Yankovic's parody "White & Nerdy" (a parody of "Ridin'") on his official MySpace page before it was on Yankovic's own page. Chamillionaire stated in an interview, "He's actually rapping pretty good on it, it's crazy [...] I didn't know he could rap like that. It's really an honor when he does that. [...] Weird Al is not gonna do a parody of your song if you're not doing it big."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-81" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[81]  In September 2007, Chamillionaire credited "White & Nerdy" for his recent Grammy win, stating "That parody was the reason I won the Grammy, because it made the record so big it was undeniable. It was so big overseas that people were telling me they had heard my version of Weird Al's song."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-82" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[82]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">In 2011, Yankovic was initially denied permission to parody Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" for his song "Perform This Way" for release on a new album, but through his release of the song on YouTube and subsequent spread via Twitter, Lady Gaga and her staff asserted that her manager had made the decision without her input, and Gaga herself gave Yankovic permission to proceed with the parody's release.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-wired_gaga_74-3" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[74] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Gaga_Saga_83-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[83]  Gaga considered herself "a huge Weird Al fan",<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-84" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[84]  and she stated that the parody was a "rite of passage" for her musical career and considered the song "very empowering".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-85" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[85]

Negative
<p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">One of Yankovic's most controversial parodies was 1996's "Amish Paradise", based on "Gangsta's Paradise" by hip-hop artist Coolio, which, in turn, was based on "Pastime Paradise" by Stevie Wonder. Reportedly, Coolio's label gave Yankovic the impression that Coolio had granted permission to record the parody, but Coolio maintains that he never did. While Coolio claimed he was upset, legal action never materialized, and Coolio accepted royalty payments for the song. After this controversy, Yankovic has always made sure to speak directly with the artist of every song he parodied. At the XM Satellite Radiobooth at the 2006 Consumer Electronics Show Yankovic and Coolio made peace. On his website, Yankovic wrote of this event, "I don’t remember what we said to each other exactly, but it was all very friendly. I doubt I’ll be invited to Coolio’s next birthday party, but at least I can stop wearing that bulletproof vest to the mall."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-86" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[86]  In an interview in 2014, Coolio extended his apology for refusing his permission, stating that at the time "I was being cocky and shit and being stupid and I was wrong and I should’ve embraced that shit and went with it", and that he considered Yankovic's parody "actually funny as shit".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-87" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[87]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">In 2003, Yankovic was denied permission to make a video for "Couch Potato", his parody of Eminem's "Lose Yourself": <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:inherit;">Last year, Eminem forced me to halt production on the video for my 'Lose Yourself' parody because he somehow thought that it would be harmful to his image or career.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-KingOfPop_88-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[88] <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">For the Poodle Hat Al TV special, Yankovic raised the question of artistic expression in a fake interview with Eminem. As Yankovic has always done for his Al TV specials, he edited the footage of a previous Eminem interview and inserted himself asking questions for comic effect.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-89" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[89]

Refused parodies
<p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">On numerous occasions, Prince has refused Yankovic permission to record parodies of his songs. Yankovic has stated in interviews that he has "approached him every few years [to] see if he's lightened up."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-90" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[90]  Yankovic related one story where, before the American Music Awards where he and Prince were assigned to sit in the same row, he got a telegram from Prince's lawyers, demanding he not make eye contact with the artist.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-wired_gaga_74-4" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[74]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page is a self-proclaimed Yankovic fan, but when Yankovic wished to create a polka medley of Led Zeppelin songs, Page refused.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-91" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[91]  Yankovic was, however, allowed the opportunity to re-record a sample of "Black Dog" for a segment of "Trapped in the Drive-Thru".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-92" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[92]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">Paul McCartney, also a Yankovic fan, refused Yankovic permission to record a parody of Wings' "Live and Let Die", titled "Chicken Pot Pie", because McCartney is a vegetarian and found the parody to be improper.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-93" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[93]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">In 2006, Yankovic gained James Blunt's permission to record a parody of "You're Beautiful". However, after Yankovic had recorded "You're Pitiful", Blunt's label, Atlantic Records, rescinded this permission, despite Blunt's personal approval of the song.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-wired_gaga_74-5" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[74]  The parody was pulled from Yankovic's Straight Outta Lynwood because of his label's unwillingness to "go to war" with Atlantic. Yankovic released the song as a free download on his MySpace profile, as well as his official website, and plays it in concert, since it was not Blunt himself objecting to the parody.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-94" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[94]  Yankovic referenced the incident in his video for "White & Nerdy" when he depicts himself vandalizing Atlantic Records' Wikipedia page.

Live performances
Weird Al wearing his "Atlantic Records Sucks" shirt during a performance of "You're Pitiful", on August 8, 2007, at the Ohio State Fair.<p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">Yankovic often describes his live concert performances as "a rock and comedy multimedia extravaganza"<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-yahoo_95-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[95]  with an audience that "ranges from toddlers to geriatrics."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-hub_52-1" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[52]  Apart from Yankovic and his band performing his classic and contemporary hits, staples of Yankovic's live performances include a medley of parodies, many costume changes between songs, and a video screen on which various clips are played during the costume changes.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-yahoo_95-1" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[95]  A concert from Yankovic's 1999 tour, "Touring with Scissors", for the Running with Scissors album was released on VHS in 1999 and on DVD in 2000.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-catalog_4-1" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[4]  Titled ''[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%22Weird_Al%22_Yankovic_Live! "Weird Al" Yankovic Live!]'', the concert was recorded at the Marin County Civic Center in San Rafael, California, on October 2, 1999.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-96" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[96]  For legal reasons, video clips (apart from those for Yankovic's own music videos) could not be shown for the home release, and unreleased parodies were removed from the parody medley for the performance.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-97" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[97]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">In 2003, Yankovic toured overseas for the first time. Before 2003, Yankovic and his band had toured only the United States and parts of Canada.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-livepage_6-2" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[6]  Following the success of Poodle Hat in Australia, Yankovic performed eleven shows in Australia's major capital cities and regional areas in October of that year.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-98" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[98]  Yankovic returned to Australia and toured New Zealand for the first time in 2007 to support the Straight Outta Lynwood album. On September 8, 2007, Yankovic performed his 1,000th live show at Idaho Falls, Idaho.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-livepage_6-3" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[6]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">Yankovic has invited members of the 501st Legion on stage during performances of his Star Wars-themed songs "Yoda" and "The Saga Begins", recruiting members of local garrisons (club chapters) while on tour. In appreciation, the 501st inducted Yankovic as a "Friend of the Legion", in September 2007.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-99" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[99]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">He performed his first ever European mini-tour, including an appearance at the All Tomorrow's Parties music festival in Minehead, England in December 2010. Yankovic was picked to perform by the Canadian band [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godspeed_You!_Black_Emperor Godspeed You! Black Emperor], who curated the festival's lineup. Yankovic played three other dates in the UK around his festival appearance before performing a single date in the Netherlands.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-100" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[100]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">A second concert film, "Weird Al" Yankovic Live!: The Alpocalypse Tour, aired on Comedy Central on October 1, 2011, and was released on Blu-ray and DVD three days later. The concert was filmed atMassey Hall in Toronto, Canada, during Yankovic's tour supporting the album Alpocalypse. As before, video clips (apart from those for his own videos) and unreleased songs were edited out for legal reasons.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-101" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[101]

UHF
Main article: UHF (film)<p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">In 1989, Yankovic starred in a full-length feature film, co-written by himself and manager Jay Levey, and filmed in Tulsa, Oklahoma called UHF. A satire of the television and film industries, also starringMichael Richards, Fran Drescher, and Victoria Jackson, it brought floundering studio Orion their highest test scores since the movie RoboCop.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-robo_102-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[102]  However, it was unsuccessful in theaters due to both poor critical reception and competition from other summer blockbusters at the time such as Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Lethal Weapon 2, Batman and Licence to Kill.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-103" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[103]  The failure of the film left Yankovic in a three-year slump, which was later broken by his inspiration to compose "Smells Like Nirvana".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-104" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[104]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">The film has since become a cult classic, with out-of-print copies of the VHS version selling for up to $100 on eBay until the release of the DVD in 2002.<sup class="noprint Inline-Template Template-Fact" style="line-height:1;white-space:nowrap;">[citation needed]  Yankovic occasionally shows clips from the film at his concerts (to which MGM, the film's current owner, initially objected in the form of a cease and desist letter).<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-105" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[105]  In an apparent attempt to make it more accessible to overseas audiences, where the term UHF is used less frequently to describe TV broadcasts, the film was titled The Vidiot From UHF in Australia and parts of Europe.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-106" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[106]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">UHF shows the creation of Yankovic's signature food—the Twinkie Wiener Sandwich. The snack consists of an overturned Twinkie split open as a makeshift bun, a hot dog, and Easy Cheese put together and dipped in milk before eating. Yankovic has stated that he has switched to using tofu hot dogs since becoming a vegetarian, but still enjoys the occasional Twinkie Wiener Sandwich.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-107" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[107]

Notable television appearances
<p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">Yankovic had a TV series called The Weird Al Show, which aired from September 1997 to December 1997 on CBS. Though the show appeared to be geared at children, the humor was really more for his adult fans (as such, it is often compared to Pee-wee's Playhouse). The entire series was released on DVD by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shout!_Factory Shout! Factory] on August 15, 2006.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">Yankovic has hosted Al TV on MTV and Al Music on MuchMusic many times, generally coinciding with the release of each new album. For Poodle Hat, Al TV appeared on VH1 for the first time. A recurring segment of Al TV involves Yankovic manipulating interviews for comic effect. He inserts himself into a previously conducted interview with a musician, and then manipulates his questions, resulting in bizarre and comic responses from the celebrity.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">VH1 produced a Behind the Music episode on Yankovic. His two commercial failures (his film UHF and his 1986 album Polka Party!) were presented as having a larger impact on the direction of his career than they really had. Also, Coolio's later disapproval of "Amish Paradise" was played up as a large feud. Much was also made over his apparent lack of a love life, though he got married shortly after the program aired. The episode was updated and re-released in early 2012 as part of the "Behind the Music Remastered" series.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">Yankovic has done voice-overs for a number of animated series. He appeared in a 2003 episode of The Simpsons, singing "The Ballad of Homer & Marge" (a parody of John Mellencamp's "Jack & Diane") with his band. The episode, "Three Gays of the Condo", in which Marge hires Yankovic to sing the aforementioned song to Homer in an attempt to reconcile their marriage, later won an Emmy Award for "Outstanding Animated Program (For Programming Less Than One Hour)". Yankovic also had a cameo in a 2008 episode, titled "That '90s Show", during which he records a parody of Homer's grunge hit "Shave Me" titled "Brain Freeze" (Homer's song, "Shave Me", was itself a parody of Nirvana's "Rape Me") making Yankovic one of only a handful of celebrities to appear twice on the show playing themselves. He appeared in the animated Adult Swim show Robot Chicken, which provided him with a music video for the song "Weasel Stomping Day".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-adult_108-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[108] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-about_109-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[109]  Yankovic is the voice for Squid Hat on the Cartoon Network show, The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy. He is also the announcer of the cartoon's eponymous video game adaptation. Yankovic had a guest appearance voicing Wreck-Gar, a waste collection vehicle Transformer in the Transformers: Animated cartoon series;<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-110" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[110]  previously, Yankovic's "Dare to Be Stupid" song was featured in the 1986 animated film The Transformers: The Movie, during the sequence in which the Wreck-Gar character was first introduced; as such, the song is referenced in the episode. He also plays local TV talent show host Uncle Muscles on several episodes of ''[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_and_Eric_Awesome_Show,_Great_Job! Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!]'' along with other appearances on the show. Weird Al has also supplied the voice of one-shot character 'Petroleum Joe' on The Brak Show. He also voiced himself on a Back at the Barnyard episode, and he appeared as a ringmaster who helps the regular characters of ''[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yo_Gabba_Gabba! Yo Gabba Gabba!]'' organize a circus in a 2007 episode of the children's show. In 2011, Al appeared as himself in theBatman: The Brave and the Bold episode "Bat-Mite Presents: Batman's Strangest Cases!"<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-111" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[111]  In 2012, Al was extensively featured in the sixth season episode of 30 Rock called "Kidnapped by Danger", where Jenna tries to come up with a "Weird Al-proof" song,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-30rock_112-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[112]  as well as appearing on two episodes of ''[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Aquabats!_Super_Show! The Aquabats! Super Show!]'', playing two different characters as the superhero SuperMagic PowerMan and as the President of the United States. In 2014, he appeared in the fourth season My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic episode "Pinkie Pride" as Cheese Sandwich, a rival party planner to Pinkie Pie.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-113" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[113]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">A brief list of television shows on which Yankovic has appeared is available on his official website.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-114" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[114]

Directing career
<p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">"Weird Al" Yankovic has directed many of his own music videos; he has directed all of his music videos from 1993’s "Bedrock Anthem" to 2006’s "White & Nerdy". He also directed the end sequence of 1986’s "Christmas at Ground Zero" (an original piece juxtaposing Christmas with nuclear warfare) from his ''[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polka_Party! Polka Party!] album and the title sequence to Spy Hard'', for which he sang the title song.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-vidfacts_115-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[115] Yankovic wrote, directed and starred in the short 3-D movie attraction "Al's Brain: A 3-D Journey Through The Human Brain", a $2.5 million project which was sponsored by and premiered at the Orange County Fair in Costa Mesa, California, in 2009.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-116" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[116]  The project included a brief cameo by Sir Paul McCartney, which Yankovic directed during McCartney's appearance at the 2009 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-117" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[117]  Fair CEO Steve Beazley, who supported the project, considered the project a success and explored leasing the exhibit to other fairs; the second appearance of the exhibit was at the 2009 Puyallup Fair in Washington.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-118" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[118]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">He has also directed several videos for other artists, including Hanson (the Titanic sequences in "River"), The Black Crowes ("Only a Fool"), Ben Folds ("Rockin' the Suburbs"), Jeff Foxworthy ("Redneck Stomp" and "Party All Night"), Blues Explosion ("Wail"), and The Presidents of the United States of America ("Mixed Up S.O.B").<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-vidfacts_115-1" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[115]  He has cameo appearances in his videos for Blues Explosion, Hanson (as the interviewer), and Ben Folds (as the producer fixing Folds' "shitty tracks").

Canceled Cartoon Network feature film
<p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">On January 25, 2010, Yankovic announced that he had signed a production deal with [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warner_Bros. Warner Bros.] to write and direct a live-action feature film.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-alyankovic.wordpress.com_119-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[119]  Although Yankovic previously wrote the script for UHF, this was to be the first movie Yankovic directed.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-alyankovic.wordpress.com_119-1" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[119]  Yankovic stated that he would not be starring in the movie, as Cartoon Network wanted a younger protagonist. During an interview on Comedy Death-Ray Radio, Yankovic revealed that though Cartoon Network "loved" his script, the network decided that they were no longer intending to produce feature films. Yankovic initially stated that he would instead shop the script around to other potential studios,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-120" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[120]  but in 2013 revealed that the project had been scrapped as "it was really geared for Cartoon Network" and that he had "cannibalized jokes from that script to use for other projects."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-121" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[121]

Writing
<p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">Yankovic wrote When I Grow Up (ISBN 978-0-06-192691-4), a children's book released on February 1, 2011 and published by HarperCollins.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-122" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[122]  The book features 8-year-old Billy presenting to his class the wide variety of imaginative career possibilities that he is considering. Yankovic stated that the idea for the book was based on his own "circuitous" career path.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-cnn_book_123-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[123]  The book allows Yankovic to apply the humorous writing style found in his music in another medium, allowing him to use puns and rhymes.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-cnn_book_123-1" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[123]  Yankovic worked with Harper Collins' editor Anne Hoppe—the first time that Yankovic has had an editor—and found her help to be a positive experience.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-cnn_book_123-2" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[123]  The book is illustrated by Wes Hargis, who, according to Yankovic, has a "a childlike quality and a very fun quality and a very imaginative quality" that matched well with Yankovic's writing.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-cnn_book_123-3" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[123]  The book reached the No. 4 position on The New York Times Best Seller list for Children's Picture Books for the week of February 20, 2011.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-124" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[124]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">Yankovic also wrote a sequel to When I Grow Up, 2013's My New Teacher and Me! (ISBN 978-0-06-219203-5).

Web media
<p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">In 2008, Weird Al joined Michael J. Nelson as a guest on the RiffTrax treatment of Jurassic Park.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">On November 10, 2009, Weird Al was a guest "internet scientist" on Rocketboom's "Know Your Meme" video series, in the installment on the topic of Auto-Tune, hosted by Jamie Wilkinson.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">Eric Appel produced a Funny or Die movie trailer for Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, a fictional biographical film that parodies other films based on musicians; Yankovic (played by Aaron Paul) is seen hiding his "weirdness" from his parents (Gary Cole and Mary Steenburgen), making it big using song parodies with the help of Dr. Demento (Patton Oswalt), falling in and out of love with Madonna (Olivia Wilde), and fading into alcoholism and being arrested, at which point his father finally admits he is "weird" as well. Yankovic himself plays a music producer in the short.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-rs_13th_album_28-1" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[28] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-125" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[125] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-126" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[126] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-127" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[127]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">For The Nerdist Podcast, Weird Al began hosting a new comedic celebrity interview web series, Face to Face with 'Weird Al' Yankovic, on April 3, 2012. The series features Al TV-esque fake interviews with movie stars.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">Al has appeared on numerous other webshows, including CollegeHumor Originals, LearningTown, Some Jerk with a Camera, Team Unicorn, and Epic Rap Battles of History appearing as Sir Isaac Newtonin a battle against actors portraying Bill Nye, the Science Guy (YouTube star Nice Peter), and Neil DeGrasse Tyson (Chali 2na of the group Jurassic 5).

Other media
<p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">Yankovic competed on a week of Wheel of Fortune taped at Disney's Hollywood Studios in March 1994.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-128" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[128]  He also competed on ''[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_%26_Roll_Jeopardy! Rock & Roll Jeopardy!]''

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">Weird Al joined the band Hanson in their music video for "Thinking 'bout Somethin'" in which he plays the tambourine.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">Yankovic contributes backing vocals for the song "Time" on Ben Folds' album Songs for Silverman.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">Yankovic also appeared in Halloween II as himself on a news channel.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">Yankovic was also one of many celebrities who took part in the NOH8 Campaign against Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in California.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-129" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[129]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">Yankovic was approached by a beer company to endorse their product. Yankovic had turned it down because he believed that "a lot of my fans were young and impressionable."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-130" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[130]  Yankovic later posted on his Twitter account that he never regretted the decision.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-131" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[131]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">In 2009, Yankovic was a special guest on an episode of G4's Web Soup where he came as Mark Gormley at first.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-132" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[132]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">In 2011, Yankovic guest starred as the character "Banana Man" in an episode of Adventure Time. The same year, he appeared as himself in the How I Met Your Mother episode "Noretta".

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">In 2012, he appeared as himself along with Alice Cooper, Bret Michaels, and Maria Menounos in The High Fructose Adventures of Annoying Orange for the Christmas special, and sung with Alice, Bret, and Orange.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">On May 31, 2014, Yankovic won the ACE Award (Amateur Cartoonist Extraordinaire) from the National Cartoonists Society at its awards banquet in San Diego.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-133" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[133]

Misattribution and imitators
A screenshot of LimeWire PRO, showing a large number of parodies misattributed to Yankovic, as well as numerous misspellings of his surname (February 2007)<p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">Songs posted to file sharing networks are often misattributed to him because of their humorous subject matter. Often, his surname is misspelled (and thus mispronounced) as "Yankovich", among other variations. Much to the disdain of Yankovic, these misattributed files include songs that are racist, sexually explicit, or otherwise offensive. A young listener who had heard several of these offensive tracks by way of a file sharing service confronted Yankovic online, threatening a boycott because of his supposedly explicit lyrics.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-134" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[134]  Quite a few of the songs, such as "Star Wars Cantina" by Richard Cheese, "Star Wars Gangsta Rap", "Yoda Smokes Weed", "Chewbacca", "The Devil Went To Jamaica", and several more have a Star Wars motif.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-notalpage_135-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[135]  Some songs misattributed to him are not songs, but spoken skits, such as "Sesame Street on crack", which is also widely misattributed to Adam Sandler. A list of songs frequently misattributed to Yankovic can be found at The Not Al Page<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-136" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[136]  and a list of all commercially released songs recorded by Yankovic can be found on his website.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-137" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[137]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">Yankovic cites these misattributions as "his only real beef with peer-to-peer file sharing sites": <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:inherit;">If you do a search for my name on any one of those sites, I guarantee you that about half of the songs that come up will be songs I had absolutely nothing to do with. That particularly bothers me, because I really try to do quality work, and I also try to maintain a more-or-less family-friendly image—and some of these songs that are supposedly by me are just, well, vulgar and awful. I truly think my reputation has suffered in a lot of people's minds because of all those fake Weird Al songs floating around the Internet.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-138" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[138] <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">In an episode of HBO's Mr. Show with Bob and David called "Rudy Will Await Your Foundation", Bob Odenkirk plays a character called Daffy "Mal" Yinkleyankle, a parody of Weird Al. Al, who claims it was the only genuine parody act on himself he has ever seen, told Odenkirk in an email that he was "flattered, in a weird way" and "found it very funny".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-AVC_139-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[139] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-CH_140-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[140]

Fan-driven campaigns
<p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">The Weird Al Star Fund is a campaign started by Yankovic's fans to get him a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Their mission is to "solicit, collect, and raise the necessary money, and to compile the information needed for the application to nominate "Weird Al" Yankovic for a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-starfund_141-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[141]  Fans worldwide have sent donations to raise the US$15,000 needed for a nomination. In addition to the preferred method of cash donations, many methods were used to raise money for the cause, such as a live benefit show held April 11, 2006, and selling merchandise on the official website andeBay, including T-shirts, calendars, and cookbooks.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-cook_142-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[142]  On May 26, 2006, the campaign hit the then-$15,000 target, just five days before the May 31 deadline to submit the necessary paperwork.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-starfund_141-1" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[141] However, Yankovic was not included on the list of inductees for 2007.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-143" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[143]  On February 9, 2007, the Hollywood Chamber Of Commerce raised the price to sponsor a new star to $25,000<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-starfund_141-2" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[141]  and as such the Fund is accepting donations again. Yankovic's application was resubmitted for consideration in 2007, but he was not included among 2008's inductees.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-144" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[144]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">Similar to the Weird Al Star Fund, a second fan-driven campaign called "Make the Rock Hall 'Weird'" has tried to enshrine him into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, for which he has been eligible since 2004.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-rockhallgoal_145-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[145]  Previous attempts to raise awareness for the campaign and support Yankovic's nomination included a petition drive from 2006 to 2007, which raised over 9000 signatures; an art competition in 2005; additionally, a documentary film about the campaign is currently being developed.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-146" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[146] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-rockhallhelp_147-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[147]  In addition to these efforts, an ongoing campaign is underway in which supporters of Yankovic's nomination are requested to send "sincere, thoughtful" letters to the Rock Hall Foundation's headquarters in New York.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-rockhallhelp_147-1" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[147]  The Hall has not considered Yankovic for nomination since the campaign started in 2004.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-rockhallgoal_145-1" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[145]  A 2009 Rolling Stone poll named Weird Al as the top artist that should be nominated for the Hall of Fame, followed by Rush and The Moody Blues in the top ten."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-RSList_148-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[148]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">A smaller on-going effort has been made by fans to have Yankovic perform at the halftime show of a Super Bowl game.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-149" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[149]  This inspired Yankovic to write the fight song parody "Sports Song" for Mandatory Fun to help round out his repertoire.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-150" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[150]

Discography
Main articles: "Weird Al" Yankovic discography and List of songs by "Weird Al" Yankovic<p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13.63636302947998px;">Yankovic has recorded fourteen studio albums, in addition to other singles, EPs, and compilation works:


 * "Weird Al" Yankovic (1983)
 * "Weird Al" Yankovic in 3-D (1984)
 * Dare to Be Stupid (1985)
 * Polka Party! (1986)
 * Even Worse (1988)
 * UHF – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack and Other Stuff (1989)
 * Off the Deep End (1992)
 * Alapalooza (1993)
 * Bad Hair Day (1996)
 * Running with Scissors (1999)
 * Poodle Hat (2003)
 * Straight Outta Lynwood (2006)
 * Alpocalypse (2011)
 * Mandatory Fun (2014)

Videography
Main article: "Weird Al" Yankovic videography==Filmography==