When listening to the earlier work of "Weird Al" Yankovic, modern fans may be so unfamiliar with the songs being mocked as to not even realize that the Weird Al song is a parody.
For this reason, this trope used to be named The Weird Al Effect.
Since Weird Al is known to be a parody artist, some may wonder how people could make this sort of mistake. However, he does also have a lot of original humorous songs. Most older fans know him better for his parodies, but he's spanned a few generations since his Dr. Demento days and is still going strong
. Moreover, knowing that a song is a parody and knowing the song it parodies are two different things.
- Many people are now more familiar with "I Lost on Jeopardy!" than with the original "Jeopardy" by the Greg Kihn Band.
- To an extent, the version of Jeopardy being parodied was the original Art Fleming-hosted version of the 1960s and 70s; the video was released a mere three months before the modern version hosted by Alex Trebek debuted in syndication (the song is often incorrectly credited as being the catalyst for said revival; Merv Griffin had actually been attempting a syndicated revival for at least a year beforehand), so younger viewers might be confused with Fleming and Don Pardo's presence and the much different set (as opposed to Trebek and Johnny Gilbert).
- Some may have forgotten Jimmy Webb's "MacArthur Park", remembering only Weird Al's "Jurassic Park".
- Coolio's "Gangsta's Paradise" is well-known, but at least some are more familiar with "Amish Paradise". Coolio was quite peeved about "Amish Paradise", for which Yankovic had obtained permission through official channels but not through Coolio himself. He felt that Weird Al's version trivialized the seriousness of the song. Confusing the issue further was that "Gangsta's Paradise", Coolio's song, was actually a Weird Alization of a Stevie Wonder song called "Pastime Paradise", itself being Sampled Up.
- To confuse matters further, many of Al's original songs are "style parodies" where he parodies a band's/artist's musical style instead of a specific song. Because he does change the music a bit even with parodies, this leads to some thinking that these style parodies are a parody of a specific song. Examples follow:
- Trigger Happy — Jan and Dean / The Beach Boys and 1960's Surf Rock in general
- Pancreas — Brian Wilson, especially Smile
- Dare to Be Stupid — Devo (Devo frontman Mark Mothersbaugh even said it was "the perfect Devo song")
- CNR — The White Stripes
- Craigslist — The Doors (He even got Ray Manzarek, The Doors' keyboard player, to play on the recording)
- Everything You Know Is Wrong — They Might Be Giants
- You Make Me — Oingo Boingo
- Close, but No Cigar — Cake
- Velvet Elvis — The Police
- Frank's 2000" TV — R.E.M.
- Good Old Days — James Taylor
- Genius in France — Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention (He even got Dweezil Zappa, Frank's son, to play the intro solo)
- Germs — Nine Inch Nails
- Traffic Jam — Prince
- Wanna B Ur Lovr — Beck (circa Midnite Vultures) and/or Prince
- Ringtone — Queen
- I'll Sue Ya — Rage Against the Machine
- Dog Eat Dog — Talking Heads
- Young, Dumb and Ugly — AC/DC
- Mr. Popeil — The B-52s
- Skipper Dan — Weezer
- Stop Forwarding That Crap To Me — Meat Loaf (or Jim Steinman's production in general)
- One More Minute — Elvis Presley (primarily his song "The Great Pretender")
- Waffle King — Peter Gabriel
- Bob — Bob Dylan
- Mission Statement — Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
- Albuquerque — The Rugburns
- My Own Eyes — Foo Fighters
- I’m So Sick Of You — Elvis Costello
- Why Does This Always Happen To Me? — Ben Folds (who plays piano on the track)
- "Lame Claim to Fame" — Southern Culture on the Skids
- You may not be aware that his The Beastie Boys style parody "Twister", aside from the pastiche elements, is genuinely a cover of the original 1966 commercial for the board game.
- His Once-An-Album polka medleys tend to be time capsules of a particular period in music, covering both enduring hits and flashes in the pan. For instance, "Polka Your Eyes Out" from 1992 note is bookended by "Cradle of Love" and "Ice Ice Baby", but in-between has such classics as "Losing My Religion," "Love Shack", and "Enter Sandman".
- Referenced in The Flash Tub Gamescott Review (which is a parody of both 90's Internet videos and Internet game reviews) in the end credits, crediting Papa Roach's "Last Resort" to "Weird Al", since Weird Al did cover it in one of his medleys.
- Incidentally, the polka medleys themselves are an example of this trope. A lot of us probably don't remember Stars on 45, a Dutch novelty act which created song medleys set to disco. Al took the concept, only he set the medley to polka music instead with "Polkas On 45". While Stars on 45 is largely forgotten, Al continues to feature polka medleys on each of his albums (except "Even Worse" and arguably "Alapalooza", where instead of a medley he did a polka cover of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody").
- Referenced in The Flash Tub Gamescott Review
- "White and Nerdy" has overshadowed "Ridin" by Chamillionaire, but Chemillionaire didn't mind, as it still did boost the song's profile, plus he was impressed by Al's skill on the mic, and he even referenced "White and Nerdy" in the "Ridin' Overseas" remix.
