Maybe I could pull a few strings, and you can spend the summer working with your old man. Well, anyway, there's an opening down on the factory floor. I would've reached out and grabbed him, but I already lost one hand to that cursed machine. Kept telling him to stop messing around by that industrial shredder, but he just wouldn't listen. It was that McKinley kid that started last week. TOBY HUSS: (As Nick) What, how was my day? We had another fatality down at the factory. RICHARD AARON ANDERSON: (As Young Al) How was your day, Dad? JULIANNE NICHOLSON: (As Mary) Alfie (ph), aren't you going ask your father how his day was? (SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "WEIRD: THE AL YANKOVIC STORY") So this is a scene with the mother, the father and Young Al. And Young Al Yankovic's mother speaks first. I just think it so captures a trope of music biopics. And this is one of my favorite scenes in the movie. I want to play a scene from "Weird" in which the father's been trying to convince him to work at the factory. He should work in the factory with the father. So in your parody of music biopics, when the young version of Al Yankovic gets interested in writing song parodies, his father thinks, like, that's ridiculous. It's not real work, and it won't support you because you're not good enough. In a lot of biopics, the parent doesn't want the child to go into music because it's too much of a gamble, or they think their child isn't really talented enough. GROSS: You really capture what some music biopics are like and how they distort certain facts and the turning points that you have to have in a music biopic. So it was just - frankly, just the obvious thing to do. And all I had to do was tweak things just a little bit, just make it a little askew to make it funny. So it was very easy to parody because people were already familiar with the source material. And people were familiar with every little detail of that music video. It was a fairly new phenomenon, and people watched it continually. And this is at a time when people were obsessed with MTV. And you know, the "Beat It" video was getting played a dozen times a day on MTV. YANKOVIC: Well, I mean, in 1983, '84, Michael Jackson was the most popular human being in the universe. And, of course, you did a video of "Eat It," too. And Michael Jackson's videos, including "Beat It," were, like, huge at the time. GROSS: So we just heard "Eat It." How did you decide to do that Michael Jackson song? Why did you choose that one? And I should mention, this was the era where, like, music videos were really big. GROSS: Al Yankovic, welcome to FRESH AIR. You won't get no dessert till you clean up your plate. Don't want to hear about what kind of food you hate. Well, don't you know that other kids are starving in Japan? So eat it. Here is "Eat It."ĪL YANKOVIC: (Singing) How come you're always such a fussy young man? Don't want no Captain Crunch, don't want no Raisin Bran. Let's start with one of his early hits, which is also in the film. You can see his new movie, "Weird," streaming on for free. He recently completed his tour, which he called "The Unfortunate Return Of His Ridiculously Self-Indulgent, Ill-Advised Vanity Tour" (ph). He's the third music performer, after Michael Jackson and Madonna, to have a top 40 single in each decade since the '80s. Although Yankovic never achieved quite the status his character does in the film, he's been quite successful. He becomes so popular he's asked to be the next James Bond.ĭaniel Radcliffe stars as Al Yankovic. Artists, including Madonna, will do anything to get him to parody their songs, knowing their song will become a hit if Weird Al parodies it. Making up words to songs that already exist is considered a high calling, the work of a visionary. In the movie, playing accordion gives him the status of a guitar hero. In keeping with his style of comedy, the new movie "Weird," which he co-wrote, parodies music biopics, as well as action films and film noir, and offers an alternate version of his life. Yankovic's instrument is the accordion, not exactly a mainstay of rock bands or hip-hop. "Beat It" became "Eat It." "My Sharona" became "My Bologna." "Another One Bites The Dust" became "Another One Rides The Bus." "Like A Virgin" - "Like A Surgeon." "Ridin'" - ridin' dirty - was transformed into "White & Nerdy." He's recorded a mashup of songs from "Hamilton" Polka style. He's famous for his song parodies, for which he writes comic lyrics to hit songs. Today we continue our series featuring some of our favorite interviews of the year with Al Yankovic, aka Weird Al Yankovic.
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