More than 30 years after first grabbing America's attention by spoofing Michael Jackson with "Eat It," Weird Al Yankovic is still living the dream of every nerdy seventh-grade boy -- making a career out of meticulously wicked song parody, enhanced by even more meticulously funny videos.
Still in the process of rolling out eight videos over the course of eight days from his new album (and maybe his last release in the album format, if the reports are accurate), "Mandatory Fun," Weird Al deftly used YouTube (thankfully, no longer having to count on MTV for support) and blew up Twitter (where bad grammar runs rampant) with "Word Crimes," a Schoolhouse Rock deconstruction of Robin Thicke.
"#somecunninglinguist" ... high-larious! I know I just used quotation marks for emphasis (snicker, snicker), but hopefully he doesn't read my blog post and comment that I "write like a spastic." One of the sly things that make this video terrific is the slipping in of a photo of the young Weird Al into the flipping dictionary pages, presumably by the definition of accordion, a nod to Weird Al's recurring polka medleys of very random songs, and his accordion-heavy first album. And when he scolds those of us who incorrectly describe something as ironic, look for the image of "rain on your wedding day," taking a dig at Alanis Morissette.
He also knocks it out of the park with the less cerebral "Handy," where HGTV meets Iggy Azalea.
"Now let me glue 'dat, glue 'dat/And screw 'dat, screw 'dat/Any random chore you got, well I can do 'dat, do 'dat ... I got 99 problems, but a switch ain't one."
I'm crying with laughter just typing that.
Have always loved Weird Al! His latest albums and videos are wicked good! Thanks for blogging about him.
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