"Weird Al" Yankovic: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 17:24, 1 June 2007

Revision as of 18:27, 1 June 2007

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In 1985, Yankovic co-wrote and starred in a [[mockumentary]] of his own life entitled ''[[The Compleat Al]]'', which intertwined the facts of his life up to that point with fiction. The movie also featured some clips from Yankovic's trip to [[Japan]] and some clips from the ''[[Al TV]]'' specials. ''The Compleat Al'' was co-directed by Jay Levey, who would direct ''[[UHF (film)|UHF]]'' four years later. Also released around the same time as ''The Compleat Al'' was ''The Authorized Al'', a biographical book based on the film. The book, resembling a scrapbook, included real and fictional humorous photographs and documents.

In the mid 80's, "Weird" AlYankovic toured as the opening act for the [[Monkees]] who had released some new material on a greatest hits album and were enjoying a strong resurgence of interest in their music, playing to large audiences. Although the MonkeeMonkees's music is mostly quite serious, their live show was filled with outrageous comedy routines and romps reminiscent of the Monkees TV series. This made "Weird" AlYankovic seem to be a good fit to open the show and his energetic performancehe was verygenerally well received. "Weird" AlYankovic's showperformance included a [[James Brown]] style routine that seemedsimilar to parody the one [[Mickey Dolenz]] would perform during the MonkeeMonkees's tour in 1967. The show was highlighted with a long medley consisting of many of “Weird” Al’sYankovic’s more popular songs. He started the medley wearing surgical scrubs performing “Like a Surgeon”, a parody of [[Madonna (entertainer)|Madonna]]’s “[[Like a Virgin]]”. With each song change in the medley, “Weird” AlYankovic would remove his outer layer of clothing to reveal another layer underneath that was related to the next song in the medley.{{cn}}

In 1988, Yankovic appeared on the [[Wendy Carlos]] recording of [[Sergei Prokofiev|Prokofiev]]'s [[Peter and the Wolf|"Peter and the Wolf"]] as the narrator; the album also included a sequel of [[Camille Saint-Saëns]]'s composition [[The Carnival of the Animals]] entitled the "Carnival of the Animals Part II", with Yankovic providing humorous poems for each of the featured creatures in the style of [[Ogden Nash]], who had written humorous poems for the original.