History Trivia / WeirdAlYankovic

* ApprovalOfGod: These days, a parody from Al is considered a greater honor than a UsefulNotes/{{Grammy|Award}}. Examples include:

** He repeatedly approached Music/{{Prince}} asking for permission to do a parody of his work, which was always refused. The closest he got were the style parodies "Traffic Jam" (which bears a resemblance to [[Music/PurpleRainAlbum "Let's Go Crazy"]]) and "Wanna B Ur Lover," the latter of which was performed as a tribute to Prince on his most recent tour (of course, he didn't outright say it, but the backdrop during the song was purple clouds, and Al wore a Prince-ly outfit). [[note]]Of course, Website/TheOtherWiki states that "...Lover" was meant to be a parody of ''Midnite Vultures''-era Music/{{Beck}}, which itself borrows from Prince's brand of hypersexual funk. Al stated [[https://www.weirdal.com/archives/miscellaneous/ask-al/#080703 in a Q&A on his website]], "that song is actually intended to sound like ''me'' trying to sound like ''Beck'' trying to sound like Prince", indicating that he intended to kill two birds with one stone. [[/note]] After Prince's death and having never budged from this position, Al announced that he would respect those wishes and never do anything based on his songs.

** He approached Music/{{Beck}} about doing a parody of "Loser", but Beck turned it down after being pressured by his agents not to say yes. Beck himself later went on to say he regret this decision, but at the very least would later allow Al to use "Loser" as part of "The Alternative Polka" medley.

** Following the release of the 2019 documentary ''Leaving Neverland'', which detailed new child sexual abuse allegations against Music/MichaelJackson, Al opted to remove [[Music/WeirdAlYankovicIn3D "Eat It"]], [[Music/EvenWorse "Fat"]], and "Snack All Night" from his setlists, as they were parodies of some of Jackson's biggest hits ([[Music/{{Thriller}} "Beat It"]], "Music/{{Bad}}", and [[Music/{{Dangerous}} "Black or White"]], respectively).

* TropeNamer:
** DrivesLikeCrazy ("She Drives Like Crazy")
** Franks2000InchTV
** IndexedAndNerdy (from "White & Nerdy")
*** AsianAndNerdy
*** BlackAndNerdy
*** JewishAndNerdy
** [I Pulled A Weird Al], since renamed PersonAsVerb
** LikeASurgeon
** [Weird Al Effect], since renamed ParodyDisplacement

* ExiledFromContinuity: After the documentary ''Leaving Neverland'' brought Music/MichaelJackson's controversial history of sexual abuse allegations back into the limelight, Al said that he would retire "Eat It" and "Fat" from his live set so as not to stir up more controversy.

** "Buddy Holly" by Music/{{Weezer}} was included on "The Alternative Polka" and was ready to be finalized - to the point that Al even mentioned them in the album's booklet - but at the very last minute, Weezer had a change of heart and asked for it to be removed. They made this up for him years later by letting him use "Beverly Hills" on the "Polkarama" medley and let him guest star on their music video for "Africa".

** The very first came when The Knack performed at Al's college, and once he introduced himself to frontman Doug Fieger, he revealed he loved "My Bologna" and told a Capitol Records executive that was nearby to get that song released as a single.

** Music/MichaelJackson was a big fan and enjoyed the parodies of his work. He even lent the set for his "Badder" music video (the kid version of "Bad" seen in ''Film/{{Moonwalker}}'') for Al to use for his parody "Fat".
** As Chamillionaire told the ''Houston Chronicle'', "It's one thing to go platinum. Where do you go from there? Then Weird Al calls." He would later end up with the ParodyDisplacement being inverted on him -- people in Asia thought that Al wrote the song first, and they really enjoyed his "parody" of "White & Nerdy". He also praised Al's rapping ability and was pleasantly surprised that he was able to pull it off.

** Music/KurtCobain once claimed that he hadn't felt as though he'd "made it" until "Smells Like Nirvana." When he and the other members of Music/{{Nirvana}} saw the video for "Smells Like Nirvana," they literally rolled on the floor laughing.

** Music/ThePresidentsOfTheUnitedStatesOfAmerica loved "Gump" so much that when performing "Lump" live after its release, they replaced their original song's final line with Al's "And that's all I have to say about that". They also later got Al to direct their video for "Mixed Up S.O.B."

* ChannelHop: Al first signed onto Creator/CapitolRecords, through whom he released his debut single, "My Bologna". Shortly after, however, Al learned that Capitol were uninterested in promoting him and released the EP ''Another One Rides the Bus'' himself under the one-off vanity label Placebo Records, later earning a distribution deal with TK Records. However, TK quickly went under, leading Al to sign with Scotti Bros, who put him under the imprint Rock 'n Roll Records. This deal continued for the rest of the '80s until Scotti Bros. moved him under their main wing starting with ''Music/OffTheDeepEnd''. In 1999, Al moved over to Volcano Records and stayed there for the next 15 years, moving over to Creator/RCARecords for ''Music/MandatoryFun'' in 2014.

'''Cyborg''': [[RageBreakingPoint That tears it!]] You’re going down, Darkseid!

* EnforcedMethodActing: Al recorded his vocals for "Headline News" as early in the morning as he could the day of so that his voice would be naturally low enough to emulate [[Music/CrashTestDummies Brad Roberts]]' BadassBaritone on "Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm." Likewise with "Truck Drivin' Song".

* ApprovalOfGod: These days, a parody from Al is considered a greater honor than a Grammy. Examples include:

** The creators and writers of ''Series/{{Jeopardy}}'' apparently love "I Lost on Jeopardy", as they've referenced it many times. (The song references the Art Fleming version from the 1960s and 1970s, of which the Creator/AlexTrebek version — which debuted 14 weeks after "I Lost on Jeopardy" — is a revival.) [[https://youtu.be/DnTOGYijeyw When Al performed the song on]] ''The Merv Griffin Show'', Griffin credited the song’s success with the revival happening at all (though that was likely exaggeration on his part, as the show had already been picked up for a full season; pilots had been produced going back to 1983). Yankovic was also invited to the wrap party at the end of the current run's first season, and the staff said he was a genuine thrill. Similarly, Greg Kihn, who wrote the song "Jeopardy" that Al parodied, [[https://web.archive.org/web/20130826135501/http://gregkihn.com/blog/weird-als-version-of-i-lost-on-jeopardy/ has written]] about how much he enjoyed the parody--[[ParodyAssistance He even appeared at the end of the video!]]

** Chamillionaire told the Houston Chronicle: "It's one thing to go platinum. Where do you go from there? Then Weird Al calls." He would later end up with the ParodyDisplacement being inverted on him -- people in Asia thought that Al wrote the song first, and they really enjoyed his "parody" of "White & Nerdy". He also praised Al's rapping ability and was pleasantly surprised that he was able to pull it off.

** Music/ThePresidentsOfTheUnitedStatesOfAmerica loved "Gump" so much that when performing "Lump" live, they replaced the song's final line with Al's "And that's all I have to say about that". They also later got Al to direct their video for "Mixed Up S.O.B."

** Acknowledged InUniverse on an episode of ''WesternAnimation/SabrinaTheAnimatedSeries'', where Sabrina's band has a hit single with the song "What's Your Favorite Flavor" and among their successes is a Weird Al parody called "Electric Shaver."

* BuryYourArt: While Al hates most of his material recorded before his first album and hasn't re-released most of it out of personal shame, he has gone extra lengths to make sure his uncharacteristically blue song "Orgy on My Own" remains suppressed. It was deemed lost for decades and was almost treated as an Urban Legend until a version of the song was leaked online in 2012. It has since been exchanged hands many times, but the caveat was that the version of the song leaked was sung by co-writer Joe Earley and not Al himself. However, in 2018, a Weird Al podcast got hold of a version from a concert in which Al sang the entire song. They played around a third of the song on the podcast, but they will never share the full song without Al's blessing, which they have made clear will never happen.

** In 2015, Al stated during an interview that he no longer performs "Jerry Springer" live due to its frequent use of terms now recognized as slurs. He also avoids performing the popular "Albuquerque", off [[Music/RunningWithScissors the same album]], because its 12-minute EpicRocking length and extensive passages of comedic yelling and screaming put a strain on his vocal cords, saving it for special occasions (namely, when he is performing in UsefulNotes/{{Albuquerque}}, UsefulNotes/NewMexico), though he did bring it back into regular rotation for both Ridiculously Self Indulgent tours.

** Due to the difficulty involved with replicating its MotorMouth bridge, Music/WeirdAlYankovic refuses to perform the fan-favorite song [[Music/PoodleHat "Hardware Store"]] live.