10 Most Shocking True Stories From Weird: The Al Yankovic Story – Screen Rant
While the movie parodies celebrity biopic tropes, there are many true facts about Weird Al’s life and career.
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story is a mostly fictional account of the life of musical parodist "Weird" Al Yankovic and his rise to fame. Played by Daniel Radcliffe, Weird Al's life on the screen emulates the real artist by poking fun at clichés of the music biopic genre.
While little of what the movie presents should be taken as fact, there are elements to the story based on the real life of the parodist. These storylines, although exaggerated or used in good humor, are little gems of interesting Weird Al trivia.
Weird Al quickly becomes a global superstar in his biopic, outselling record-breaking artists like the Beatles and rivaling some of the most popular artists of the 1980s, such as Madonna and Prince. His popularity even creates a sensation called "the Yankovic bump," a significant boost in sales for the original songs that he parodies.
Although Weird exaggerates the success of the real Weird Al, the Yankovic bump is very real. In an interview on Late Night With Seth Meyers, Yankovic revealed that Nirvana's record company told him that his parody, "Smells Like Nirvana", helped the original artist sell a million extra copies.
The Madonna storyline in Weird: The Al Yankovic Story was fabricated for comedic effect. The two artists were portrayed in the film as having a passionate, and later deadly, love affair/ The coup;e even came up with a scheme for Madonna to write songs purely for Yankovic to parody, but in real life, the two have never actually met.
Despite this, the two have interacted in a way. According to the Daily Mail, Madonna did challenge Yankovic to make a parody song of "Like A Virgin" called "Like A Surgeon", which the comedian happily obliged.
In Weird, Al starts his music career when he witnesses his roommate eating a bologna sandwich, causing him to quickly think up a parody of "My Sharona" called "My Bologna". The song is an instant success, and catapults the singer to super-stardom.
The movie does exaggerate the song's success by a large margin. The song sold just 10,000 copies and the record label refused to promote it, according to the liner notes from Permanent Record: Al in the Box. However, it was the first record Weird Al ever released, and it did get its start on Dr. Demento's radio show.
Quinta Brunson's appearance as talk show host Oprah Winfrey is one of the funniest cameos in Weird: The Al Yankovic Story. She and Daniel Radcliffe show off great comedic chemistry and the clip from her show is a hilarious ludicrous exaggeration of Weird Al's influence in the 1980s music scene.
Oprah did in fact interview Weird Al on her talk show A.M Chicago in 1984, and the two discussed how artists felt about his parodies (via Oprah Daily). However, the two did not check out Al's Hawaiian shirt collection, and the show did not include a clip of Pablo Escobar singing a Weird Al song.
After writing "My Bologna", Weird Al and his roommates set out to record the parody song and send it to Dr. Demento's radio show. In order to get the best acoustics possible, the gang set out to a public bathroom to record the song, and kick out the other attendants.
As revealed in a tweet by Weird Al himself, "My Bologna" was actually recorded in a bathroom for acoustic purposes. The bathroom at California Polytechnic State University, which Al attended, although he probably didn't kick out people who wanted to use the facilities.
Many biopic films of celebrities follow the mentor trope in which an elder figure will support an artist in their rise to fame, before their relationship comes to blows. This happens in Weird, when radio host and comedian Dr. Demento promotes Al's first single and supports his music career until Al hits rock bottom.
Dr. Demento has been a friend and supporter of Weird Al from a young age, when he started submitting tapes to his radio show, and was the first to play his song "My Bologna". Yankovic once quipped “If there hadn’t been a Dr. Demento, I’d probably have a real job now" (via Yahoo).
Towards the end of the movie, Weird Al certifies his comeback by winning a major music award. When his name is announced, Prince, who was also nominated, is devastated to lose to Weird Al.
Oddly enough, there was a one-sided rivalry between Weird Al and Prince. Prince had refused permission for Yankovic to parody his songs on multiple occasions. In an interview with Wired, Yankovic said Prince even sent him a telegram informing him not to make eye contact with the Purple One when they both attended the American Music Awards.
When Weird Al reaches the peak of his career in the biopic, there is a joke in the movie where he is exasperated at the amount of leading Hollywood roles he's being offered. Frustrated, Yankovic snaps and exclaims that he doesn't want to play Indiana Jones or James Bond.
Although he has not been offered the roles mentioned in the movie, Weird Al has starred in many movies over the course of his career. According to Letterboxd, the singer has appeared in 52 movies. He played himself in The Naked Gun movies, but has also played fictional characters in films like Popstar: Never Stop Stopping and Bill & Ted Face The Music. He even makes a cameo in Weird as a record producer.
At the beginning of the film, a young Weird Al meets a door-to-door salesman that offers him an accordion. Al quickly falls in love with the instrument, but his father, who hates the accordion and all things polka, is infuriated. He lashes out and beats the salesman nearly to death for offering the instrument to his son.
Unsurprisingly, this scene didn't occur in real life. However, as confirmed by Yankovic himself, it is true that a chance encounter from a salesman sparked the real Weird Al's interest in the accordion, and the rest is history (via NME).
In the film, Weird Al decides to release an original song titled "Eat It," his most successful single yet. Soon after, however, he receives a call that Michael Jackson is making a parody of Eat It, entitled "Beat It", leaving Yankovic devastated.
Obviously, "Beat It" is not a parody of "Eat It." It's the other way around. However, Michael Jackson was indeed a fan of Weird Al's work, and gave him permission on multiple times to cover his work. Yankovic has states that Jackson "had always been very supportive" (via Wired).
Bethany Gemmell is a writer from Edinburgh, Scotland. She has been an avid player of the Sims franchise since childhood and enjoys writing about a wide range of media, from Harry Styles to Star Wars.
