"Weird Al" Yankovic

Alfred Matthew "Weird Al" Yankovic (born October 23, 1959) is a Grammy award winning American musician, satirist, parodist, accordionist, and television producer.

Works

Other projects

• UHF - 1989: A commercially unsuccessful movie satirizing the television industry, starring Yankovic, Michael Richards, Fran Drescher and Victoria Jackson. It has since become a cult favorite, and was an extremely popular DVD. Al previously showed clips at his concerts to the great appreciation of his fans, but this was halted by a cease and desist order from MGM.
• Babalu Music - 1991: A collection of I Love Lucy music. Al's contribution as producer doesn't seem to extend past the title track.
• Peter and the Wolf - 1988: "This warped classical children's record featuring narration and poems written by "Weird Al" Yankovic and music arranged, composed and performed by synthesizer whiz Wendy Carlos" - WeirdAl.com. Weird Al's text modifies the original story considerably: "The Grandfather will be played by... Don Ameche! What? He can't make it?", while the music features various innovations by Wendy Carlos over the original by Sergei Prokofiev. Side two of the album is "Carnival of the Animals, Part II" which is a sort of homage to The Carnival of the Animals by Camille Saint-Saëns, with Weird Al taking the role of Edward Lear in writing humorous poems about the slug, the shark, etc.

Television appearances

Weird Al had a short-lived TV series called The Weird Al Show, which aired from September 1997 to September 1998 on CBS. Though the show appeared to be geared at children, the humor was really more for adult fans of Al.

Related Topics:
The Weird Al Show - September - 1997 - 1998 - CBS

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Al has hosted AL-TV on MTV many years, generally coinciding with the release of each new album. For Poodle Hat, however, AL-TV appeared on VH1. The most popular part of AL-TV is Al manipulating interviews especially commissioned for AL-TV by the network for comic effect.

Related Topics:
AL-TV - MTV - VH1

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VH1 produced a Behind the Music episode on Al. Al is so clean-cut that the producers couldn't find any of the typical angst-laced problems that make many rock stars' stories compelling (as Al noted in an interview with BTM), so their angle was on Al's life as a bachelor and (what they presumed was) his loneliness. (Also, the commercial failures of UHF and Polka Party). However, since the taping, Al has married. He and his wife, Suzanne, recently had a daughter, Nina.

Related Topics:
Behind the Music - UHF

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Al has also made a number of cameo film appearances, including all three Naked Gun films.

Related Topics:
Cameo - Naked Gun

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He currently plays a role in the "Haunted Lighthouse 4-D" Show at the Busch Gardens Williamsburg and Busch Gardens Tampa Bay theme parks. He has also appeared in cartoons such as EEK! The Cat, The Simpsons, The Brak Show, Johnny Bravo and The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, lending his voice to that of the Squid Hat, a parody of the Sorting Hat in the Harry Potter series.

Related Topics:
Haunted Lighthouse 4-D - Busch Gardens Williamsburg - EEK! The Cat - The Simpsons - The Brak Show - Johnny Bravo - The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy - Parody - Sorting Hat - Harry Potter

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Al made a celebrity cameo appearance on an episode of The Simpsons that originally aired on April 13, 2003, singing "Homer and Marge" (a parody of John Mellencamp's "Jack & Diane") with his band. The episode, "Three Gays of the Condo" later won an Emmy for "Oustanding Animated Program (For Progamming Less Than One Hour)".

Related Topics:
The Simpsons - April - 2003 - John Mellencamp - Three Gays of the Condo - Emmy - Oustanding Animated Program (For Progamming Less Than One Hour)

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Al also appeared as an alien in an episode of Amazing Stories.

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Al has appeared on numerous talk shows, most notably The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, (performing "Yoda" and "Hooked On Polkas"), but it wasn't until August 2005 that he made it onto the Tonight Show With Jay Leno, backing friend Ben Folds on the tamborine.

Related Topics:
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson - Yoda - August - 2005 - Jay Leno - Ben Folds

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