Weird Al Yankovic on Madonna, New Tunes, Outlasting Stars He Parodies

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Let us travel back to the summer season of 1989. I’m 15 many years old and have just put two big movie posters on my wall: A single for Tim Burton’s recreation-transforming acquire on “Batman,” starring Michael Keaton, and the other for “UHF,” the theatrical comedy debut for the a person and only “Weird Al” Yankovic.

It’s now 2023. Keaton is again as Batman in subsequent month’s “The Flash.” And Bizarre Al (generally Bizarre Al, not just Al Yankovic!) is the front-runner for this year’s Tv movie Emmy, many thanks to the Roku Channel parody biopic “Weird: The Al Yankovic Tale.”

“1989 is back again once more! It is all cyclical,” Yankovic claims in his signature cheery, upbeat tone. Tell my 15-calendar year-old self that one working day he’ll be recording a podcast with Odd Al, and first he’d say, “what’s a podcast?” But just after outlining that it is basically a radio present, my 15-12 months-outdated self would drop his intellect. And question about 2023’s flying cars and trucks. Sorry child.

But back again to Al. This is a guy who has now expended 5 many years in the limelight — considerably lengthier than many of the artists he has parodied about the a long time. “Nobody preferred to signal me in the early ‘80s,” he says. “They thought, ‘comedy audio, you’re a novelty artist.’ And historically, novelty artists grow to be one-strike miracles, and then they’re overlooked speedily. So yeah, which is sort of the massive irony of my lifestyle is, I’m nonetheless listed here.”

Weird Al is so timeless that he has managed to enjoy the 1980s model of himself on exhibits like “How I Satisfied Your Mother” and “The Goldbergs,” and get absent with it. In “Weird,” Daniel Radcliffe plays Al — but Yankovic is there far too, showing up as document firm exec Tony Scotti (the dude who first gave Weird Al his report offer).

Yankovic has acquired five Grammy awards and bought extra than 12 million albums. Some of that is in “Weird,” which he wrote with Eric Appel. But make no error, this is by no means an genuine biopic. Of course the master of parody would eventually make a parody of biopics: Inspite of what you see on screen, Odd Al didn’t have a torrid adore affair with Madonna (performed by Evan Rachel Wood). He did not become a drug kingpin. And Dr. Demento (played by Rainn Wilson) by no means laced Al’s guacamole with LSD.

“It brought me so considerably pleasure to see that was the amount a person Google search, ‘Did Strange Al and Madonna have a fling?’ or no matter what. I really do not know if Madonna is even aware of this movie,” he states. “I’m very curious what she thinks… I hope she’s Okay with it.”

“Weird Al” Yankovic photographed for Assortment on April, 25, 2023 at the PMC Studio in Los Angeles.
Dan Doperalski for Variety

Weird Al famously constantly got permission from artists just before parodying their songs — which is why he by no means acquired to do his consider on anything at all from Prince’s catalog. But when it arrived to the motion picture, “our attorneys reported, ‘don’t be concerned about it.’ General public determine.”

Apparently, a range of viewers who have taken “Weird” as a accurate chronicle of his life, in spite of the sheer absurdity of where the story finishes up going. “I’ve figured out about the Web and the normal population, no issue how ironic and definitely insincere you are remaining, somebody’s heading to believe it,” he chuckles.

Or possibly just want to consider it. In my youth, I employed to reside for the moments when Bizarre Al would clearly show up on MTV, beneath the illusion that he had hacked into the network to broadcast his individual “AL Television set.” I knew it was a marketing and advertising stunt, but I liked the audacity of the concept that Al had barged into the studios to participate in novelty audio videos and fake, doctored interviews with celebrities.

“They mainly gave me the keys to the car,” he remembers. “They’d say, ‘Hey, you have got 4 hours, do what ever you want.’ Basically! They did not give me any funds, but they gave me finish independence, which was remarkable.”

Take it from me: The 1980s were a unusual time. Fortunately, at minimum one particular icon from that period however is: The for good bizarre Al Yankovic.

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A couple of other tidbits from our chat with Bizarre Al:

  • Really do not count on a new album at any time quickly. “I signed a report deal in 1982 for 10 albums, and then I renegotiated two times, and it grew to become a 14-album contract, which I lastly fulfilled in 2014,” he suggests. “I just never want to sign less than the contract. I like remaining a totally free agent and accomplishing what ever I need to have to do or want to do. I’m much more into a single-off things now. Mainly because when you do an album, if you’re accomplishing my variety of material, it is tricky to have 12 tracks ready to go all at at the time and have them all be topical and well timed. I like possessing the freedom of staying able to just put out substance whenever I experience like it. Granted, I have not performed a lot of that since 2014.”
  • Strange Al is aware of there are petitions to get him to perform the Tremendous Bowl halftime clearly show. But he does not feel he’ll at any time be on the NFL shortlist. “I’m just getting true listed here. I just don’t see it ever happening. Probably the Foo Fighters will do it and have me on as a special guest… That kind of phase scares me for a variety of factors. One particular of which is, no make a difference who you are, when you are set in entrance of that numerous eyeballs, you’re heading to have a ton of haters. And I know I really don’t like currently being hated.”
  • It was the Queen biopic “Bohemian Rhapsody” that motivated him to do “Weird.” “Biopics historically have normally been pretty inaccurate, and that generally type of bugged me,” he suggests. “That’s a person of the explanations why I made a decision to get to out to Eric Appel to create the screenplay. I’m a massive Queen fan, and I liked the film and it received awards and was incredibly preferred. But it bothered me that there had been so numerous artistic liberties taken, just flat out modifying the points, switching the chronology, just generating it much more estimate unquote, cinematic, and I considered, ‘Okay, effectively, probably I can do a biopic but just like, just throw details out the window. Just go fully off the rails.’”
  • Unusual Al is aware of his mother and father, who died in 2004, would “have gotten a big kick out” of the film, even however it shows them as jokingly disapproving of his music. “They would have gotten that it’s a joke. They know me. My moms and dads were extremely loving and very supportive, and that is not the type of dynamic who at any time see in a rock tunes biopic. It is just not one particular of the tropes. So we had to make it so that the total arc of the motion picture is I’m trying to get my my father’s really like. Due to the fact he hates parody tunes, he hates accordions, he hates all the things about who I’m trying to be. The overreaching concept of the motion picture is like, I’m famed, I’ve ostensibly obtained everything I could perhaps want, except for the really like of my mom and dad. So that that had to be what we had been heading for.”

(Also in this episode, on the Awards Circuit roundtable, we discuss about the nuts conclude of May well Tv set pileup this weekend, which features the sequence finales of “Succession” and “Barry.”)

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By Indana