Yankovic, "Weird Al"
Entry updated 5 March 2026. Tagged: Music, People.
Working name of prolific US Satirical songwriter, performer, and accordion player Alfred Matthew Yankovic (1959- ), known for comedic Parodies of famous contemporary songs and polka medleys. He has tackled such crucial mid-to-late-twentieth-century topics as ice cream, e-commerce, trash, love, prank phone calls, lepers, germs, and much more. His genre-relevant songs have taken on everything from the Star Wars franchise to Clones, always with a perfectly-pitched sarcasm and Humour that melds seamlessly with whatever song or melodic pastiche he has paired with it. Weird Al was discovered by radio personality Dr Demento when the young musician sent his first parody song in to the quirky radio show in 1976.
He released two Invasion songs in the 1980s: the first, "Slime Creatures from Outer Space" (Dare to Be Stupid, 1985), a parody of "Hyperactive!" by Thomas Dolby, tells the story of lizard-like Aliens that arrive in a flying saucer (see UFOs) and start shooting everyone with "Death Ray eyes". In true Weird Al fashion, he downplays the horror of alien invasion with asides like "Boy I really wish they'd cut it out" and "They sure could use some manicures". In "Attack of the Radioactive Hamsters From A Planet Near Mars" (UHF (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack And Other Stuff), 1989), a style-parody of kitschy 1950s and 1960s rock, we learn about a less malicious invasion, this time by radioactive hamsters that are depressing property values by their alarming presence.
Like Tom Lehrer, one of his major influences, Weird Al wrote a satirical song about the threat of nuclear war, in parody of A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector and featuring Christmas celebrations in the midst of a nuclear Holocaust: "Christmas at Ground Zero" (Polka Party, 1986). Two other genre songs take up the topics of cloning – "I Think I'm a Clone Now" (Even Worse, 1988) – and a host of sf tropes including Time Travel and Aliens from an alternate Dimension strung together as "Everything You Know is Wrong" (Bad Hair Day, 1996).
Major sf franchises provided a particularly rich vein for Weird Al across three decades. He wrote two Star Wars parodies fourteen years apart: "Yoda" (to the tune of "Lola" by The Kinks), focused on the Yoda character from Luke Skywalker's point of view (Dare to be Stupid), and the second specifically about Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999) to the tune of Don MacLean's "American Pie" (Running with Scissors, 1999). In 1993, Weird Al released a hilarious recounting of the plot of Jurassic Park to the tune of Richard Harris's version of Jimmy Webb's song "MacArthur Park" (Alapalooza, 1993). Ten years later, he offered fans a recap of Spider-Man (2002) to the tune of Billy Joel's "Piano Man" (Poodle Hat, 2003).
A discussion of Weird Al's discography would be woefully incomplete if it made no mention of the body Horror that permeates so many of his songs, from the doo-wop break-up songs "One More Minute" and "Since You've Been Gone" to the Nine Inch Nails parody "Germs". In "One More Minute," Weird Al makes sure that his former girlfriend knows he'd rather, for instance, "spend eternity eating shards of broken glass" or "have [his] blood sucked out by leeches" than spend one more minute with her (Dare to be Stupid), while the latter depicts a man who has become so hyper-aware of the various microorganisms living on his skin that he wants to scratch himself bloody. "Nature Trail to Hell" (In 3-D, 1984) sends up 1980s slasher films while "The Night Santa Went Crazy" (Bad Hair Day) – a pastiche of lyrical Christmas music – imagines a quite gory scene in which Santa goes on a killing rampage directed at his reindeer.
His many film and television appearances include the futuristic documentary Living and Working in Space: The Countdown Has Begun (1993) and the animated Milo Murphy's Law (2018-2019), for which he voiced the title role. [RSCo]
Alfred Matthew Yankovic
born Downey, California: 23 October 1959
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