Parodies Yankovic is well known for creating parodies of contemporary radio hits, which typically make up about half of his studio releases. Unlike other parody artists such as
Allan Sherman, Yankovic and his band strive to keep the backing music in his parodies the same as the original, transcribing the original song by ear and re-recording the song for the parody. In some cases, after Yankovic has requested that the original band allow his parody, the band will offer to help out with the recreation:
Dire Straits members
Mark Knopfler and
Guy Fletcher perform on "
Money for Nothing/Beverly Hillbillies*", Yankovic's parody of
Dire Straits' "
Money for Nothing", while
Imagine Dragons provided Yankovic with advice on how to recreate some of the electronic sounds they used for "Radioactive" in Yankovic's parody "Inactive". 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. 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. Yankovic considers his body of work to primarily feature parodies, rather than satires of the original song or artist, as he found that satire of songs or artists has already been done before. Most Yankovic songs consist of the original song's music, with a separate, unrelated set of amusing lyrics. 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"). Yankovic's parodies are often satirical of popular culture, including television (
see The TV Album), films ("
The Saga Begins"), and food (
see The Food Album). 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." Yankovic considered that his first true satirical song was "Smells Like Nirvana", which references unintelligible lyrics in Nirvana's "
Smells Like Teen Spirit". 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", and "Perform This Way", set to
Lady Gaga's "
Born This Way", that drew inspiration from Lady Gaga's outlandish but confident attitude. Yankovic said that converting these songs to polka was "...the way God intended". More current polka medleys feature songs that Yankovic had wanted to parody but which had proved difficult, such as
Daft Punk's "
Get Lucky", which lacked sufficient lyrics to parody. Other style parodies includes those of
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",
The B-52's with "Mr. Popeil",
Talking Heads with "Dog Eat Dog",
Frank Zappa with "Genius in France",
Nine Inch Nails with "Germs", and
Queen with "Ringtone". Some songs are pastiches of an overall
genre of music, rather than a specific band (for example,
country music with "Good Enough For Now",
charity records with "
Don't Download This Song" and college fight songs with "Sports Song"). Yankovic stated that he does not have any unreleased original songs, instead coming up and committing to the song ideas he arrives at for his albums and other releases. Yankovic has contributed original songs to several films ("This Is the Life" from
Johnny Dangerously; "
Polkamon" from the film
Pokémon: The Movie 2000; and a parody of the
James Bond title sequence in
Spy 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. In 2017, Yankovic made a guest appearance on
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, performing a new song "The North Korea Polka", as part of an episode about the political state of
North Korea. Since around 2015, most of Yankovic's output was his original works rather than parodies, with Yankovic explaining "I wanted to prove that I'm more than just the parody guy", and that there was more challenge in creating original works and pastiches.
Recurring themes 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 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 use 27 in 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." Other recurring jokes revolve around the names Bob (the
Al TV interviews often mention the name,
David Bowe's character in
UHF is named Bob, and a song called "
Bob", which parodies
Subterranean Homesick Blues by
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). A number of songs use the phrase "internal organs". 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 of
Al 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 (such as "
Albuquerque" and "
Wanna B Ur Lovr"). 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."
Music videos While the lyrics of Yankovic's musical parodies generally do not allude to the subject songs or artists, his music videos sometimes parody their videos. The video for "Smells Like Nirvana" uses a set that closely resembles that of the video for Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and uses 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", "
Bob", "
Headline News", "
It's All About the Pentiums", "Amish Paradise", "
Like a Surgeon", and "White & Nerdy". Yankovic has said the video for "
Dare to Be Stupid” parodies
Devo videos in general. Several videos include celebrity
cameos.
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 "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
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". 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. The
DualDisc 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", 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. The approach was considered to be essential to promoting
Mandatory Fun to reach the No. 1 position on the
Billboard charts on its debut week.
Businessweek attributed the sales success of
Mandatory Fun to the viral music video campaign.
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. and that he "kind of stumbled on my formula for the future". In 2025, Yankovic announced the
Bigger & Weirder Tour, a concert tour featuring performances at large venues such as
Madison Square Garden and the
Kia Forum. Following the release of his album
Mandatory Fun in 2014, Yankovic has released limited new music, but the tour has seen strong ticket sales, marking it as one of his most commercially successful to date. The tour includes elaborate performances with approximately 20 costume changes for Yankovic and nine for his band, each completed in 45 seconds or less.
Reactions from original artists The
United States Supreme Court affirmed in the 1994 case
Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. that certain parodies (even those sold commercially) can qualify under the
fair use provision of U.S.
copyright law, which means that parody musicians such as Yankovic do not need to obtain permission from the original artists. However, as a personal rule, Yankovic has always sought permission from the original artist before commercially releasing a parody, to respect the original musicians, avoid lawsuits, and to work out agreeable royalty arrangements. He claims that only about two to three percent of the artists he approaches for permission deny his requests. Yankovic has stated that the holder of the publishing rights to the original song holds the publishing rights/royalties to his parodies, but that he works out an agreement to split the songwriting credit with the original songwriters. Yankovic said that Jackson's support helped to gain approval from other artists he wanted to parody. Yankovic was one of several celebrities who appeared in the 1989 music video for Jackson's song "
Liberian Girl".
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".
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*". 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?" The
Permanent Record: Al in the Box booklet referred to the song's "compound fracture of a title".
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."
Don McLean was reportedly pleased with "The Saga Begins", a parody of "
American Pie" that summarizes
Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, and told Yankovic that the parody's lyrics sometimes enter his mind during live performances. His parody not only replicates the music from the original 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."
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." 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." 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. Gaga considered herself "a huge Weird Al fan", and she stated that the parody was a "rite of passage" for her musical career and considered the song "very empowering". Yankovic states that his style parodies have also been met with positive remarks by the original artist. He noted that his friends and fellow musicians
Ben Folds and
Taylor Hanson helped to support their respective style parodies "Why Does This Always Happen To Me?" and "If That Isn't Love". He also noted positive reactions he got from friends his band members have, such as from
Frank Black of
Pixies for "First World Problems" and
Southern Culture on the Skids for "Lame Claim to Fame", and a similar praise when he encountered
Graham Nash of
Crosby, Stills, and Nash on the street, and was able to play his recently completed "Mission Statement" for him. 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". In 1999,
Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist
Flea told
Behind the Music that he was unimpressed and disappointed by Yankovic's 1993 song "Bedrock Anthem", which parodied the band's songs "
Under the Bridge" and "
Give It Away". He was quoted as stating, "I didn't think it was very good. I enjoy Weird Al's things, but I found it unimaginative."
Refused parodies On numerous occasions,
Prince refused Yankovic permission to record parodies of his songs. Yankovic had stated in interviews prior to Prince's death in 2016 that he had "approached him every few years [to] see if he's lightened up". 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 management company, demanding he not even make eye contact with the artist. He later wrote "Traffic Jam" for his album
Alapalooza, in the style of "Let's Go Crazy", without Prince's express permission.
Led Zeppelin guitarist
Jimmy Page is a self-proclaimed Yankovic fan, but when Yankovic suggested the idea of creating a polka medley of Led Zeppelin songs, Page was "less than thrilled with the prospect, so [Yankovic] didn't pursue it". Yankovic was, however, allowed the opportunity to re-record a sample of "
Black Dog" for a segment of "
Trapped in the Drive-Thru".
Paul McCartney, also a Yankovic fan, refused Yankovic permission to record a parody of
Wings' "
Live and Let Die", titled "
Chicken Pot Pie", because, according to Yankovic, McCartney is "a strict vegetarian and he didn't want a parody that condoned the consumption of animal flesh". Yankovic referenced the incident in his video for "White & Nerdy" when he depicts himself vandalizing Atlantic Records' Wikipedia article. Yankovic was considering a complete polka medley with only
U2 songs, but the band's publisher did not accept the terms. Although a parody never happened, "Loser" was later used in a polka medley. Yankovic had planned to make a parody based on "
Hedwig's Theme" from the
Harry Potter film series, but had been refused by
Warner Bros. Pictures. Yankovic said that perhaps if he did a parody based on a franchise, "it's usually better just to do it and ask for forgiveness rather than permission".
Live performances ", in 2007, at the
Ohio State Fair Yankovic often describes his live concert performances as "a rock and comedy multimedia extravaganza" with an audience that "ranges from toddlers to geriatrics". 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. 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. 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. 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
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. 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 at
Massey 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. Yankovic performed
George Harrison's "
What Is Life" at the live-recorded
George Fest (Los Angeles, 2014). DVD and Blu-Ray CD combos of the concert honoring Harrison became available in early 2016. Following the release of
Mandatory Fun, Yankovic toured across the United States, Canada, and selected overseas venues in the "
Mandatory World Tour" from 2015 through 2016, principally featuring songs from this album. After taking a year off, Yankovic returned to tour in the United States and Canada from February to June 2018 in "
The Ridiculously Self-Indulgent, Ill-Advised Vanity Tour". On this tour, he performed mostly original songs (not parodies) and did not use costumes, props, or video screens. Comedian
Emo Philips was the opening act. A further staple of this tour was Yankovic's cover performance of a different famous song at each venue, which Yankovic stated was something he and his band enjoyed doing. Starting in June 2019, Yankovic went on his "Strings Attached Tour", where he performed every show backed by a forty-one piece orchestra assembled from local musicians. The tour was inspired by a 2016 performance he did with the
Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, which he considered a "religious experience" and sought to replicate on tour. Yankovic had the shows open with the orchestra performing a few instrumental themes, seemingly giving the concert a high-brow quality, before he and his band entered and played his songs backed by the orchestra. The concerts finished with a large flashy production of his
Star Wars songs, including "The Saga Begins" and "
Yoda". Yankovic toured again in 2022, following up from his 2018 tour with the "Unfortunate Return Of The Ridiculously Self-Indulgent, Ill-Advised Vanity Tour", focusing on his lesser-known songs. The tour included 133 shows, concluding with Yankovic's first performance at
Carnegie Hall in October 2022. Yankovic said "I've loved doing every single incarnation of my live show, but honestly the Vanity tour is the most fun I've ever had on stage, so I've been dying to get back out there and torture everybody with it once again!" Yankovic toured in 2025 with the "Bigger and Weirder Tour", with 65 different shows, including his first ever performance at
Madison Square Garden.
Legacy and influence With "
Word Crimes" from
Mandatory Fun debuting at No. 39 on the
Billboard Hot 100 in 2014, Yankovic became the third musical artist after Michael Jackson and Madonna to have a song in the Top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100 over each decade since the 1980s, his other Top 40 songs being "Eat It", "Smells Like Nirvana", and "White & Nerdy". Since then, only
U2 and
Kenny G have also entered this group.
Billboard named Yankovic No. 15 of the top 100 music video artists of all time in an August 2020 compilation, addressing that alongside his musical fame, "his accompanying video parodies are a vital part of the recipe". With his four-decade career, Yankovic's work has also influenced newer artists.
Andy Samberg of the group
The Lonely Island considered Yankovic an influence during his childhood. Certain polka musicians (such as Nick Smyth of
the Dreadnoughts) have criticized Yankovic's use of polka as comedy, saying that it contributes to the "dumb Euro" stereotype of portraying Central and Eastern European culture as goofy or unintelligent. Smyth says that Yankovic has "unwittingly taught the next two generations that polka is just a mashup comedy style", detracting from and reversing the community-building role that social dance music such as polka has always fulfilled. In 2020, Mark Riedl, a researcher at
Georgia Tech, created an algorithm that generates lyrics to match the
rhyme and syllable schemes of preexisting songs. The algorithm was called "Weird
A.I. Yankovic" in reference to Yankovic's similar song parodies. == Other works ==