The 25 best “Weird Al” Yankovic parody songs

Somewhat appropriate given the artist, “Weird Al” Yankovic’s first single, “My Bologna,” was recorded in a men’s bathroom, as this was the only space available to a student disc jockey at Cal Poly in 1979. Nevertheless, Yankovic’s ode to Oscar Mayer and parody of the Knack’s “My Sharona” was a huge hit on the Dr. Demento show. This success, as well as a chance encounter with the Knack’s Doug Fieger, earned Al a recording deal with Capitol Records and would mark the beginning of his 40-year career.

“Another One Rides the Bus” was recorded in an actual studio (live, in Dr. Demento’s booth, to be precise) but that doesn’t mean it’s a high-quality recording. It features Al cranking away on his accordion while drummer Jon “Bermuda” Schwartz, whom Yankovic had randomly met in the hallway minutes before recording, bangs out a beat on the accordion’s case. The lyrics that turn Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust” into a ditty about being trapped on a crowded bus were both hilarious and relateable, and a 22-year-old Al nearly cracked the Hot 100 for the first time.

Weird Al’s “I Love Lucy”-themed song, “Ricky” (a spoof of “Mickey” by Toni Basil), wasn’t just his first stint in the Hot 100, but it was also his first televised music video. The No. 63 song featured Yankovic as Desi Arnaz’s Ricky Ricardo character — sans glasses and ‘stache — as Al does his best Cuban accent while singing from Ricky’s point of view. However, it’s legendary voice actress Tress MacNeille who steals the song and black-and-white video with her spot-on impersonation of Lucille Ball.

To get permission for his fourth single (and second about food), “I Love Rocky Road,” Weird Al didn’t need to ask Joan Jett, the artist known for “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll” but instead a member of The Arrows, who originally recorded the song in 1975. This is notable because it was The Arrows’ Jake Hooker who introduced Yankovic to famed guitarist and producer Rick Derringer, who ended up producing Al’s first six albums — including his ode to rocky road ice cream. The song nearly cracked the Hot 100, reaching No. 106.

Upon its 1984 release, “Eat It” became Weird Al’s biggest hit by far. Included on his second studio album, “In 3-D,” the parody contained plenty of silly sounds and lyrics about trying to feed a picky eater but was a professional-sounding imitation of Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” that featured Rick Derringer on the guitar solo. Matching this meticulousness, the music video for “Eat It” was a shot-for-shot remake of Jackson’s original that added some slapstick but actually used some of the same dancers. “Eat It” hit No. 12 on the Billboard Hot 100, was certified Gold and earned Yankovic his first Grammy for Best Comedy Performance. 

Sure, “I Lost on Jeopardy” is a solid spoof of the No. 2 hit song “Jeopardy” by The Greg Kihn Band, but what really makes the song is the guest appearance by longtime announcer Don Pardo, who brutally belittles Yankovic’s narrator character for losing the game. In addition to making fun of the narrator’s ineptitude and poor luck, the lyrics also include nods to popular prizes on the show, such as Turtle Wax, Rice-A-Roni and a copy of the home game. The music video included a cameo from Pardo and a few nods to the original Greg Kihn Band video.

After Madonna released “Like a Virgin” in 1984, a friend of hers remarked to the artist that it wouldn’t be long before Weird Al released “Like a Surgeon.” This conversation was eventually relayed to Yankovic himself, who ran with the idea. The resulting ditty about a surgeon fresh out of med school was one of the comedian’s biggest hits (reaching No. 47 on the Hot 100), the second single off his third album, “Dare to Be Stupid,” and is a staple at live shows to this day.

Packed with quacktastic puns, “I Want a New Duck” is of course a send-up of Huey Lewis and the News’ “I Want a New Drug.” The third single from “Dare to Be Stupid” asks a lot of potential duck candidates, like the ability to save Al from drowning, kicking up the song’s absurdity even more than one might expect. The song received some renewed attention a few years back when it was the subject of a side-splitting Funny or Die skit. Featuring Lewis and Yankovic, the two discuss the plot of “American Psycho” while spoofing the scene in the film in which Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) discusses Lewis’ “Hip to Be Square” with his soon-to-be victim (Jared Leto). In the end, it’s Al who gets the ax.

“Yoda” was never released as a single, which is shocking considering how popular this Star Wars-themed parody of the Kinks’ “Lola” would eventually become. Part of the reason is because it took Yankovic years to obtain permission from both George Lucas and the Kinks to release “Yoda” on an album, although it received some airplay on Dr. Demento’s show as early as 1980. The song’s publishers denied Al, but another chance encounter — this time with the Kinks’ Ray Davies, who said he was never even asked for permission — finally gave Yankovic the ability to release the song in 1985. “Yoda” eventually became one of Weird Al’s most famous parodies and was actually the closing number on his most recent tour.

Although the idea for “Living with a Hernia” belonged to Yankovic, it was his label that insisted he parody James Brown’s hit “Living in America,” which was also the theme to “Rocky IV.” Al obliged and began researching types of hernias to pen the lyrics. To us, one of the most entertaining parts of this parody is the music video, which lampoons Brown’s famous cape routine with Yankovic instead needing to be led away due to his intense hernia pain. Of course we also love the changing of “Got to have a celebration!” to “Got to have an operation!”

Weird Al’s “Fat,” his second turn lampooning Michael Jackson, works as something of a sequel to “Eat It,” as the narrator is now morbidly obese and proceeds to rattle off three minutes and 36 seconds of fat jokes. In both the shot-for-shot, Grammy-winning video (which uses the same set as Jackson’s “Bad”) and his essential live performances, Yankovic dons a fat suit and partial mask for his performance. Humorously, Al had LASIK surgery on both eyes in 1988 and no longer requires glasses but still needs to wear a pair when playing “Fat” at concerts, as the frames hold up the fat mask. 

“Lasagna” is a parody of “La Bamba,” popularized by Los Lobos in 1987, and Richie Valens in 1958 — however, Yankovic didn’t need to seek permission from either artist, as “La Bamba” is actually a traditional Mexican folk song with no copyright protection. All the easier for Al, who turned the tune into “Lasagna,” a tribute to all foods Italian. It might not be his most clever parody, but it’s certainly one of the more fun ones to listen to, as Yankovic sings in a hilarious (and admittedly bad) Italian accent throughout. There’s no full-length music video for this one, although a short clip was produced for “The Weird Al Show” and concert performances.

Yankovic hasn’t been shy about his distaste for the title “Money for Nothing/Beverly Hillbillies*” but that was one of the conditions for being allowed to do the parody of “Money for Nothing” by Dire Straits. The other condition was that Dire Straits’ Mark Knopfler had to play guitar and Guy Fletcher had to play synthesizer on the track. For such a complex song, Yankovic absolutely nailed it (although the lyrics are mostly the words to the “Beverly Hillbillies” TV theme), and his parody music video was made with an equal amount of attention to detail, as it was part of Yankovic’s first and only feature film, “UHF.”

1989’s “UHF” didn’t perform well in theaters, but Weird Al bounced back in 1992 with the release of his “Off the Deep End” album, which not only lampooned the cover of Nirvana’s “Nevermind,” but it also parodied the record’s hit song, “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Audiences had a hard time understanding the words to some Nirvana tunes, which was the inspiration behind Yankovic’s “Smells Like Nirvana.” The song and its parody music video (which used the same set and even some of the same actors as Nirvana’s vid) were hits and propelled the song to No. 35 on the Billboard Hot 100 and “Off the Deep End” to platinum status, in addition to earning a Grammy nod for Best Comedy Recording.

Recalling the fun he had with “Yoda,” Yankovic decided to pen another song about a recent blockbuster — but this time tackled 1993’s “Jurassic Park.” Eschewing contemporary music to make the spoof, Al selected the 1968 Richard Harris song “MacArthur Park” after getting the OK from Harris, director Steven Spielberg and author Michael Crichton. Yankovic’s “Jurassic Park” managed to pack an impressive amount of film details into the lyrics and was popular among fans yet never charted. Still, its claymation music video earned plenty of airtime on VH1 and MuchMusic — and a Best Short Form Music Video Grammy nod.

The best part of “Bedrock Anthem” might be the perfect blending of not one but two Red Hot Chili Peppers songs (“Under the Bridge” and “Give It Away”) into one parody and video. Yet the younger versions of us say the best part is how much information about “The Flintstones” Yankovic was able to cram into a single song. It might not be among Al’s most brilliant parodies — the Chili Peppers reportedly weren’t fans of the whole “yabba dabba doo” element — but it’s definitely among the most fun as evidenced by the song’s regular appearances in live shows.

As part of the compilation “Permanent Record: Al in the Box,” Yankovic released a new song that parodied the Crash Test Dummies hit “Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm.” Titled “Headline News,” Yankovic roasted the subjects of three tabloid stories from the time (the caning of Michael Fay, Tonya Harding’s attack on Nancy Kerrigan and the Bobbitts' “private” domestic conflict) to mirror the three stories in “Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm” and did the same with the music video. Released in 1994, “Headline News” was Weird Al’s first song to chart in two years and just missed the Hot 100.

Rapper Coolio didn’t want Weird Al making a parody of his hit song “Gangsta’s Paradise,” but Yankovic mistakenly heard that Coolio had approved and went ahead with the release of “Amish Paradise.” The lead single off Al’s 1996 album “Bad Hair Day” ended up hitting No. 53 on the Hot 100, and that’s when Al found out Coolio wasn’t actually cool with the spoof. Eventually the two artists patched up the miscommunication over “Amish Paradise,” a favorite song and video of many fans.

The difference between “Gump” and previous parodies based on films (such as “Yoda” or “Jurassic Park”) is that not only did Yankovic put a recent movie plot into a song, but he simultaneously spoofed a contemporary song. “Forrest Gump” came out in 1994, “Lump” was released by the Presidents of the United States of America in 1995 and Weird Al dropped “Gump” in 1996. The song found some success on the charts, but we always felt the cleverness jammed into almost every lyric was dramatically underrated — right down to the closing line of, “And that’s all I have to say about that.”    

Before the much-anticipated Star Wars revival began with the release of 1999’s “Episode I: The Phantom Menace,” Yankovic did his research, combed through internet spoilers and splurged on a prescreening so “The Saga Begins” could be released just after the film. “The Phantom Menace,” was critically panned, but Yankovic’s spoof of Don McLean’s classic “American Pie” told from Obi-Wan Kenobi’s point of view was praised, with the humor possibly enhanced thanks to the movie’s shortcomings. Since its release on Weird Al’s 10th studio album, 1999’s “Running with Scissors,” it’s rare to see a live performance where Al doesn’t break out “The Saga Begins.”

Weird Al was always big with geeks and nerds, but that status was strengthened with the release of “It’s All About the Pentiums” on “Running with Scissors.” The album’s second single brilliantly parodied Puff Daddy’s “It's All About the Benjamins (Rock Remix)” and featured a barrage of disses involving the narrator’s foe’s technological inferiority and was overloaded with IT lingo. The video was arguably an even bigger production, hilariously referencing not just the video for “It’s All About the Benjamins” but also “Mo Money Mo Problems,” and it included a guest appearance by fellow nerd Drew Carey.

Keeping with the nerd theme, Weird Al released “White & Nerdy,” a spoof of Chamillionaire and Krayzie Bone’s “Ridin,’” in 2006. The lead single off “Straight Outta Lynwood” makes references to everything from Dungeons & Dragons and Stephen Hawking to Monty Python and Star Trek in a loud and proud way. “White & Nerdy” was Weird Al’s first top-10 hit, soaring as high as No. 9 while selling more than a million copies — another first for a Yankovic single. Chamillionaire was reportedly a big fan of the parody and was impressed by Al’s rapping skills.

Well it’s about time Yankovic tackled America’s polite neighbors to the north, and we think Canadians would probably agree with that. Al’s “Canadian Idiot,” a spoof of Green Day’s “American Idiot,” pokes fun at the hosers’ love of beer and hockey, their funny money and the Canadian pronunciation of the word “about” but also sneaks in a few compliments too. Yankovic was no idiot himself, as “Canadian Idiot,” the second single off “Straight Outta Lynwood,” ended up peaking at No. 82 on the Billboard Hot 100 and went even further north on the Pop 100.

Weird Al almost didn’t get the permission to release a spoof of Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way,” but it turned out Gaga was a big fan of Yankovic and gave her blessing after hearing it. She should be considered an especially good sport because “Perform This Way,” the fifth single from 2011’s “Alpocalypse,” is a song about how Gaga dresses up in perplexing costumes and generally acts oddly on stage. In a show of good faith, and given the importance of “Born This Way” to the gay community, Yankovic donated proceeds from the song’s sales to the Human Rights Campaign. Weird Al said the video for “Perform This Way” would likely be his last big-budget production, and it ended up earning a Grammy nomination for Best Short Form Music Video.

2014’s “Word Crimes” marked Weird Al’s fourth trip to the Top 40 — and in four separate decades, no less. The song is a parody of Robin Thicke, Pharrell and T.I.’s “Blurred Lines” and contains nearly four minutes of grammar-shaming by Yankovic, a self-proclaimed grammar nerd. “Word Crimes” became a viral hit thanks to its use of a creative “lyric video” in lieu of a music video — which writers and editors across the world had forwarded to them by friends and family members. “Word Crimes” helped the album “Mandatory Fun,” Yankovic’s 14th, reach No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and earn a Grammy for Best Comedy Album.