Weird Al Yankovic, Las Vegas Sun, Sept. 29, 1999

‘Weird Al’ Yankovic brings his twisted rock parodies to Las Vegas Lisa Ferguson Wednesday, Sept. 29, 1999 | 9:16 a.m. "Weird Al" Yankovic. When: 8 tonight. Where: The Joint, Hard Rock hotel. Tickets: $25, $35. Information: Call 693-5066. One-time teen scream Leif Garrett was reunited with the friend he maimed in a drug-induced car crash. Pop sham Milli Vanilli explained its Grammy Award-winning fall from grace. Rapper MC Hammer's generosity caused him to go bankrupt, and Shania Twain defended her Native American heritage. It's the sad stuff that VH1's quasi-documentary series, "Behind the Music," is made of. So what did "Weird Al" Yankovic, the reigning king of musical parodies, do to earn his place -- a profile on the show -- among such musical adversity? He has no idea. "I don't have that much dirt for them to dig up," says Yankovic, whose comical hits -- performed largely on his trademark accordion and often in polka style -- have included "Eat It" (a parody of Michael Jackson's "Beat It), "Like a Surgeon" (a twisting of Madonna's "Like A Virgin) and "Smells Like Nirvana" (poking fun at Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit"). He performs tonight at The Joint at the Hard Rock hotel. Yankovic's "Behind the Music" installment aired throughout the summer and featured a retrospective of his generally wacky career (the guy who graduated college with an architecture degree held a bunch of odd jobs before hitting the big time). But given 40-year-old Yankovic's mostly tragedy-free life, what else could it have been? For starters, he says, "I didn't think I was that big of a celebrity" to be made the subject of the hourlong show. "And number two, I don't fit into the character profile of the people (who) usually get specials done on them. I haven't killed my friend or lost all my money or done anything that would be 'Behind the Music' worthy, you'd think." So what did the show's producers manage to dig up on Mary and Nick Yankovic's boy? His breakout performances on radio's "The Dr. Demento Show" and a chronology of the years he spent paying his musical dues. The show also touched on the bit of controversy surrounding "Amish Paradise," his parody of rapper Coolio's song "Gangster's Paradise." (Yankovic's camp says he got permission to use the song; Coolio and Co. deny it.) Among the more embarrassing moments was the grainy footage from Yankovic's childhood spent in Lynwood, Calif. "The only thing that was kind of bizzare," he says, "was they found a home movie of me as a 6-year-old boy in a little pink dress that my grandmother had put me in and she made me twirl around while she rolled film. Thanks, Grandma." But it couldn't have been much worse than some of the outfits Yankovic has voluntarily donned in his music videos: mounds of latex needed to create multiple chins and a huge gut for "Fat" (a spoof of Jackson's "Bad"); and a terribly tacky polyester jumpsuit for "Living With a Hernia" (mocking James Brown's "Living in America") among them. The video for "The Saga Begins," the first single from his latest release, "Running With Scissors," had him starring as a young Obi-Wan Kenobi (a la Ewan McGregor) in a satire of "Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace." "Saga" is sung to the tune of Don McLean's 1972 epic-proportioned smash, "American Pie." Yankovic's version, which gives an outline of "The Phantom Menace" plot, was released nearly simultaneously with the film in May. The idea for the five-plus minute-long tune struck Yankovic late last year -- well before many details about the film had surfaced. But a call to director Geroge Lucas' production company set up the first road block: The company, Yankovic says, would not send him a copy of the script or let him preview the movie. "They basically said, 'We love Al. Thank you for your interest. Why don't you wait until the movie comes out and then we'll talk?' " Instead Yankovic went to work scanning unofficial "Star Wars" websites for fodder. "I wrote the song about six weeks before I ever saw the movie" and recorded it. "We could have given George a copy of the song before the movie was in theaters, but we thought that probably wouldn't sit too well." McLean, however, was willing to share his song, probably because his children are "Weird Al" fans, Yankovic says. "He was telling me because his kids listen to 'Running With Scissors' around the house all the time, he hears 'The Saga Begins' over and over, and now it's started to really mess with the part of his brain that's memorized the words to 'American Pie.' So he's on stage trying to do his own song," but thinking of 'Saga's" chorus: "Oh my my, this here Anakin guy; May be Vader someday later -- now he's just a small fry; And he left his home and kissed his mommy goodbye; Sayin' 'Soon I'm gonna be a Jedi.' " Despite the movie's mega-hit status, "Saga" didn't enjoy the same musical success as some of Yankovic's previous offerings. "It was always a bit of a crap shoot with that one," he says. "As soon as I came up with the concept for it I thought, 'This is probably going to be big with the 'Star Wars' fan base, but it's not gonna get a lot of air play, and MTV is just not gonna touch it,' which is pretty accurate. ... But it was something I wanted to do (and) I thought creatively and artistically it worked on a lot of different levels." He experienced a similar situation with the 1993 single "Jurassic Park," a takeoff of Richard Harris' "MacArthur Park." "I was dealing with a huge movie and a really clever video, I thought, done in full claymation, which went on to win awards at animation festivals." He points to "Saga's" length ("For a novelty song, that's an eternity," he says) as well "American Pie's" age and folksy sound as the reasons for MTV's hands-off approach. "It doesn't sound like rock 'n' roll to them. It doesn't sound like Limp Bizkit or Britney Spears and therefore it doesn't really fit their play list that well." Yankovic's latest single, "It's All About the Pentiums," may be a better fit. It's a computer-themed "adaptation" of the Sean "Puffy" Combs song, "It's All About the Benjamins," which was regularly seen on the video channel. When it comes to penning parodies, Yankovic says, "The most important thing to keep under consideration is that it needs to be funny even if the listener is not familiar with the thing it's a parody of." Yankovic is "clearly the king of comedy and novelty records of this generation," Paul Grein, a California pop music industry consultant, says, and compares him to Spike Jones, Stan Freeberg and Dickie Goodman, who blazed comedy trails earlier this century. "I think the thing that impresses me the most about him," Grein says, "is the staying power he's had. ... Even as pop music can go through radical shifts, he's always right there on top of trends. Some of the acts he's parodied have come and gone and he hangs in there." Indeed. When was the last time anyone heard from the Knack? It's catchy tune, "My Sharona," became "My Bologna" once Yankovic got his hands on it. What about Greg Kihn? His love-gone-wrong song, "Jeopardy," was given the game show treatment with "I Lost on Jeopardy." Remember Tony Basil? Probably not, but her cheerleader anthem, "Mickey," worked oh-so-fine for Yankovic's "I Love Lucy" tribute, "Ricky." "They've called me the court jester of rock 'n' roll," Yankovic says. "I'm just kind of the guy (who's) on the outside of the circle poking fun at the people on the inside. I doubt that I'll ever have a place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame or anything like that, but I'm not really looking for that kind of respect." How about the Polka Hall of Fame? "That would be good."