So, I came here looking for information on the Weird Al / Coolio badness over "Amish Paradise". Anyone have any info on that? Glenn Willen (Talk) [[]] 20:16, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)
The short of it is that Al talked to one of Coolio's agents or producers to ask permission to parody the song (even though such permission wasn't strictly necessary under fair use copyright laws for parody). The agent/producer/whatever gave Al permission to parody the song without actually asking Coolio himself if it was okay. When Amish Paradise came out, Coolio was offended because he considered Gangsta's Paradise to be an extremely serious and personal work. Al wrote and sent a letter of apology to Coolio, but Coolio never responded. If anyone can come up with a way to fit this info into the article, go right ahead. - Tyler 11:50, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Disney Channel
For TV appearances, there was a special that ran on the Disney Channel, not sure if it aired on other networks. A video of this is also on the Running with Scissors cd, but edited for time.
Article in "The Onion" playing off this page
The 10 November 2004 issue of the satirical weekly The Onion has a "column" that plays off this article. It begins: "To whomever or whatever is currently in charge of the free encyclopedia and online community portal at Wikipedia.org, I demand that you remove the mask of anonymity and account for the gross oversights to be found on your site. I must take issue with your entry for 'Weird Al' Yankovic--for in allowing it to remain active, you are perpetrating a great injustice." The article should be available online beginning about 24 hours after the date of this post. Tomgally 05:11, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Here's the link: I Must Take Issue With The Wikipedia Entry for 'Weird Al' Yankovic. ... I gotta say, whoever wrote that knows a lot about Weird Al, but relatively little about Wikipedia. Anyone can edit the Weird Al page, so there's not much point in complaining about it. ... I guess that's the joke though. --Carl 00:43, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Check the beginnig again. If I read the backstory correctly, the (fictional) writer was banned for flaming on talk pages. So he can't edit the article! (But I agree that some things don't read quite right.) -- Toby Bartels 07:59, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Theuser Misterhand43 mentioned in the article is actually registered, but he has made no contributions. I don't know if you can see when he registered. Thue | talk 19:37, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
That last comment is especially true because all the omissions the Onion article mentions have since been added to the Weird Al entry. Life portraying art portraying life...
I hope that whovever added the Onion content into the article, checked the facts cited, I wouldn't think that Groznik is a necessarily reliable source. Paul August 17:47, Nov 10, 2004 (UTC)
You know you made it when The Onion satirizes you :P --flyhighplato 04:58, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Funny thing is, the article doesn't say a single bad or satirical thing about Wikipedia itself, just us dweebs who write obsessive articles for it =) Jpatokal 07:44, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Well, the alleged writer, Larry Groznik, is a recurring character that parodies obsessive dweebs, not free wiki reference works. So this is only what we should expect. -- Toby Bartels 07:59, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
You think they don't understand Wikipedia? You must not read the mailing lists. Jimbo forwards the occasional email sent to him personally that reads like this, albiet less exaggerated and less funny because they're not kidding. -- Cyrius|✎ 15:52, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Was Al getting LASIK and shaving his moustache really "controversial", as Mr. Groznik claims? Any source for this (e.g. flamewars on Weird Al fansites, etc.)? Gwimpey 19:31, Nov 10, 2004 (UTC)
The Onion archives are subscription-based, so the article's only going to be online for three weeks. Salasks 19:51, Nov 10, 2004 (UTC)
I realize it's all in fun, but I don't think permanent changes should be/have been made to the article in response to a parody (in other words, fake) complaint in The Onion. They might be innocuous enough, but the suggestions made there weren't done in seriousness, out ouf a desire to improve the article, but rather to poke fun at those who actually want to do so. --Arteitle 00:25, Nov 11, 2004 (UTC)
So are you saying the changes shouldn't be made? It was a parody, but the changes prescribed were real - like the article really should mention that he has four gold and four platinum albums and that he was in all three Naked Gun movies not just the first. I bet a real Weird Al fan who works at the Onion looked at the entry, realized that a lot of changes should be made, realized what a dork he was for realizing that all those changes should be made, and decided to write the parody article rather than make the changes himself. Salasks 01:42, Nov 11, 2004 (UTC)
The Onion article consists of changes a dork would make to an article on Al Yankovic. This particular (parodic) dork has no concept of Al Yankovic's importance or non-importance, nor any concept of what would be important to include in an article on Al Yankovic pitched at a general readership. So clearly said parodic dork's suggestions for changes are not helpful. - Nunh-huh 01:51, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)
It never hurts to have more factual information; I'm just saying that we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that the tone of the article was tongue-in-cheek. --Arteitle 01:54, Nov 11, 2004 (UTC)
On the contrary, I think the fact that the Onion article is a satire of Wikipedia pedantism is wholly irrelevant. If the "proposed" additions are factually accurate and if they improve the article, they should be added. They should be evaluated wholly on their own merit. --Shadoks 11:50, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I can't disagree with that. My initial concern was that some Wikipedians might be taking the parody criticism personally, or not recognizing that it was a humor article. --Arteitle 17:56, Nov 12, 2004 (UTC)
I award this article a picture of a barnstar for its immortalization in The Onion. Tempshill 00:31, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I must simply say the delightful fact that there is now (within two days) a serious discussion based on a parody article going on in the exact place that was parodied is so postmodern it makes me want to sing. Yay! Dada at its finest. BarkingDoc
Uh, yeah, well, it's a hoot. Meanwhile, once we all stop singing, would anyone who's edited the article care to comment on Paul August's question? It seems as if just about everything from the Onion spoof has been tossed into the article. The Onion author may have simply invented some of it for the sake of the joke, or he might be a real Yankovic-enthusiast dork who happened in good faith to misremember a factoid or two. It would be nice if the people who've edited would take a moment to mention here some source(s) other than the Onion to back up any of these statements. (Sorry to be such a killjoy, BarkingDoc. You may now resume singing.) JamesMLane 08:51, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)
The Onion is a respected source of popular artistic criticism, and it's perfectly reasonable to include its commentary on Weird Al, even though it may be delivered through a parodic medium. On the other hand, our article must be about Weird Al, not about Wikipedia's response to the Onion's parodic criticism of Wikipedia's article about Weird Al. If anything, the latter sheds light on Wikipedia, and thus belongs (if anywhere) on Wikipedia. I think that the current body of the article (as I write this) is good; the relevant paragraph focusses on Weird Al's status as a cultural barometer as reported by the Onion, rather than on why the Onion wrote what it did and how Wikipedia reacted to that. (IMO the external link text goes overboard, but it will need to be updated in a few weeks anyway, so I'm not going to lose sleep over it.)
-- Toby Bartels 21:34, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)
The Onion does include straight criticism, but it also includes jokes and parodies. I wouldn't be surprised if a column like this one included some statements that were false, because The Onion was making fun of the kind of person who would believe them. I strongly suspect that the parts about the author having been banned from Wikipedia are false, so I doubt that the publication is standing behind all the assertions in the article. JamesMLane 22:40, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I posted on my blog about the weirdness of an Onion article on Weird Al being taken seriously. Check it out; leave a comment; make yourself at home. Salasks 22:39, Nov 11, 2004 (UTC)
I was the one who added all the info from the Onion, on a lark; I didn't check any of it externally (Hey, the Onion's a newspaper, right...?), though a few facts, such as the gold/platinum records if no their exact number, and the Naked Gu appearances, I recognized anyhow. Most of the Onion's gags of this form are astonishingly well-researched (it's worth noting that everything the article said was missing really was missing), but of course some Weird Al fan with more time should look into them. Cheers.
I have to say, that Onion article got me thinking. As someone who's read just about all of "Larry Groznic's" columns for The Onion, I sort of wondered why he picked Weird Al, rather than his more customary obessions, which usually fall more into the sci-fi/fantasy genre. Then someone pointed out that all the facts Groznic bitterly complained were missing from the article really were missing (when he could have made up complaints without really damaging the humor of the article for 99% of the audience). Now maybe the real author of the piece didn't pick something more like Deep Space Nine or any one of the myriad Tolkien pages because those pages are so filled with trivial detail that even Larry Groznic could not find oversights. Which begs the question, given the obessive mania and clinical geekitude of this character over such topics, is this a good thing? I'm honestly not sure. -R. fiend 23:56, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
