![]() Al shrewdly used Viral Marketing to saturate social media with publicity for his 2014 album Mandatory Fun, and he was rewarded with that album debuting at number one on the Billboard 200 (his first number one album ever). Much of his early success has been attributed to the use of music videos to spread awareness of his songs, and he continues to adapt to changes in both comedy tastes and media consumption. ![]() While his career has had various peaks and valleys, Al has been fully committed to the comedy genre since the beginning, with most of his albums during the '80s and '90s going platinum. Records in 1983, then hit it big with his second album thanks to "Eat It" (a song and music video parody of Michael Jackson's " Beat It") peaking at number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100. After a modest start (including a disastrous gig opening for Missing Persons), Al and his band released his first album on Scotti Bros. Knack frontman Doug Fieger turned out to be a fan of "My Bologna", and got the song released as a single on Capitol Records under a short-term contract.Īl scored another minor hit in 1980 with "Another One Rides the Bus" (a parody of Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust") and decided to pursue a career in music, feeling that architecture wasn't really his calling. Sometime before he was kicked off the station for refusing to follow various airplay rules, he went across the hall into the men's bathroom with his accordion and recorded a parody of The Knack's "My Sharona" entitled "My Bologna", which became one of the most popular songs on The Dr. When Al went to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo to earn an architecture degree, he began performing his songs at the campus coffeehouse and worked for the school's radio station as a disc jockey, where he picked up the nickname "Weird Al". D Superstar", a parody of "Jesus Christ Superstar" rewritten to be about Dr. Al's first songs included "Belvedere Cruising" (an original ode to his family's car, a 1964 Plymouth Belvedere) and "Dr. Al began recording his own humorous songs in his bedroom with his accordion and mailing them to the good Doctor, who played them on the air according to Al, Demento appreciated the novelty of a geeky teenager with an accordion thinking he was "cool". Demento, known for playing wacky novelty songs. As a teenager, he became a fan of Los Angeles-based radio host Dr. Sometime in 1966, a door-to-door salesman stopped by the Yankovic household offering either guitar or accordion lessons according to Al, his parents figured that "the world needed one more accordion-playing Yankovic" (the first being polka legend Frankie Yankovic, to whom Al is not related) and young Alfred received his first lesson the day before his seventh birthday. “I think if you’re a fan of comedy, and if you are familiar with the biopic genre and the tropes of the biopic genre, I think you’ll have a lot of fun watching this movie.The reigning king of Song Parody, Alfred Matthew Yankovic (born October 23, 1959), is an American musical humorist with a career spanning 40 years. We drew inspiration from ‘Forrest Gump’ and ‘Boogie Nights’ just as much as Bohemian Rhapsody and The Doors,” said Appel. ![]() “if you’re someone who likes biopics, if you’re someone who likes that type of storytelling, and I mean fiction or nonfiction, our movie kind of touches on everything. “He said, ‘Okay, who do you want to play who and I’ll just send them an email or a text,” and it was amazing how quick the responses were.”Īppel says that even if you don’t have a working knowledge of Yankovic’s life or music, viewers can still get a kick out of this movie. When it came time to fill some of these comedy roles, it was just like looking at Al’s Rolodex and he showed me the list of people he sends holiday cards to every year,” said Appel. “ is really good at keeping in touch with people and he has so many personal friends in the comedy world.
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