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"Weird Al" Yankovic: Difference between revisions
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[[File:weirdal.jpg|frame|I am Weird Al, and I dare to be stupid!]]
{{quote|''"He who is tired of Weird Al is tired of life."''
|'''Homer Simpson''', ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'', "That 90s Show"}}
'''Alfred Matthew Yankovic''' (born October 23, 1959, in Downey, California), is a musical humorist with a career spanning thirty years.
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He sent three songs to ''[[The Dr. Demento Show]]'', "Belvedere Cruisin'", "Dr. D Superstar" (never aired), and "My Bologna", a parody of "My Sharona" by ''[[The Knack]]''. ''[[The Knack]]'''s lead singer heard "My Bologna", contacted Al, and got "My Bologna" released as a single. Despite a slow start, including a disastrous opening for ''[[Missing Persons]]'', Weird Al released his first album on Scotti Bros. Records in 1983.
In 1989, Weird Al starred in the film ''[[UHF (film)|UHF]]'', and he had a short-lived [[CBS]] "kids' show" in the 1990s, ''[[The Weird Al Show]]''. He provided the voice of the Squid Hat on ''[[The Grim Adventures of Billy
Usually releases a new album and goes on tour once every 2-3 years, thus John Garabedian of ''Open House Party'' has stated that "Every album is his comeback album, and then he goes away until the next one..." However, after the release of 2014's ''Mandatory Fun'' (and the end of his multi-album contract with his label), Al announced that all his future releases would be individual tracks posted directly to the Web.
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On August 27, 2018, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. At the ceremony, he requested that [[Donald Trump|no one smash it with a pickaxe, unless he does "something unfathomably monstrous and evil".]]
[[Captain Obvious|Responsible for]] the [["Weird Al" Effect]], where a parody remains popular long after the original, and his habit of using pop cultural metaphors (AKA [[Person as Verb|"Pulling a Weird Al"]]) led to his being the former trope namer for that.
Since there are a ''lot'' of songs floating around LimeWire and other peer-to-peer networks [[Misattributed Song|falsely attributed]] to Al, [http://www.com-www.com/weirdal/notbyal.html The Not Al List] was created to catalog these. A lot of these songs are raunchy, offensive, and the lead vocal vaguely sounds like Al, so since [[Small Reference Pools|Al is the most-visible parody musician]], his name gets attached to them, despite having subject matter and lyrics he would never touch. Even with the occasional subtext, he still aims to be a family friendly performer.
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* ''Polka Party!'' (1986)
* ''Even Worse'' (1988)
* ''[[UHF (film)|UHF]] – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack and Other Stuff'' (1989)
* ''Off the Deep End'' (1992)
* ''Alapalooza'' (1993)
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Videography:
* ''The Compleat Al'' (1985)
* ''[[UHF (film)|UHF]]'' (1989)
* ''The "Weird Al" Yankovic Video Library'' (1992)
* ''Alapalooza: The Videos'' (1993)
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** [[Jewish and Nerdy]]
* [[I Pulled a Weird Al]], since renamed [[Person as Verb]]
* [["Weird Al" Effect]]
{{creatortropes}}
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* [[As Himself]]: In the series finale of ''[[Johnny Bravo]]'', he played himself alongside Don Knotts as himself and Gary Owens reprising his role of the [[Dynomutt Dog Wonder|Blue Falcon]].
** He's also appeared as himself in all three ''[[Naked Gun]]'' movies.
* [[Awesome but Impractical]]: Al doesn't perform the song "Hardware Store" because he isn't sure he could pull the
** Similarly, "Albuquerque" - he saves it for the encore, as it wrecks his throat and makes it difficult for him to sing anything else afterward.
* [[Bait and Switch Comparison]]: From the December 1998 edition of "Ask Al":
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{{quote|''Well, I sure hope I do better''
''Next weekend on ''[[The Price Is Right]]'' '' }}
* [[Hitler Cam]]: Used in "One More Minute" at the end, where Al rips out 'his' (plastic) heart.▼
** Also the cover of and promotional videos ("Transmission 1" through "Transmission 4") for 2014's ''Mandatory Fun''.▼
* [[Hoist by His Own Petard]]: "I Remember Larry" which has Larry being murdered by the target of many of his malicious gags, with the target making it sound like it was only another malicious gag.
* [[Hypocritical Humor]]: "Amish Paradise" contains the line "I know I'm a million times as humble as thou art"
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* [[It Will Never Catch On]]: Al's first show with his band was opening for Missing Persons. It was a disaster, with people booing them offstage and Al wondering if he should give up music.
* [[Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique]]: [[Played for Laughs]] (obviously) in "Party in the C.I.A."
* [[Jaywalking Will Ruin Your Life]]: "Don't Download This Song"▼
* [[Jumping the Shark]]: [[In-Universe|A line in "Couch Potato"]] says that ''[[King of Queens]]'' did this. In the first minute.
** But only because [[Richard Simmons|Richard]] [[Camp Gay|Simmons]] [[Very False Advertising|wasn't]] [[Incredibly Lame Pun|in it]].
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** Al reportedly didn't realize just how harsh this was until the album was released. To make up for it, proceeds for the song were donated to Billy Ray Cyrus's charity of choice (United Cerebral Palsy Association).
* [[Love Martyr]]: "You Don't Love Me Anymore" takes this trope to extremes.
▲* [[
▲** Also the cover of and promotional videos ("Transmission 1" through "Transmission 4") for 2014's ''Mandatory Fun''.
* [[Lyrical Dissonance]]: "Christmas At Ground Zero".
** Also "Good Old Days", a James Taylor-esque folk ballad about childhood. However, this particular childhood involved torturing rats with hacksaws, burning down a corner store and brutally beating the shop owner, and taking a girl from high school to a dance, and shaving her bald and abandoning her in the desert.
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** "Party in the CIA"
* [[Major Injury Underreaction]]: In "A Complicated Song", he is merely frustrated about being beheaded.
* [[Manipulative Editing]]: ''Al TV''{{'}}s fake interviews, where Al adds weird questions to a famous person's answers ([http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIaO7sRjyxw original]/[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPwBdnknGIs edited]). And sometimes, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lepM8VCGN7c the interviewee acts weird enough to help!].
* [[Memetic Badass]]: [[In-Universe|In-song]] example -- [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLnapb-30hA Charles Nelson Reilly].
* [[Memetic Outfit]]: Earlier in his career, there was a particular pair of horrendously ugly pants given to Al that he wore at every concert (which can be seen on his first album cover). He eventually ditched them. Later, he was known for his large collection of Hawaiian-print shirts and Vans sneakers. He still pulls these out, though not as frequently.
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* [[Poke the Poodle]]: "Young, Dumb & Ugly" is a song about this.
* [[Posthumous Narration]]: In "Melanie".
* [[Prank Call]]: His 1996 parody of [[TLC (band)|TLC]]'s "Waterfalls", [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwHYenKngQs "Phony Calls"], is not only all about this trope, it incorporates a snippet of one of Bart's phone calls from ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]''.
* [[Precision F-Strike]]: In "Jerry Springer"; appropriately, Yankovic himself doesn't use the word, but guest vocalist [[Tress MacNeille]] does during a portion of the song parodying a typical episode of the show:
{{quote|'''Tress MacNeille''': Woofie, you ''bitch!''}}
* [[Punctuated! For! Emphasis!]]: "I! HATE! '''SAUERKRAUT!'''"
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* [[Shave and a Haircut]]: Often appears near the end of the polka medleys.
* [[Shoulders of Doom]]: When performing "Dog Eat Dog", a style parody of [[Talking Heads (band)|Talking Heads]], Al wears a suit with ''massive'' shoulder pads as a spoof of David Byrne's [[Memetic Outfit]]. He also wears it briefly in the "UHF" video.
* [[Shown Their Work]]: About the songs and artists he parodies.
** "Trigger Happy" and "Pancreas", his [[The Beach Boys|Beach Boys]] homages; the former song has elements of "Fun, Fun, Fun", "Catch A Wave", "No-Go Showboat", "Surfin USA", and "Little Deuce Coupe" in it; the latter has elements of "Our Prayer", "Do You Like Worms", "God Only Knows", "I Know There's An Answer", "Wind Chimes", "Heroes and Villains", and "Good Vibrations", all in one song.
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** Weird Al's first popular music polka medley was released in 1984 and titled "Polkas on 45", referring to 45 rpm record singles. At the time it was a bit of a joke - polkas were from an era long before 45's. Now that 45's have been out of mainline production for almost a quarter century so both are considered quaint now, taking away from the original intention.
*** It's likely his original intention was to reference Stars on 45, a group well known for making disco medleys of other people's songs. He did the same thing, but with a polka! (The title of his second polka medley, "Hooked On Polkas", referenced fellow disco medley project Hooked On Classics.)
* [[Telephone Exchange Names]]: "RotoRooter 6-5000" as the name of the plumber in ''The Plumbing Song'' (We're in the Yellow Pages) – included as a brief shout-out to Glenn Miller's "PEnnsylvania 6-5000" of 1940s network radio fame.
* [[Toilet Seat Divorce]]: Apparently the Columbia Record Club is too big of a commitment for Al.
* [[Trekkie]]: "White and Nerdy":
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* [[Wiki Vandal]]: He pretends to replace the entire Atlantic Records Wikipedia entry with the phrase "YOU SUCK!" in 72-point letters [[In-Universe|during the video]] of "White And Nerdy."
** As mentioned above, the real Wikipedia entry for Atlantic Records had to be locked because of legions of ticked-off Al fans doing the same thing.
* [[Writer Revolt]]:
** Similarly, "I Want a New Duck" was also forced by the label, and he did a equally deliberate bad job on it.
* [[Yes, Virginia]]: Now Santa's Doing Time. In a Federal prison, for his infamous crime.
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{{reflist}}
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[[Category:Musicians]]
[[Category:The Eighties]]
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[[Category:Actors]]
[[Category:Singer-songwriter]]
[[Category:Voice Actors]]
[[Category:Nerdcore]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Weird Al Yankovic}}
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