Do Go On - 436 - Weird Al Yankovic

Episode Date: February 28, 2024

Alfred Yankovic is probably most famous for changing the words of well known songs so that they are about food, but he's so much more than that! We get superfan Evan Munro-Smith on this week to talk about the man, the myth, the legend, Weird Al!This is a comedy/history podcast, the report begins at approximately 09:11 (Evan begins his personal anecdote about Weird Al) then the topic proper begins at 26:03 (though as always, we go off on tangents throughout the report).Support the show and get rewards like bonus episodes: patreon.com/DoGoOnPodSupport the show on Apple podcasts and get bonus episodes in the app: http://apple.co/dogoon Live show tickets: https://dogoonpod.com/live-shows/ Submit a topic idea directly to the hat: dogoonpod.com/suggest-a-topic/ Twitter: @DoGoOnPodInstagram: @DoGoOnPodFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DoGoOnPod/Email us: [e-mail] Check out our other podcasts:Book Cheat: https://play.acast.com/s/book-cheatPrime Mates: https://play.acast.com/s/prime-mates/Listen Now: https://play.acast.com/s/listen-now/Who Knew It with Matt Stewart: https://play.acast.com/s/who-knew-it-with-matt-stewart/ Our awesome theme song by Evan Munro-Smith and logo by Peader ThomasDo Go On acknowledges the traditional owners of the land we record on, the Wurundjeri people, in the Kulin nation. We pay our respects to elders, past and present.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Melbourne and Canada, we got exciting news for you. And we should also say this is 2026. Jess, what year is it? 2026. Thank God you're here. Right now, I'm in Melbourne doing my show with Serengy Amarna 630 each night at the Cooper's Inn Hotel, having so much fun. We'd love to see you there. Canada, we are visiting you in September this year.

If you've somehow missed the news, we are heading up Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal and Toronto for shows. That's going to be so much fun. Tickets for all this stuff, I believe, are online. And I'm here too. Hello and welcome to another episode of Do Go On. My name is Jess Perkinsend, as always. I'm joined by my good friend, Matt Stewart. So good to be here with you, Jessica Perkins.

Yes. Jessica Ann Perkins. Yes. JAP. That's correct. Good to see you once again. Thank you and you. And we are joined this week by a dear friend of ours.

Somebody who we believe outside of work, lives inside a computer. Yes. It's our good friend, Evan Monroe Smith. Hello, thanks for having me. Oh, man, thanks. It's nice to be out of that computer. Part man, part machine.

It's tight in there. It's really stretching. I say part man, part machine, but there's no part of you that is man anymore, is it. Are you all machine now? It's all machine. You're so strong as well. Last time I saw you were 98% machine. So, where were the full 100 now?

Yep. Cool. Fading out. I'm a machine that lives in a machine. Wow. What was the last 2% of you that had to? to go. Come on,

mate. You know. Just, just, my nose. Yeah. It's always what people do last. Yeah,

because it's been very hard for, I can't smell anymore. AI to figure out the smell. Yeah. It's always like, is this room smell funny? I don't know. Is this burning?

I don't know. Who's back? Evan, you're not on gaming game now. You've got to explain. Because my partner, she's been on this show. She has.

She won Best Evan in the 2023. That sounds like quite an upset to me. Yeah. I was surprised. Was I nominated? Uh, woof. Yes. Okay.

And yet she's still won. Wow. So. I'm going to step up my Evan game. I think so. Is it because I've gone machine? Is that possibly? But by being on today's episode, it does make you eligible for the 2024 best Evan award.

Which Beck at this point is not. Yeah, Beck hasn't been on yet this year. Okay. So you're in the box seat. All right. Okay. So this is feeling pretty promising for you. He's got to hold on to this lead somehow.

But we will have. on at some point. Apart from when you've been inside the show, have you ever listened to this before, ever? Of course. Do you feel comfortable explaining the concept of the show to new listeners and listeners? Lasseners. Latheners?

That's a hotel and neighbours, I think. So, yeah, of course. I could explain the concept of this show. Great. Go for it. So every week, one of you guys, normally, this would be Dave, Jess and Matt would bring in a report that they've written on a specific special topic. Yep.

Present it to the others and, you know, with a bitter riffing. Yep. You know, it's informational. It's entertain, it's entertainment. Yes. It's great. It's a good little chat about a thing. You got to learn and you get to laugh.

I think you did a great job there. And at the moment, Dave is on leave of some kind. Yeah. Some kind that is fine. And he's okay. Okay. People have started to get a little worried. You know, there's been a few jokes going around.

I'm like, should we be putting pictures of Dave on milk cartons and stuff? Right. And we're like, no, he's fine. Nobody reads milk cartons. It's all digital. Exactly right. That's not, Australian culture doesn't do that. So people would be like, what is that ad for a boy for?

Yeah. What's this ad for a little boy on my milk? Yeah. What's going on? I also don't buy milk in a carton. Right. Like a bottle. Yeah, no, me too.

Like a plastic bottle. Yep. Because I hate the environment. Yeah. So, anyway, just something to think about. It is. But we're usually get onto topic with a question. And is Matt's turn to do a report this week.

Matt, do you have a question for us? I do. And Evan knows the topic. So this question is just to you. Great. I hope it's about maths or geography, because those are my strengths and I can always answer those questions. Well, this is about probably your favorite topic, Evan Munro Smith.

Okay. You love Evan. I love Evan. I don't know if you say that on Mike much, but you say it almost an uncomfortable amount of Mike. To Evan? Yeah. I know.

I love to, anytime we have a conversation with Evan and then he goes back to his box, as he walks away, I say, his office. His box. I say, love you. And I wait. And sometimes if he doesn't say it back, I say, Evan. And so now he knows that he always says it back. Yeah.

It's joyful for me. And it's from the heart. Well, I do love you, Jessica. You've trained him like a dog. Exactly. He knows. Just get it over and done with. Get her off you back.

Just say, yeah, I love you too. Close the door to your box. And off you go. Jess gives them a little chocolate treat. Yeah. That's where it differs from training dogs. All right, so the question is, yes.

Evan Monroe Smith's three favorite musicians, as far as I can tell. Okay. We haven't talked about this. Okay. A nine inch nails. Yes. Uh-huh. R.J.D.2.

Yes. And who? Hmm. Is he wearing merch for this particular artist at the moment? I can't give any clues. Because I wouldn't have known those two, but the big one I would know would be Weird Al Yankovich. That is correct. Yes.

Oh, that's so cool. Am I right with the other two, Ev? Yeah, definitely no nails. RJD, too, I do like. But I wonder if they'd be... I haven't thought about who my favourite eyes would be. Nine of snows have got to be... That's a bit of a lock.

Yeah, absolutely, yeah. It is hard to nail down. I mean, some people have a very clear top three or, like, top five, whatever. I struggle to name my favourite artists. Yeah, it shifts around so much, right? It depends on the mood you're in. It depends on... There's artists I've listened to for 20 years, and I go, yeah, well, they...

they'd have to be up there, but I'm also going through a phase of this particular band or this genre. I'm not listening to much nine-inch nails at the moment. I mean, they haven't released much new stuff, but also, you know, but every now and then I'll go back and I love it. But it's not something I'm listening to a lot of at the moment.

My favourite nine-inch nail song is probably, take me down to the Old Town Road. One of their most successful tracks, weirdly. Oh, a little niche. Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty underground. You might not have a bit of it. Didn't expect them to be top in the country charts there.

Yeah. You know, we got that. That song was getting quite popular before they'd got permission to use the banjo from Trent Resner. Oh, right. And then apparently they started panicking. They're like, oh, shit. We don't get this. What do we do?

And luckily, he was really cool about it. I mean, he's a cool guy. Also, seems like smart business from him. Oh, for sure. Something's making your music popular again. And interestingly, we will talk a bit about permission from artists to us. to other artists in this week's episode. But firstly, let me tell you who suggested it.

It's been suggested by... Evan Munro Smith. Quite a few people. Nearly all of them named Evan Munro Smith. I'd put two and two together. It's been suggested by Jophe from Loll Radio and Colac. Kevin Packrad from New York. Quentin Charleer from Tampa and Florida.

Will Hull from England. Gregory Gritman from Nyack in New York. Jason Frey from Clearwater, Florida. Matthew Abad from Seattle, Washington, Jess Gillott Sheethe from Sydney, Lauren Joyner from Chandler, Arizona, and Gary J. from the UK. Oh, that is a long list. And a lot of names we know quite well. Yeah, that's right.

I know Joff from Lowell Radio has sent in questions, so who knew it with Matt Stewart, where the question is which one, well, name a weird owl. Great. Which are really fun because it means the guests get to make up a funny or bad often. parody song title. Gary J, everyone gets to write a little paragraph about why they'd like to hear the topic. Gary J. wrote,

I love hearing the episodes where the report giver loves the topic. That's why I want the second banana Evan Munro Smith to be a guest on it. He wanted you to do the report, but at this late stage, because I won a vote on the Patreon. And when it was looking like it was going to win, I said, Evan, any chance you're free to record this this week? Because I definitely was like, I can't do it without Evan. would feel wrong.

It would feel wrong. I don't think I have enough objective distance to write a report like this anyway. I think it's better for me. But I think, yeah, you are second banonering like you do with me on primates. Yeah. Our podcast about primates in popular culture from Japan A all the way down the chimpanzeed. But it's funny I can remember that now. Whenever I recorded, I have no idea.

Everyone's going to read it. But, yeah, I figure you can sort of be the side reporter. So if you ever have any tidbits that you want to fill in. Yeah, try to add some color if I've got a... Yes, you're the color commentator to put it in a sporting. Is that a sporting thing? Yeah, the color commentator is the one who adds a bit of flavor. But firstly, Evan, just to set the table here, you are a massive fan and you have been for a long time.

Yeah, a long time fan. My favorite, Will, weird Al related story is your one about going to see him in Can you tell it to the listeners? who haven't heard. I'm sure I've told it before. This is one of my favourite Evan's stories. So, yeah, so I, um, weird. So I discovered weird Al, um, in, must have been in the late 90s, maybe 99, 2000.

Um, and just, it just blew my mind. I'm like, I didn't realize that, that music could be fun. Like, genuinely, I didn't realize music could be funny. Um, and I was just, I just loved it immediately. Um, and so I, and so the next time he toured Australia, which was, I think it must be 2006, 2007. My friend M was also a big fan And she's like, oh, he's going to be on Spix and Spex,

which in Australia is a music quiz show. Yeah. And they often have musical guests on. And so we're like, we have to go be in the audience for Spix and Spex. And so that was filming in Melbourne. And so that's the first time I got to meet him was after that show. And we were seeing him like the next day in Melbourne for this Melbourne show at the Art Center. But we were at the ABC.

and met him that first time and his manager was there, Jay Levy, and he's like, oh, would you like to come backstage at the show when you're going to see the show? How were you meeting him at Spicks and Spex? Were you working there at the time?

No, no, no, we were just in the audience and we waited around afterwards. And I think there's only one way in and out of Gordon Street. Oh, you waited at the door. Yeah. Oh, that's cool. That's such a classic. You see that in like, you know, biopics and stuff.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. We didn't have special access or anything. That's awesome. We were just very patient. I love them. I can't remember how long it was. It was quite a while that we were waiting there and we're like, no, I don't know.

Are there many? Are you waiting? No, I think we were the only ones. But I, um, there might have been one other person who, I think Em was friends with who was also a big fan. Um, so that was such a thrill and, and amazing to get invited back backstage. It's, it's because my friend Em was, there's also a bit of a campaign, not sure if if this will come up to get him to the rock and roll hall of fame.

And so we were doing a, bit of like, I don't know, just rallying on the forums and being supportive of that. So I think that's partly why they were like, oh, you know, come and hang out sort of thing. I don't bring that up. Do you want to talk about it now? All there is, there's a big fan campaign to get weird out into the Rock and a Hall of Fame. It seems like he's had such a long successful career that it seems like such a natural thing, but he hasn't. They just don't see him as like a legit artist or something. I'm not sure if that's what it is. I think like I see, do you see the people that are getting inducted?

They don't induct many people, and the people that they do induct you being like, why are they not already, like, it takes a, like, it really is quite a lot of legends. Yeah, yeah. And they're only two. The reality you go, yeah. How did that guy get in? Like, I think I'm not at Shales. One good jingle for a, yeah, for McDonald's. I feel like Nogneils only just got in there recently, maybe.

Yeah, right. Anyway, sorry, somewhat long story. Anyway, so we go backstage at the Melbourne show. We meet him again and get photos and, and my family was going to the show as well, and they got to meet him. You know, really lovely. Is he starting to recognize you and stuff? Yeah, like, well, I mean, this was only a day later or something.

And he remembered you. And he remembered. That is cool. I heard he's a gentleman. But this, this, this, at his, he like saw my friend M. who has dreadlocks and he's like, oh, you're naughty Emily, which is a username from the forum. Wow.

So he, he, he, I don't know, we were just very impressed with like, oh, he like is on the forums and is across this and he has an incredible memory for things. Anyway, that's a whole other thing. But, um, At the backstage at the Melbourne show, I think his manager again was like, oh, so you're coming to the Canberra show? We're like, no. It was the next day. He was like, oh, well, you know, let me know if you want to come.

Because I think they're from, you know, they're from America where I guess they're doing towns that are a bit closer together or something like that. Melbourne and Canber are not very close. Yeah, it was about a nine-hour drive or something? Yeah, something like that. Yeah. Between seven and nine. Great. Depending on traffic.

Yeah, exactly. Time of day, how fast are you going? Do you stick to the speed limit? How many times you need to piss? I, well, maybe like, are you an adult yet? I must be 16, maybe. So no. So you're both a boy.

Yeah. And you're already getting invited backstage to rock star shows. Yeah. Weird Al, I knew that everyone says he's a gentleman, but now. Now I get where the weird comes from. The other shoes dropped. Anyway, so we're like, no, we couldn't possibly. But then we're also like, yeah, actually, maybe we, maybe we, anyway.

How do you say no? Yeah, you can't say no to an opportunity like that. to go see to go to Canberra. The man you're in the room with at the moment. Imagine seeing him right up close. What's going on backstage? Is there a party atmosphere or what are you doing back there? They're just hanging out, him and the band just hanging out.

I've got some footage on my phone of hanging out with them and they're just like, I don't know, his keyboard players on the piano that's back there playing like a salsa version of smells like teen spirit or something like, you know, just like they don't even just have, you know, it's after a show they're just hanging out. Because he's very tight with the band. And they're the kind of things I'd love you're feeling because I don't think I mention his band at all in my report that I've got here. So maybe as we go along, you can bring up some tidbits, yeah. You know, maybe what their favorite cocktail is, stuff like that.

Things you would have gleaned off them backstage. Yeah. But anyway, so we went home that night and like after the show, it was like midnight after we got home from the show. And I was talking to M on Messenger or what MSN, message, whatever it was being at the time. Not a M. Not a M. Not a M. Yeah, you know. I recognize that from the forums.

And we're like, maybe we should go. Do we should go? How do we go? Because we're living in our lives. We're like, well, we'd have to take a taxi to Frankston. And then we could take a train because we didn't drive. We're like, we could take a train to Spencer Street Station. It would have been at the time.

And then we could take a V-line to like, or we were dog or whatever. And then, you know, we were like planning it out. And we're like, maybe we should just do this. And so we didn't tell our parents because it was midnight. Everyone was asleep. And so like we did that. We were just like in the middle of the night. You left there and then?

Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. Like we got a taxi. We met at the station and we get a rucksack over your shoulder or anything. No, well, we didn't. I don't even know what our plan was. We didn't plan to stay overnight. I don't think.

But we did. No, we must have planned to stay overnight. But it was just a very off the cuff. It was just like this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Yeah. You know, it's like we can't not do this. Just live a little. you know.

So we, so we, yeah, we, we went to Canberra and then I remember calling my mom in the morning. Uh, it must be like nine in the morning.

You're like, Hey, so I'm in Canberra. Was it a school day or something? No, no, it was like, I think it was a Sunday,

but, um, no, maybe it was a Saturday, but it was a weekend. Yeah. But she, yeah,

was, she was quite, uh, she would have thought you were taking the piss at first. She was sure, yeah, she was pretty surprised. I don't,

she wasn't happy about it. it doesn't feel to me, like a very Evan move. No, I normally, I'm not very, spontaneous. Spontaneous. Neither am I. So I'm not saying it was judgment.

I'm just, I love this story because it feels not like you. And also you're 16 and in the middle of the night, you've just left and gone to camera. It feels like such a rock and roll story, but the musician is weird out. Exactly. Yeah.

So, yeah, a lot of a crew or something. Yeah. Also that the destination is Canberra. Yeah. Everything about it is perfect. It's so good. I love the story so much.

Yeah, so we've got to hang out at the Canberra Theatre, and we got backstage passes again, and we went backstage and hung out, and it was, yeah, it was great. I should get into the story, but did you end up working with him, and you want to tell us about that later, or you just met him again recently?

I just met him again recently. I would love to, it's my dream to work with him, but I got to meet him again when he toured Melbourne last year. Yeah, cool. It was very good. And he remembered you and Not a Emmy? No, well, him didn't get to go, back stage, which was a shame at the time.

But I can tell, maybe I can tell that a bit later. Yeah, sure. Love it. Love having you here for this. Yes, it's perfect. And it probably is best for you not to do the report because when I did a report on something I love, Riverdance. Yeah.

I was too close to it. Yeah. And I couldn't join in on the jokes because I was like, how dare you not take Irish dancing seriously? Like I do. So it's best for you to be in this position, I think. Yeah. And I expect you to take Weirdo Yankevick seriously.

And I do. And I will. Also, the pressure of a topic like that can be feel pretty big to do it justice. That's why I ended up doing a five hour plus episode about The Saints because I felt the pressure to be really thorough. You know to do justice to it. Yeah, you care about it. You don't want to just skip over it. Again, really sorry.

I wasn't there for that episode. Really sorry. I mean, you can listen to it any time. And I have. And I have. And I love it. Okay. So, Alfred Matthew Yankovic.

was born in Downey, California on the 23rd of October, 1959. I'm going to go on a tangent straight away here because I almost instantly fell into a downy hole. He was born there, but he grew up in the suburb next to it. Yeah. But anyway, it was too late. I was already reading it. Where did he grow up? What's the suburb?

He grew up. Not Linwood, is it? It's Linwood, yeah. Straight out of Linwood. Is that an album? Yeah, because there's an out. Yeah. I think that's right.

Yeah. So yeah, it's like at about 20Ks south of downtown L.A. And apart from being the birthplace of Weird Al, it's famous for a few other things. For instance, the oldest existing McDonald's restaurant is in Downey. Wow. It was the third McDonald's restaurant and opened on the 18th of August 1953. Wow. It predates Ray Crox involvement in the company and was the second restaurant that Richard

and Maurice McDonald franchised. It's the one of those two separate golden arches. I'm pretty sure. Did you do the episode about McDonald's? old's years ago. And I think you talked about this building. So it's like a real cool. Yeah, I think I can picture it.

Yeah. I don't know if Art Deco was the right word. Yeah, something like that. Yeah. Well, 1953 is probably beyond Art Deco, but it was something like it is in that sort of mid-cent. It's got the big like arcs that mid-century modern or something. Yeah. It's the style of art architecture that Tim Rousseau loves.

Sure. For American Rousse. Oh, right. Of course. Yeah, yeah. He's done like documentaries about it and stuff. Okay. Cool.

Anyway, yeah, so I thought that was pretty interesting. But also, the 1950s is a big decade for Downey. Weird Al's born, that old McDonald's was built there, but also, Downey was in the papers in July of 1955, all around the country because of a strange mystery. Oh. I'm going to read you an article dated Tuesday, the 5th of July, was reported on in the Michigan Daily,

right across the country. Wow. The headline was, disappearing hoses annoy Californians. Now, I just want to double check that their word for hoses is the same as ours. Yes. Like garden hose, like a way to get water from a tap to somewhere else.

Or a bong to your mouth. Correct. Is that how bongs work? I don't know. I don't know either. So this story is from Downey, California. And it reads. The earth in this Los Angeles suburb seems to have developed an extraordinary and baffling appetite for garden hoses.

It has now swallowed portions of three. Yesterday, however, puzzled homeowners put a stop to the mysterious goings on. Two severed their errant hoses, the third dug his out. It all started last Thursday when George DePaso's daughter was watering the garden with a green plastic hose. When she stuck it into the dirt, she was unable to pull it out. I don't know how she's watering this garden, to be honest. You can just do it from like a top. Yeah.

You know, you can just sort of sprinkle. You don't have to shove it into the roots. Yeah, I don't get that. Yeah, that's right. You can, you know. You moisten the top. It'll get down. The pressure of the hose also, you know, can deliver from.

Yeah. You could stand up. Yeah, yeah, you don't have to shove it again. Yeah. I haven't water the garden in a long time. But anyway. Because of the housing crisis and I live in an apartment with a balcony. Yeah.

Also, there's rain. There's rain. That's what I would think. With internet connections, I think it's better for the connection to be direct to the house rather than she's sort of, we've got to tell her about you can water the garden to the node. Yeah. It's very niche Australian terminology there. Our internet's not very good.

But the government a few years ago had this great idea about we don't need to deliver it to the house. We can deliver it to a node. And then you can pick it up from there with, you know, like a little. little strings. Yeah. Or maybe we could just have a guy there. It could yell out things you're downloading. Telepathy.

Yeah. Yeah. The liberals thought you could get away with wireless watering, but it doesn't really work. Yeah, that's right. Anyway, so she put it in the dirt, wasn't able to get it out. Even worse than that, it started burrowing downward. The hose has been heading for China at a rate of two or three inches an hour ever since. So hang on, the hose is getting sucked into the ground?

Is that what's going on? Yeah. Wow. Jeez. Until yesterday morning when DePeso got full. fed up with all the publicity his hose had been getting and chopped it off. More than two feet of it had disappeared. Whoa.

Before I just say, he chopped off and let the ground take the rest. Yeah. Meanwhile, two other nearby residents reported similar vanishing acts. Calvin Barham of nearby Norwalk, sorry if that's not how he said, said he stuck his hose a couple of inches into the ground to water the roots of a tree again. Again, just it'll get there. Yeah. It'll get there.

Triggled down water economics. Correct. When he returned an hour later, two feet had been sucked down and he couldn't pull it out. Yesterday morning, with five feet gone, Barham got curious and started digging. He says he found the end was embedded in soft sand, which apparently created enough suction to hold the hose solid. He reckons that claim solved the mystery, but authorities, however, said they are baffled by the disappearances. No one seems sure. What force draws the hose is down.

It is a long article. Nearly done. The third case was that of Mrs. Robert Breeze. I love how they used to do that. Yeah. You used to get, not only you got the misses, but you also got your husband's first name. Yeah, you get a new surname and a new first name.

You got their entire name with an S added to the mister. Yeah, it's pretty cool. That is really cool. Bring it back. I agree. So anyway, Mrs. Robert Breeze of Downey stuck a hose in a hole to try and drown a gopher. When she returned, found 15 feet of it had disappeared.

Fifteen feet? Yeah. I'm reckon it's the gophers. I think it's the gophers. I think it's going to be the gophers. They're fighting back and fair a lot. You're like, oh, I was trying to drown a gopher. You were trying to drown a gopher.

Oh, now the gophers stole my hose. Well, I think that maybe you've asked for it. I think they're entitled to that. I think you gave the gopher your hose by shoving it in its hole. If I was a gopher and I saw a hose poking into my house, I'd say thank you for the gift. Thank you so much. Thank you for the gift. I was actually going to smoke a few cones later.

I was going to say my kids have been asking for a pool. Yes. Now I can fill it. Exactly. With bong water. So she was unable to pull it out even with the help of three big neighbors. Wow. But apparently Mrs. Breeze put a quick end of the nonsense declaring she wasn't going to lose any more hose.

And she chopped it off and filled the hole. So they never really figured out what it was. Some people think it might have been an underground river sort of thing. and the pressure of the water dragging them. Wow. So then why they're bloody water and their plants and there's already an underground river under there? Oh man, come on.

Jeez, always. Anyway, yeah, like I said, I got stuck in a hole, much like a Downey hose. Yeah, like 15 feet of hose. Just finally about Downey, I'll move on. Shout out to anyone listening from Downey. Did we and Al have a pretty dull life and you're just needing to pad early?

He didn't even grow out there. He was just born there. I didn't even, I hadn't even started researching. I was, I was distracted and I, but anyway, yeah, he's not the only music legend from, there's sort of the Downey Triumvirate and they're three. Robert Triumph for it. Robert Downey. Robert Downey.

Metallica frontman, James Hepfield was born there and Slayer guitarist, Kerry King went to high school there. So they're the big three. Okay, yeah. They're the big three of thrash metal. Yeah. Anyway, we're not here to talk about them. We're here to talk about another rock god. Alfred Matthew Yankovic or Yankovic.

Yankovic. He was born in Downey. According to Reney Ostberg, writing for Britannica, he grew up in Lindwood, California, the only child of Nick Yankovic, a factory worker, and Mary Yankovic, knee Vivalda. A stenographer. Yeah, worked as a secretary and a stenographer.

There you go. Now I'm going to tell. for about 10 minutes about stenography. Great. I've never understood stenography. I don't know how you're just, yeah, with that weird machine. Yeah. Yeah.

And they just, it's like, you're just able to talk really, really quickly because of this sort of shorthand you get from the machine. Yeah. It's like, I don't know, it blows my mind. It is amazing. It's all, they're even more machine than you. It's like, I guess, the machine is or the stenographer is? Ah, the stenographer.

Okay. It must be just like learning another language. Yeah. You know, because certain combinations of keys make sense. certain words. Yeah, it's pretty amazing. Yeah, you're pressing multiple at once to do that. Yeah, it is really interesting.

Now that I think about it, it's probably one of those professions that's fading out thanks to AI and voice recognition and et cetera. Maybe. I was only joking when I said we're going to talk about that for five minutes. Osberg continues. In the line of notes to his compilation album permanent record, Al in a Box from 1994, Yankevick recalled that when he was six years old, quote, a door-to-door salesman came through our neighborhood,

trying to solicit business for a local music school. Kids were offered a choice between guitar lessons and accordion lessons. Since Frankie Yankovic, no relation, was America's poker king, my parents opted for accordion lessons, perhaps because they figured there should be at least one more accordion playing Yankovic in the world. Had you heard of Frankie Yankovic? The Polka.

The poker king? I have but only through Weird Al. Weird Al, right. Well, great. Let me tell you about it. Claim to fame for me is being unrelated to weirdo Yankovic. That's the most notable thing about him to me. I'm also unrelated to Wierdale Yankovic.

Oh, interesting. Yeah. I didn't know that about you. There you go. Oh, I am related to him. Boring. I found an article about Frankie Yankovic in the New York Times. It was actually as obituary, but I wasn't going to mention that.

He was. That's an article? It's a type of article, I guess. I mean, he died in his 80s. Yeah. Late 90s? No, sorry, in the late 90s. but he was in his later, yeah.

So, yeah, in part the article reads, he was a hardworking singer and accordionist who was crowned the poker king at a poker contest in Milwaukee in 1948 and was known by that title through five subsequent decades. Wow. I love that, just some Milwaukee event.

He's like, that's me. Try and take that off me. Yeah. I'm the poker king now. But like, is it P-O-L-K? Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not saying it funny.

You're saying poker, but I was, say polka. Polka. Get the L in there a little. Right, polka. Polka. Yeah. That's the thing I know most about polka.

Because at first I was like, home alone. He's a poker king, which has nothing to do with accordion. Or yeah, yeah. So yeah, that's more fire getting fires going. Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah, that's funny.

So I think I thought that were homophones or whatever the word is. Well, they kind of are, but it just, you know, you can, you can lean into the L. Polka. I think it's Polka. Polka. I think contextually today we can probably get away with either. Polka King. Yeah.

And if, I mean, Jess might not know, but Weird Al is like a big polka guy. So probably with that context of one. Yes. He's not necessarily known. I mean, he is known kind of, but not really. He's less most known for parodies, but he also does a lot of polkers and accordion stuff. So the modern polka evolved from a bohemium dance dating from the 1830s. I love that.

Imagine having a dance craze. And a couple hundred years later, It's a music genre. Yeah. So weird. Yeah. After the great wave of Polish immigration to the US in the early 20th century, different styles of the two-beat dance music emerged,

mainly the East Coast, Chicago and Cleveland, Slovenian. Mr. Yankevick, Frankie, became the premier figure in the Slovenian style. He sounds like he could have potentially an even more interesting episode about him. He served in World War II fighting in the Battle of the Bulge, and afterwards he and his band the Yanks recorded a song called Just Because for Columbia Records which had previously been recorded by

the Texas Hillbilly Shelton brothers just because became a crossover hit the first polka record to sell more than a million copies so it was a huge hit song huge yeah wow it's hard to think of a polka song being a hit now but yeah this was a different time soon he went to Hollywood where he filmed

movie shorts Frankie went to Hollywood. Frankie went to Hollywood. This is the band was named after the Polka King's journey to Hollywood. Is it, though? I mean, it could be. Is it? Oh, my God, is it?

I don't imagine. Don't send me on another tangent. We'll never talk about Alford. We're half an hour in and we're barely talking about it. He actually worked with Doris Day in the recording studio as well. Wow. I just really like this quote. So this last thing about Frankie says,

I want to see how far the polka can really go. This is what he said in 1950. There's no reason why polkers shouldn't be just as popular as rumbas. I stand by that today. I think that's a great call. I stand by that. There's no reason. There's no reason that shouldn't be as popular as rumbas.

Can there not be a space in the world for rumbas and polkers? Come on. Everyone's going rumba mad right now. Yeah. Guys. Save a little room in your heart. Still plenty of us who, rumbas are fine. Maybe want to hear a poker.

Yeah, it was about time someone said it. Yeah. Anyway, so he was a big deal. And it seems like without him just happening to have the same surname and being a polka guy, Weird Al might have learned the guitar and things would have been very different. Yeah, interesting. Another key player in Weird Al's come up was a radio DJ named Dr Demento. You're familiar with this guy, Evan?

Yeah, yeah, a bit, yeah. So I watched the movie, Weird. Have you seen that, Popper? I haven't, no. It's like, it's very loosely based on the truth, but it's also, it was kind of a spoof of music biopics. Which feels right for Weird Al. Yeah, exactly.

If it was a really sincere, if it was a Rocket Man style or like Bohemian Rhapsody style about Weird Al, you'd be like, yeah. It would still be a great story, but it should be, it should be, yeah. It should be silly. So there's this Dr. Demento character in it, this guy. wears a top hat and tuxedo the whole time played by Rayne Wilson. And I'm like, I watched the whole movie thinking, what a funny character they've made up to be like this is his mentor.

Yeah. And then I looked up and was like, oh, this is a real guy. I couldn't believe it. But anyway, so Dr. Demento was a radio DJ and... A noble profession. Yes. Just saying, I don't do it anymore. But if anybody's hiring, I might be open.

into it. Yeah. I can press buttons. Get in touch. Get in touch. You come to me. I'm not coming to you. If they're good doctor is listening.

If you're listening, Doctor. Yeah. So he had a nationally syndicated show that featured novelty and comedy songs quite prominently. He finished every episode with the funny five, the top five most voted for songs that week. According to Daniel Kugler, which is one of the best names I've come across writing for Britannica, Dr. Demento was born Barry Hansen. on the 2nd of April 1941. It is less fun.

Yeah, he's from Minneapolis, Minnesota. Minnesota. Minnesota. In 1970, Hanson's friend Stephen Segal, a disc jockey at the, I assume a different one. A disc jockey. I don't know. He has had a lot of jobs, I guess. I mean, his name's also spelled differently, but still, I thought it could have been a

type or maybe it was the same guy. Maybe he just changed it at some point. He has, I mean, the other Stephen Segal has had a lot of careers. He's been an actor. He's been a, he was a chef on that. a Navy ship. I don't think that was just one of his acting roles. He was also a martial arts expert and quite a successful musician.

Really? Yeah, don't you know his album? Oh God, didn't we play one of his songs once? Yeah, that was on a bonus episode. Oh, right. But man, it was... Really good? Oh, man, it was...

It was pretty offensive. Songs from the Crystal Cave was the... album's name. But what was that? I can't, that song, man. It was. Offensive in what way? No, I mean. The lyrics or just offensive to listen to? I think maybe it was sort of, but maybe it was like a Jamaican accent he was putting on. He was doing an accent that felt weird. Interesting. Which brings us back to the topic of today. So yeah, Steven Seagal in 1970, asked Hansen a guest on his show, and he brought in early rock and roll discs to spin,

including quite rare ones, and he became popular really quickly on the show. Listeners really liked him, so the station gave him his own slot, and his programming initially mostly featured blues and do-wop music. It's such a funny left-hand turn, but he occasionally would play these novelty comedy songs, and the listeners loved it,

Much like Evan, I guess they're going, I hope no music could be funny. Yeah. Yeah. And one particular favorite was called transfusion by Nervous Norvis, which was a sound effects-laden novelty tune about a daring but reckless driver. And it just blew. He got so popular for playing an obscure novelty song.

Yeah, right. In a 1980 interview with The Washington Post, he recalled that the radio station, secretary said that he would have to be demented to play transfusion. Everyone else at the station had a nickname such as outrageous Nevada and obscene Stephen clean. So then and there he became Dr. Demento. The show introduced the work of novelty music artists like Spike Jones, Alan Sherman and Stan

of Freeberg and popularized songs such as Dead Puppies by Ogden Edsel. and Bill Frenza and fishheads by Barnes and Barnes. And of course, who can forget, Grandma got run over by a reindeer by Elmo and Patsy. The big three. Classics. I mean, I just, the more I read that he played, the more I had to put in the list.

There's also other classics like, Hello Mudder, Hello Futter by Alan Sherman, which the Simpsons. Yeah, yeah. They should win, I think. Here I am, man. Cam Granada. Yep.

He switched their answer. Machine tape. Marge! Is Barton Camp Granada? Something like that. Lisa is Lisa doesn't matter. Also, we all remember the cockroach that ate Cincinnati by Possum or pencil neck geek performed by professional wrestler Fred Blassie or Make a Love in a Subaru by Damascus.

That's just a Thursday night for me. Jump and Saddle Band and maybe one of the greats. Rubber biscuit by the Chimper. chips. So his trademark look, like I said, was top hat and tucks with red accessories. Weird to have a trademark look as a radio. But I think back then, I guess they are to a certain extent now, the personalities as well. So in their town, they'd get around to events and whatnot.

And he'd always closed out his show with his top five most requested songs, The Funny Five. And his trademark sign off, don't forget to stay demented, which is good. Good advice. I think that's up there with my Who Knewit-Suit sign-off. Yes. Now that you know what, I've been Matt Stewart. Yeah. I think they're equally good.

That's my favorite part of Who Knewit. Yeah, yeah, because it's a real relief. Yeah. And I'm like, oh, it's over. Thank God. I can go. By the time he said, Joe it, I've already kicked the door. Yeah.

I think people can hear on the recordings, the door shutting. That's how the episodes on my end. Oh, do you want me to wait? No, no. I like it. You see the car starting in the background. Jess is gone. So, Yankovic is a kid and he's listening to this show

and his world is being opened up. He's loving it. Yeah. Some of them I mentioned, Spike Jones, Alan Sherman, Shell Silverstein. And he was also influenced by the British sketch comedy series Monty Python's Floing Circus, previous topic of Dugo On. Yeah.

As well as musician Elton John, previous topic of do go on as well. Those are both mine, I think. Yeah. You're a big influence on Weird Al. I was just talking about things I liked. You and Weird Al, huh? Yeah. You both like Evan.

I mean, you both remember Evan the day after you meet him? Like is an understatement of how I feel about Evan. I really like him. Yeah. Really like, I like like him. All right. In 1973, Dr. Demento went to a high school to talk, and that high school had a student named Alfred Yankovic.

Whoa. That'd be pretty cool. I wonder where this is going. That would have been like if tripod came to my school, you know? Yeah, that would have been exciting. That would tripod, your weird Al? Oh, big time. Yeah.

I was on the forums on their website. Yeah. Like, I made friends with people on the tripod forum. I emailed them a lot. And they nearly always responded. They were lovely to me. Really? That's so nice. They're so nice.

Yeah. And in starting stand-up, would kind of talk to people and be like, oh, you know, I love to tripod. And it's so nice the amount of people go, yeah, same. That's why I got into it. So many people. Yeah. So cool.

Yeah. Their afternoon slot on the Triple J Drive, whether the Bevan the musical. Yeah. That was big. And there was a song in the A Hour Challenges and stuff. Yeah, that's what that was actually. That was with, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, on American Rosso show, I think initially, who were my other early musical comedy, even though they're only partially that, but I bought American Rossos's Teenage Mullet Fury EP. Yeah, wow. I'm still kind of starstruck whenever I get to see the tripod guys. You had freaking Gatesy on Gamey, Gamey Gamey game, and I lost my mind. Yeah, he watches the show.

I can't believe that. Yeah, he's, yeah, it's still beside myself. Alice says going away to Canada thing Whenever it was a few months ago Gatesy was I was just sitting there talking And Gatesy goes, oh hey man And he was picking up glasses

Because his mate ran the place Somebody was just helping out Is this the fucking nicest guy in the world? I can't believe it One time my best friend was on a school excursion And she'd gotten into tripod because of me And she was on a school excursion And she was on a school excursion in the city and saw Gatesy and, like, ran over to him, took a picture of him and got him to sign a piece of paper for me.

And she brought it back. She interrupted the class I was in. To be like, sorry, I just need Jess for a minute. And the teacher's like, okay, yeah, sure. And I'm out like, what's wrong? And she showed me this picture on her, on her camera and this piece of paper. And I, like, screamed and cried. And I was so upset that I hadn't seen it.

But I had that piece of paper, like, stuck in my journal for years afterwards. And then I've seen him at gigs. He's seen me do stand-up a couple of. I don't know if he knows who I am, but he's been at, like, he was at one of Dave's blind dating shows at the Comedy Festival one time. Such a legend.

And as the crowd is leaving, and I could see Gatesy had been in that audience. I was like, the reason I do comedy just saw me do comedy. That is the weirdest thing in the world. So cool. And it's so amazing, just recently seeing them at the Grammys.

I know. Incredited. Just wild. It's insane. It's so cool. And when they were written into a Star Wars book, They had their Yeah, the three characters named after them in a

And I think it's since become like Star Wars You know like they changed it So the books weren't all lore anymore So they're like we're only a legend now Yeah But um Very cool I remember when Yon early comedy festival I went to

That one of the first shows I saw at Comedy Festival as well At the High Fire Bar But maybe later that week I was seeing another show and Yon was walking past and I was and I went oh hey and he sort of turned and then I like I lost my nerve and he looked down to the ground he sort of turned like to yeah oh oh fuck anyway back to weird owl yeah sorry um so yes he spoke dr demento spoke at yankevich's uh high school and uh he yankovic approached him giving him a cassette tape with some songs he'd written and recorded at home

Cool. Then three years later, I don't know if anything came that, but, you know, he was kind or whatever, I suppose. Three years later, he sent him another tape. This one, including an original song he wrote about family road trips called Belvedere cruising, and Demento played it on his show. So he's still a teenager at this point, and he's now getting played on this show that's being,

I think at its peak it had 200 stations around America. Wow. So it was a big national show. Yeah. Which is really. Most radio stations are a smallish area. Yeah. Triple J, of course, you're different.

National. Or some commercial shows like Rick D's Top 40. I don't know if it's when I was a kid that was like a Sunday night program on austerio, I think. Rick D's and them weekly top 40. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It rings a bell slightly. Man, I'm drinking a coffee. All right.

Yes, you are. So yeah, that was a. a big moment. One and many. Huge. You know, any career, it's so funny to read about a career. Yeah. And you go, all these little things, his coincidental surname, the fact that this guy came door to door to basically sell accordion lessons.

Like, what are the odds of that? And they all just one thing after other, the fact that Dr. Demento firstly, we had out stumbled upon him and then he came to his school. Yeah. Yeah. What do they call it? It's luck and preparedness coming together. That's a better way of saying. it but you need more than luck. He was ready and he had a tape and all that sort of stuff.

It was the right time. He was working hard as well. Yeah, awesome. According to his own website, Demento, as in Weird Al's website, Demento found a certain charm in the accordion power ditties that Al recorded on a cheap cassette player in his own bedroom. So he encouraged him and he sort of quickly became like a mentor to him. Dr. Dementor.

Dr. Dementor, yeah. Don't you dare. feel ashamed of that, that was perfection. You say that with confidence. Dr. Dementor, more like. Yeah. That sounds like Harry Potter though. Yes, it does like a Dipper.

Yeah. So maybe you should be ashamed of it actually. And there is, of course, the Hector connection. Yes, Daniel Regliff. He plays him in weird. Yes. Interesting. Okay.

Coincidence? Now that makes you think. There are no coincidence. That was placed here by the people who have written this program that we're all in. Yeah. So that same year he graduated high school at 16. Did you know this, Evan? He graduated young because I think he started Kinder a year early and he skipped a grade.

Oh, wow. He was like a really smart guy. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. One of the, I think maybe Gregory Grypman said in his suggestion that he was a valedictorian. Yeah. What does that mean? Top of your class kind of thing, yeah, highest grades of your class.

Yeah, it makes sense you wouldn't know what that means. Never even. heard the word before. So I was going to say a lot of, most comedians are quite smart. Not all, but a lot. In Australia, I'm pretty sure we call it the ducks, but that's okay. That's true, yeah, yeah. We do, that's right.

Which, you still weren't. No. I think I was actually number two in accounting, weirdly, you know. Really? Couldn't tell you anything about it now. I was number one in drama, can you tell? Yes. Because I love to stir it up.

You're a really good actor as well. You should do more of it. I'm very good. If anyone is... I'm not good at all. I think if anyone's casting films, like, you know, proper... Hollywood films. We're talking about budgeted films.

Quirky best friend? We're talking about big dollar production. Yeah, yeah. Got to have enough zeros, if you know what I mean. If you put, like, you know, a bit of a funky hairstyle on me, I'm a quirky person. But also, I'm pitching myself as your representation here, Jess. No auditions. You're either offering other part or you're...

You can... Yeah, Perkins doesn't audition. P-O. That's right. That's right. And we're pretty firm on that here at Team Perkins. That's right. So, yeah, he's a young genius on and off the accordion.

So he goes to study architecture as a 16-year-old. What a funny thing. Wow. It's going to be like a doogie house or of architects. Yeah. Yeah, Peter designed houses, I guess. While at uni, he started working. as a disc jockey for the campus radio station, KCPR.

I love American radio stations. I love campus radio. Feels like we're in Frisia. Whereas Dr. Demento's radio station was KPPC. You know, I was like, oh yeah, they're different. I have to double check. Wait, is Dr. Demento just a student? No, he was on a big professional one.

And this is when he started using the nickname Weird Al as his on-air moniker. I like it. Yeah, I think it's fun. I think, I guess following Dr. Demento all that time, he must have thought, you've got to have one. Yeah. And, yeah, it seems like it's not, like there's a few slightly vague different origin stories, but it's just, he liked weird music, he was a bit odd. Yeah. And someone, he was doing parody songs and stuff.

Yeah, so he got that. But he had the name from, yeah, pretty early on. Yeah. In 1979 during his uni days, he wrote My Bologna. Or my, how do you say that, Bologna? Yeah, Bologna, yeah. He's got a ride with Cherona, really. Yeah, what is it, Bologna?

But what is that, is that, what do we call Bologna here? Yeah, Bologna. Is that like a bologna? That's like a lunchmeat, right? Is it like Strasbourg or something? I don't know. Yeah, yeah, Devin, yeah. I think it's in that sort of world.

That's sort of lunch meat thing. Yeah. How come is Devin? Yeah, man, me too. Devin and sauce, just like a tomato sauce and a sandwich. I love, I was always about Strasbourg. which I think is a very similar thing. Maybe that was just the country Victorian version of it,

but you do the shopping with your parents and the deli people would give the kids a slice. Yeah. Have a slice of processed meat. Thank you. It's the best. I love shopping with mum. Get my meat.

Get a slice of meat. Oh, yum. That'll keep you going. Oh, that's just what I wanted, Mum. I'm going to be a very good boy the rest of this time. Oh, man. That's what I would say. Great times.

Now I go shopping. being by myself. Nobody's given me. No one's giving me. No one's offering meat at all. It's disappointing. Yeah. What the heck?

Come on. So he actually recorded my balona in the toilets across from his student radio station, KCPR, because he really liked the acoustics in there. So if you were happening to be wandering pasting over a piss that day. Yeah. I might want to give it a minute. This guy was really trying to force one out. Jeez.

My, you sound like you are backed up in there. That was a spot on accordion, too. Yeah, yeah. My balona became a huge hit on the Dr. Demento show. And I believe it topped for multiple weeks the funny. Wow. So it was the most voted for song for weeks on end. Wow.

So he's gone from this kid, he loves this show. It would be so, it's like you hanging out with Gatesy probably. Yeah, yeah. It's like surreal. Yeah. And also like, it's so nice hearing the early stuff too because like artists like this or big musicians and stuff, after a while being played on the radio is like, it's nothing. But the first time or, you know, like the first few times getting played on radio is so cool.

and exciting. Yeah. And he's so young and it's, oh, it's really cool. Yeah, it's so sweet. Apparently, this story's told differently, but the knack actually got the got onto the song. The knack, the band. The band, the knack, yeah, who did my shirona. And Molly Meldrum famously said, The Next Beatles.

Wow. When My Shorona was a big hit. Okay. which of course became their one hit wonder. The next Beatles. I mean, I'm sure Molly made some good judgment calls in his time, but that might not have been one of them. Yeah.

Does they do it all day and all night? Is that the knack? That's the kinks. Oh, it's the kinks. Maybe they're the next Beatles. I think they were contemporaries of the Beatles, but yeah. Have we had the next Beatles? I don't think so.

The Beatles are not used to leave. Yeah, that's true. They're still released in music. Yeah. So I watched a video of him telling the story where he was, went, he was at a NAC show for some reason, and for some reason he talked his way backstage, much like a young Evan Monroe Smith. Yeah, yeah.

Smooth talking, uh, greasing the people. And he introduced him to the front man of the NAC and he goes, oh, you're the my balona guy. And they're like, we love it. And apparently the front man of the NAC persuaded their label, Capital Records to release it as a single. No way. Oh, that's so nice that they're on board and not like you play to. eyes and Ken, they're like, oh, we love it.

That's so nice. Yeah, because they got onto that vibe earlier than others did where now a lot of people say, you know you've made it. Like big, big, big band say, we knew we made it when Weird Al did a parody. I'm going to talk about them a little bit, but yeah, that, Kirkabain said that and others have said that too. That's sick. And the NAC, they were on to that straight away, whereas others didn't really get it.

and they thought, you know, they're making fun of me or whatever, but everyone seems to go. I'll talk about a few people later who said no and then were like, I wish I said yes. Yeah, wow. You know, we'd met Paul McCartney. I think maybe in the 90s at a better thing. And I was introduced himself and Paul McCartney was like, hey, weird out. That's so great.

That is, imagine. I love that. His wife was there or something. It's like, hey, it's weird else. That's so great. Don't you think like hearing Paul McCartney say your name must be the weirdest thing? Like, so like a famous Australian music broadcaster Zan, Zan Rowe, interviewed Paul McCartney for Take 5. And I've said this to Zan, but every time he said Zan, I'd go like,

Paul McCartney just said Zan's name. Yeah. I just go to work one day and Zan's at her desk and I'm like, Paul McCartney said your name. Like, it's just, it's so cool, yeah. Yeah, that's really interesting, Zan, because I'd be like, No, I said your name Zed! Yeah, Zan, I picked up the bass guitar. Yeah, I said, oh, yeah, you know what, Zan?

I thought it could have been a little pet song group of a bit of a bit. I was like, he's saying Zad's name. It wasn't enough that she's interviewing one of the biggest positions of all time. It's the fact that he said her name. So can you imagine Paul McCutney be like, ha, we know. You'd be like, well, I'm dead. I'm gone. Goodbye.

Yeah. Yeah. Cordonawirdal.com. By the time Al graduated from college, he not only had a modest cult following from the Good Doctors Radio Show, but he also had a couple of nationally released singles, so he had My Bologna and also another one rides the bus.

Classic, classic track. They're not all food related. No, he did have a reputation there for being for doing food songs, which is deserved. He has done a whole album, the food album, which was a compilation of his food-related songs. But he's not all food. He's not all food.

Sometimes it's about a bus. After graduating, he decided architecture was not for him. Good, to have spent a lot of time in it then. Yeah, and I imagine a lot of money over there. Yeah. And here, it's just you should have to pay it off forever. Yeah, yeah. I think they actually do that there too.

It's great how much they encourage 17-year-olds to take on huge amounts of debt and normalize it. and go, there you go, pay that off until you're, well, the average is what, 37? Pay that off. Enjoy. Yeah, I think I'll be a bit older, I'll feed mine off, but something like that. Yeah, it's wild. He, I think he was thinking, this is great fun.

I love making music, but I can't have a career in this, so I need a job. And that's why he was going with architecture. But while he was there, he had these songs that kind of blew up. And he's like, you know what, maybe I could make a living out of this. And so, yeah, he didn't pursue architecture, and instead he went to the bright lights of La La Land. That's right, L.A. About 20Ks away. Not far from home.

Another one rides the bus. 20Ks to where dreams are made. I reckon my parents live 20Ks from me. Yeah, it's not really. It's not far. I think Australia, for some reason, the capital cities, we'll just call Melbourne, like, this big sprawling, great. Melbourne is known as Melbourne. But I think in America, you know, like they'll talk about inner suburbs.

There's famous places like, you know, Chandler, Arizona, or there's a few places in Arizona that I've heard the names of a bunch of times and recently realized that they're all just inner suburbs of Phoenix, Arizona. Right. There you go. Or like, um, Pantera name checks. Like, like, could be having heard of Essendun or something. Yeah, exactly.

Um, yeah, there's, why, why don't our singers write? more songs about Essendon and stuff like that. I think Paul Kelly's good at that. He'll write... He'll name drop. St. Kilda. Yeah. And Salon's got a good song about Old Fitzroy.

Uh-huh. Oh, that's a good song. Yeah, I love that song. Anyway, so he moves all the way to the broad lights of LA, and there he worked in a mail room at a radio network. So he'd just say he's like, I'm just going to get as close to the industry as I can. That's the way you do it. And work for the same.

Trent Resner started off working at a radio station. Oh, sorry. a recording studio, but doing, you know, two bits and pieces. RJD2? I don't know about RJD2. I can look into that. And yeah, so he's working there during the day, but also at night, he's performing clubs and working as an opening act for other bands.

In 1983, he released his self-titled debut album, and the following year, he released the single, Eat It was a parody of Michael Jackson's Beat It, and this was another big step forward. It was a huge hit and ended up winning the Grammy for Best Comedy Recording. What? It also went to number one in Australia. It was a bigger hit in Australia than America and elsewhere. I didn't even know that. What year? Is this so? 983. 83 and yeah, shit. So it's early on he's like, he's blowing up. That's cool. International. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He'd probably never even heard of Australia back in the 80s. They didn't know we existed down here. here.

Oh yeah, because they didn't have the internet. Didn't have the internet. How would you know Australia exists? Well, I think now they have the internet is why now that people are sudden to doubt that it exists. I think the internet has made people know less stuff. Yeah. That's true.

But we are all paid actors, of course. If you want to pay just more for being in other things, get on to me. Go for it. Please. I'm starting to have a lot of existential dread. So he is big here, obviously. I didn't realize it was so big. What kind of venues is he playing in Melbourne?

So like Hamer Hall or the Palais Right two places that I've seen him Pretty big 10 years You know other than stadiums Like there'd be the bigger of the theaters Yeah the biggest before hitting arenas Yeah Yeah

Yeah Well the Palais is thousands Yeah Palais is about 3,000 Yeah It's where big comedy acts might play Same Hamer Hall's probably similar Yeah

Yeah there wouldn't be many like Comedy acts That would play more than that Yeah I've seen Billy Connell at Haymah Hall. Yeah. I saw the Finn brothers in Hamel. Ronnie Chang played Margaret Court.

Yeah, true. I don't know if I love, I don't think I would enjoy comedy in an arena. It's a different vibe. Yeah. I think it's similar. Even music I prefer. Yeah. I saw Flight of the Concords at one of the stadiums.

Really? Yeah. A while ago. But yeah, it just wasn't, it's not as good. It was great seeing we had out last year at the Palais. It's just like, it's just such a nice vibe. venue. He has a bigger show as well.

He does costume changes and all that sort of stuff. Yeah. The Concordes are sort of sitting on stools and strumming guitars, right? Yeah. He often will do like... Their humour is in their faces and stuff. Yeah, if you can't see it. Yeah.

Anyway, weird to see him at a stadium. Yeah. But hey, I mean, we wish them all the best. I mean, if you can sell it. Exactly. Yeah. If you can sell, you know, yeah. You'd have to be in town doing shows every night for two weeks to get all those people in.

So why not do one big night in a stadium? Sure. Yeah. But, yeah, it's not usually my preference. There's not many comedians, I'd be like, yes, I will go to a stadium to see you. Yeah. So, Edit is huge. Yeah.

And a big part of this, according to Osberg, is its music video. It was a humorous shot-for-shot remake of the Jackson video, which recreated the original dancers' choreography, setting and wardrobe, complete with Jackson's iconic red leather jacket, glittery socks and black penny loafers. The song appeared on Yankevick's second album Weird Al Yankovic in 3D, which came out in 1984, went platinum selling more than a million copies. So he's at the big time. Ossberg doesn't mention it, but I saw in an interview with Weird Alfred that he, I think he even got the same.

I think Jackson was very supportive of the idea, and they got the same set. They recorded on the same set. It was just before they were about to take it. it all down. Yeah. And they're like, oh, if we can use that, be great.

And even, and I've thought this in the past, but I didn't know for sure. But the, so the, the, it's all about, um, two dancing gangs,

sort of having a dance off, which is such my favorite kind of, a street violence. I love to. It's the low, the low clicking sort of. Yeah. Yeah.

You know? Yeah. Oh, shit. But the, the head of the other gang that Michael Jackson fought against in the original. He was also the choreographer.

Oh. And he appears opposite Weird Al in Weird Al's version as well. He got the exact same guy. That rules. I like that. So yeah, he's killing it. And his run of success continues with 985's Dare to Be Stupid, which also went platinum with parodies such as girls just want to have lunch.

That's true. Parody. That's what's so good about comedy is the best comedy lies in the truth. Yeah. You know, a mirror to society. Girls do just want to have lunch. Yeah. You know?

That's what it all comes down to. It's all I'm ever thinking about is lunch. Right. Yeah. Yeah. That's probably a cut scene from the weird movie, but it's him going, I just want to have dinner?

No, it's not quite right. He's screwing up paper. Come on, think out. Think. It also has like a surgeon parading like a virgin. Yeah. And, yeah, so Al,

he says that he does not want people to suggest him ideas. He actually has people go through his fan mail and they'll take out any letters that suggest parody songs. So he never reads them because he doesn't want anyone to think that he's stealing their ideas or whatever. So he never reads those ideas. But this is the only occasion where he's ever used someone else's suggestion and it was suggested by Madonna.

Okay, I think that's probably fine. Because apparently, yeah, at the time when he was told, like, I think maybe a mutual friend heard her say it. She was saying it and they passed on to him and he's like, yeah, that's perfect. That's actually really good. That's actually very good, yeah. Because there's not that many things that rhyme with Virgin. So, surgeon's pretty good.

Yeah, yeah. Like a sturgeon. Yeah, that's all I could really. Like a sturgeon. I reckon another scene from the movie. Something about Mergin. Yeah. Like a murgeon.

Not as good. Not as good. That's why he's a living legend. That's right. Surgeon was the right way to go. So he is most famous for his parodies, but this is something that Evan taught me a few years ago. He also, his albums all feature original tunes as well. That's right.

That's right. Probably about half of the songs on his albums were originals. Yeah. And so he writes the music and the lyrics. Yeah. A lot of them are what he calls style, parodies, pastitious so that'll be like there's a Devo one that it's not a Devo song but it's you listen to it and you're like that's a dude like yeah it'd be stupid I think is is one of those it is a divo is like you listen

to it you're like that's he's clearly going for Devo there bob is as well and got a genius in France uh yeah I don't know who genius in France is referring to great song um but I'm not sure so there's still sort of funny songs yes yeah yeah yeah all is All these tracks are comedy tracks. Yeah. I'm trying to think if there's any that aren't. But yeah, yeah. And so a lot of them are, yeah, these style parodies.

So they're like a, you know, there's one that's a, he does a nine inch nails. Style parody. That's a Frank Zapper style parody. Oh, okay. Who he has said is it they're normally, from what I understood from one of his interviews was they're normally acts that he just really likes and admires. Yeah. And Frank Zapper was like an influence on him.

He loves Devo. So I think that's why he sell parodies them. Whereas I think he's more concerned with the direct parodies. They have to be a big zeit-gasty hit songs for him to make work usually. Is that right? Yeah, he's usually parodying hits. Not always like mega hits, but like, you know, I mean, it's just a smart thing to do, right? Like leverage off what's popular already.

But it was interesting as a kid listening to it, I kind of wouldn't really know. a lot of the ones that he was parodying anyway because they like references to songs from that maybe were older or whatever. I think weirdly I knew 910 hours at the time that I must have, I think, known 9chanes at the time

and I heard that his nightchnells style parody. Closer or something. Oh no. It's a, yeah, it's kind of a mix between terrible lying closer. So it's like, which is what would have been 910s big hits at the time. So it's, you know, he sort of grabbed a couple of those. It's like the melody's kind of like this, the sound of its structure of it's kind of like this or whatever, and he's sort of mushing it.

So it's recognizable, but it's an original composition. You have to be a real music nerd to be able to, like, copy and make parodies or whatever of, like, styles of music. Yeah. And that's recognizable, but it's not a direct color. Like, you have to be a very good musician to do that. Yeah. And to have these recognizable tracks, he's, he is very, very good. He's a really, really good, talented musician.

he knows, like, and as a record producer as well, like he's just, he's very good at all that stuff. He's also a great, he's a talented performer. He's great at, he's great at, like, he's got a great voice and great range. Yeah, so he can kind of like mimic different, different artists, which obviously helps a lot when you're trying to parody them. And also, oh, sorry. And he also, and his band is also fantastic. I was going to say, yes, his band sound like they are particularly.

particularly strong musicians. Yeah. And he's had the same main three guys. Yeah. Pretty much from the start. Yeah, from the, yeah, he's ever had anyone. Should I look them up or do you know their names? Oh, geez.

John Bermuda Schwartz is his drummer. The brief thing I heard about him was that he, another one rides the bus. He needed someone to sort of make a beat on his accordion case. Yeah, yeah. And that guy was like, oh, I'm a drummer actually. And he didn't have been his drummer ever since. Wow. And then the other two came.

from, I think they did, his manager was like, you need a band. And so they did a call out for all the did auditions, and they got the other two. Which I think is, I think Steve Jay, I think this is guitarist and Rubin. Oh, it's his last name. This is keyboardist. I've forgotten. I should have taken note of it. You should have, really.

Yeah, matched. Yeah. This is a lot of your area, actually. Weird Al? Yeah, yes, yes. He is lead vocals. Leigh vocals and accordion. Yes, that's it.

Rick Derringer was briefly his producer. All right. I don't know. For actually for his albums from the early 80s to the early 90s. Okay. Jim Kimo West was the guitar slash mandolin and backing vocals. Then you had Steve Jay, who's bass banjo on backing. And Ruben Valtiera, who is piano, keyboards, occasional live percussion, backing vocals.

and John Bermuda Schwartz, drums, percussion, backing vocals. But yeah, it's funny, like they're interviewed, you know, a bunch over their careers as well, and they talk about how they had different challenges. Some songs are like really easy. And that was, I forget what the song was, but they were all being interviewed. It was like a, you know, a written history of a certain song. Maybe it was the Navant. It smells like Navarra.

I can't remember. But the drummer and the bass player are like, yeah, this was a really easy one I do. And the guitarist was like, I had like 17 different instruments to lay down. How is that fair? They get to do one part and I'm doing mandolin on top of multiple different kinds of guitars. Yeah, wow.

But yeah, that is another big part of his success. He's just got a super talented band. But it's, I mean, it says something about them as a group that no lineup changes over quite a long career. Yeah, they're obviously, yeah, obviously all mates and obviously all work. work well together and it's it's I mean you know it'd be the best job right like if you I you know why would you do anything else you can tour and you can record funny music and you basically can still be kind of anonymous outside of this yeah yeah yeah I wouldn't know the market down the street yeah yeah yeah um yeah so good and being able to do so many different things like every every

track is going to be you know a different style or something and sometimes you're trying to copy something exactly. Sometimes you're just trying to, you know, past each sort of other styles and stuff. And it's like, I don't know, it just seems like it would be a really fun thing to be a part of. I should say, if anyone wants to stop me in the street, that would feel fine. I just mean, if I was a weird

Al's level. Yeah, it would be nice. You don't have to be stopped. Not all the, yeah, every two or three steps. Walking down the milk bar and it takes you like three days. Yeah. You know, now I'd love to be slowed down a little bit. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm honestly, I'm making too good a time. So he's on a hot streak, but that all comes to an end with 1986's poker party. This one kind of bombed a bit. Didn't have any huge recognisable hits. I think one of the singles was addicted to spuds. Come on. That's pretty good.

That's right. It's a great song. Yeah, it sounds great. Is that album any good? I'm guessing it's probably just as good as the other. others, but for whatever reason. It's not one that I owned, so I'm not sure. Well, that sounds like that's the problem.

Well, okay, so I, because I was thinking about this. I'm like, I'm a big long time fan. But there's still, like, I was doing some reading recently and I'm like, there's still lots of gaps in what I know of his. Like, I didn't have all of his albums, which is kind of weird for someone who's a big fan. I mean, he's had a lot of albums. But also, like, this is, like, as I was growing up, he's still, like, even though Eater was a hit, right?

He's still an alternative artist. He's still like hearing him on the radio. really. Yeah. And, you know, I only discovered him because I think Triple J did a, like a piece, like a special about kind of a bit of a, I think it must have been with the release of Running with Scissors, which was 1999. So it would have been around that time that I first discovered him.

And so I think they took that opportunity to sort of like go over his career and do this sort of special thing. On a J-Files or something. Yeah, I think it was J-Files, probably. And, you know, played a bunch of his songs and I'm just like, that's when my mind was blown. I remember in the car driving to science works. It was just like, it must have been the best day my life to keep back

back. Fuck it now. But like you're going to go race, Kathy Freeman. Yeah, for people out who aren't from Melbourne, it's a science museum. That's a kids museum, but interactive science museum. Yeah, it's, yeah, yeah, my favorite place to go for school

holidays or whatever. But other than that, you don't hear it. And you go, you know, you'd go to the shops, there might be one or two cities if you're lucky that that are there, and certainly not like a back catalogue of all this stuff. And we didn't have the internet really. Like, I mean, they kind of was, but we had dial-up at home kind of thing. Yeah, it didn't have music streamers.

Yeah, you couldn't be streaming music. I'd be looking up stuff on like lime wire or whatever. But I don't know if you mentioned this, but there was a big period where a lot of people were doing like parody songs that were like, and they were calling it, they were distributing it to weird out. And so when you would, you know, at my age then, like, when I was first getting into all this, it was, you kind of didn't really know. You're like, yeah, this sounds like it's probably weird out, but it could be someone kind of

doing a, doing weird out kind of thing or whatever. That's addressed on his, um, fax page on his website. Oh, yeah. Which is like, I'm sure it's, you know, flattering for him, I guess. But, um, but it meant that like, are trying to, like, growing up that, you know, there's still like, that you didn't have access to all this stuff. Yeah, of course. Yeah.

I desperately wanted the, um, the, uh, uh, Alan. a box permanent record, which was a big collection of, you mentioned earlier, a compilation of all this stuff. But, you know, you could only get it for like hundreds of dollars online. And as a kid, I'm just like, well, I'm never going to have this. Yeah. So I just, yeah, there are still gaps in my weird, you know, it's stuff that I've rediscovered later.

I'm like, oh, there's a whole album that I just didn't, you know, I heard maybe one or two tracks, but hadn't heard some of those deep cuts, which is kind of a nice little treat. That's such a good point, though, with like buying, physically buying music. Yeah, it's the same in like Paul Kelly's one of my favorite artists and only a few years ago, I just, I've started at the very beginning of his first album and listened through all of them. But I could only do that on like Apple Music or Spotify. Because the same thing, you'd go to the shops and they'd have a couple of his albums or a greatest hits, but they wouldn't have the entire back catalog. So back then it makes sense to have gaps in your knowledge. Now you have no excuse.

And also a lot of that stuff, you cannot, like you could not get like because it was out of print. Yeah. Especially like some of the more obscure ones. It's just like they're just. not, you know, like weird owls more obscure, they're just not making them. Like, they're not distributed here. It's just like you just, you can't get them unless it's like paying like top dollar of someone selling it, like a collector selling it on eBay or something like that. Yeah, you know, it's too expensive. That's something that he wrote a song about. Yeah.

eBay. eBay. Yeah. Parody. Just bought it on eBay. Something like that. Yeah. Use that as a question on who knew it. That's what I know. Oh, right. Yeah. But, and as the guest knew the song. You never know who's going to be an L-head. Yeah, yeah. Tell me why. I bought another tooth flake.

Something like that. It's harder than it looks. It is harder than it looks. Toothflake. Toothlake. I had to go. Has anyone tried? Because you know Al, capital A, small L looks like AI.

Has anyone tried doing a weird AI Yankovic album? I don't think so. But. It would be. It'd be funny for a bit and then you'd be like, all right, we get it. Yeah. That's not quite right. I doubt it.

I think MTV is one of the things that his career would probably never have happened like it did if it wasn't for it. Yeah. I think he, like, he's smart to do videos and do like, videos that are like referencing, you know, like tying into popular culture. And, yeah, getting videos on MTV would have been a huge thing. Yeah. And, yeah, they all look like, you know, a lot of money put into them to make them look. Yeah. like the originals.

But yeah, so there's this question on his website on FAC says, I found some songs on the internet that are supposedly by Al, but I've never heard them on any of his albums. What the hay? Unfortunately, there are a lot of song parodies floating around, the internet being attributed to Al, which were in fact done by somebody else. If you want to verify whether or not a song is actually by Al,

check the catalogue page. So that obviously comes up a bit. Yeah, wow. Hang on, one of my favorite weird Al songs is, who let the pogs out right yeah I mean a lot of them I'll write that down

that's good stuff that's really good if I could somehow get in a time machine take that back to me when pogs were big yeah you'd be here

you wouldn't be here right now you'd be on your yacht yeah but a lot of his songs were like a lot of the songs that were misattributed to him were like

a really filthy or whatever and so which is another way to tell because he doesn't really he's pretty family friendly right in what he writes

Um, so yeah, poker party didn't do so well. It still made the top 200, but it, it didn't go gold or platinum or anything. The last, his first three went gold, platinum, platinum, and then this one fell off. That's wild. From the album before, which was a real big hit, Dare to Be Stupid, made the top 50. Weird Al Yankfic in 3D made it to number 17, then poker party 177. Um, so, a bit of a flat spot. Um, but then he followed it up.

with an album called Even Worse, which I think is real funny. I don't know if he, like, to me, it's fun, like, you know, self-deprecating. Like, that album didn't do so well, well, this one's even worse. But it's also play on Michael Jackson's Bad. Yes. So the cover of the album, I don't know if he was using it as like a double meaning there, but it's funny. Well, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's a double meaning to Bad, but is it also playing on the fact that last album bombed.

Yeah, maybe. But anyway, that album featured fat. And he said this one came to him. He said normally he's got to work real hard on him. But this one, the first time he heard bad, even before the song ended, he knew he had to write fat. He said, I got a whole picture in my mind. The film clip will be me as Michael Jackson only fat. He's like, it just, it all came together.

Genius strikes in strange ways sometimes. And it went on to win a Grammy for Best Concept Music Video. Wow. And it was another massive hit. I think for a long time, they would have been the two songs of his I knew. Yeah. I feel like he almost probably, I would have been like, yeah, you know, the Michael Jackson parody guy. Yeah, yeah.

But that was the only two. I think for a lot of it was the beat it guy, sorry. And obviously he's like, it's perfect as a sequel to eat it. This guy ate it and now he's fat. And that's like, that's the kind of genius of weird out that people don't talk about. That's the valedictorian coming out of it. You've got a beginning and middle and end or something. You've got a beginning and end.

Maybe, anyway. Yeah, he's got a beginning in an end. Yeah, he later said that Jackson's blessing was a big deal thinking if a megastar like Jackson says yes, then it'll make it more likely that others would also say yes. And while fat and ate it were two of his massive hits, Jackson finally stopped giving him permission with his next request when he wanted to parody his song, Black or White, and turn it into Snack All Night, which obviously would have completed the trilogy. Yes.

But, okay. So Jackson said, oh, no, not so sure about that. He doesn't technically need to get permission from the artist because they're parodies. Legally, he'd be fine to do him anyway, but he still likes to do it, as his website writes, while the law supports his ability to parody without permission, he feels it's important to maintain the relationships that he's built with artists and writers over the years. Plus, he wants to make sure that he gets his songwriter credit as a writer of new lyrics, as well as his rightful share of the royalties. which you always hear about that other bit that he just wants to maintain the relationship

so I like that his own websites like it's also kind of about the cash. Yeah, yeah. In hindsight, Yankovic has said that he's glad Snackle Night was rejected. He'd just come off the making of his film, UHF. Have you seen this, Bob? I haven't seen it.

No. You seen it? It was a cult classic, UHF. Yes, it was a cult classic, but I think they were hoping it was going to be a mainstream hit. It's got Michael Richards. That's right.

Yeah. And Fran Drescher. Yeah. Two future sitcom superstars. Yeah, because it would have been before both. I think 89 was the year Sunfeld started. Maybe it was around that time. But yeah, pre-the-nanny.

Anyway, in an interview with Spin Magazine, Yankevick said of this time, had a really nice run through the 80s, and things kind of stopped for a while after UHF. It was sort of a dark period. The movie tested extremely well. It was Orion Pictures' highest testing movie. So they thought it was going to be a big hit.

They were internally pumping me up as their new Woody Allen. This was going to be the start of a franchise. And you can't help but get sucked into that frame of mind. I was thinking, okay, great, I'm going to be a movie star. Yeah. And then after the first weekend, I was basically a ghost. No one at Orion wanted to establish eye contact. Isn't that?

That just feels like such a classic Hollywood story. Yeah. You're going to be a star. kid, oh, there's a little blip there. We don't want to know you. That was the beginning of three years where it was kind of hard for me to recover. I had failed at the box office. The soundtrack to the movie didn't go anywhere.

In fact, at one point, I was sort of desperate and I thought, maybe I should do another Michael Jackson parody. That worked the first two times. Thankfully, that didn't come to pass because that was an obvious cry for help. That's what he talks about snack all night. Yeah, right. He's like, I'm so glad that he didn't give me permission because I would have done. on it. Yeah, it might have been a hit and then...

Yeah, he gets really stuck. Yeah. He leans into that and, yeah. Yeah, you almost think one more and then it would be like... But instead, as I'll talk about soon, the next big singly released was the Nirvana one instead. Yeah, yeah. Which changing, you know, gave him new fans and all sorts of stuff. Just quickly, because I haven't seen it, the Rotten Tomatoes synopsis reads, do you like it as a film?

UH. Yeah. Yeah, I thought it was fun. that says after losing yet another job George played by Weird Al wonders if there is any career that can handle his outrageous personality when George's uncle hands him the deed to a local TV station George creates a series of television shows based on social satire and hyperactive humor with the help of his best friend Bob

however a rival station's bitter CEO tries to destroy George's wacky programming forcing him to fight back Wow the new Woody Allen Yeah Yeah We're talking about Demento He appeared in a bunch of

Young of his music videos Like Ricky Which is a parody of Mickey Hey Mickey Yeah I love Rocky Road Parody of I love rock and roll

And I lost on Jeopardy Which is a parody of a song called Jeopardy I think My Heart's in Jeopardy or something like that maybe Or maybe that's just the lyric Yeah maybe Yeah And Demento also apparently has a cameo in UHF.

Do you remember that? Not specifically, but there's a lot going on in that film. It's like sketchy, there's a lot going on. So I'm not sure. It's on Rotten Tomatoes, it's got a 61% rating with critics and 77 with audience. So it's like, you know, solid. It's a cult. It's for fans.

It's a cult, you know, it's a cult film. I read some of the reviews. read it sort of were like some of it has dated a bit but generally if you're like sort of pretty silly comedy it's it's a lot of fun yeah the director j levy who i also met he's his manager um it plays gandie which i think probably wouldn't hold up these days that i mean this says uh something about me i in my head when you said gandhi i pictured gandolph i'm like why wouldn't that hold up oh my god I think it's... I think, yeah, you can't play wizards anymore.

Oh, dear. But that's the car... I think I'm too far into the weird out mindset. Gandy. Gandalf. Good. So, we're going to do a movie parody of Gandy. It's Gandalf on a hunger strike, okay?

Right. If you want to... If you want to stop suffering, Gandalf, just cast a fucking... spell, mate. Yeah. Anyway. Classic Gandalf. Alfred was in a slump, and that's why I want to go back to what work, Michael Jackson

parodies. But he obviously doesn't hold the rejection against Jackson. He's happy he did it. He later said at the time he was saying that black or white was this big social political statement and he wasn't comfortable with the parody. Yeah. I get it. I can understand that.

Yeah. Yeah. I'd like to think that he was actually doing me a. favor saving me from myself. He was the adult in the room going, oh, come on, really? Are we going to do this again? Yeah. Um, yeah. I mean, I don't know if you know this about Michael Jackson. He did some bad stuff. So I don't know if he should really be up on his high horse. You know what? Yeah. Yeah. No. He's also dead, I think. Oh, okay. Oh, I don't even have to say allegedly anymore. You definitely did it. Um, can you defame dead people? No. Great. Can't you? No.

Oh. Okay. That's why I think Hitler was a I don't think Hitler's estate's going to come after you. Mass here. I know we just said you can't defame dead people, but that feels like going too far. Yeah, you're not going to get away with that. There was no, I don't know what, like, in my head I was going to do. Jeez, Louise.

Yeah, that doesn't work. What I needed to do was call someone good a shit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Betty White. Betty White. That's why I'm going to say

Betty White was a Yeah I don't feel good about it Yeah No that felt better That felt better AJ Bleep or cut

Or both Sleep again Bleep or cut Bleep or cut Today's contestant As it is every week Is AJ What are we going to do

Hey J? There's no way to win I imagine AJ is going to let out a big sigh Yeah He's going to call you. And then go, oh, fuck. Yes.

I'll cut it out. Sorry, AJ. I'm not sorry. You can see, AJ, can you see the kind of joke I was going for? Anyway. So, yeah, so he gets rejected by Jackson. And as it turned out, it was all for the best. Because instead, Al turned his attention to the next big thing in music, Navana.

When he first heard Nirvana, he said, oh, this is really great. I wish it were popular enough for me to do a parody. But that's never going to happen. And of course, very quickly. He found out that they were actually super popular. They were a phenomenon. Worldwide explosion. They changed music forever.

They signified the end of hair metal and the beginning of grunge, even though grunge had already sort of begun, but it was grunge coming into the mainstream. Yes. The next step was getting permission. According to Al, for whatever reason, my manager tried and tried and said he couldn't get through to Nirvana. He contacted them again and again,

and they never got back to him. So he said, if you want to do this parody, it's on you. You've got to talk to the band. That's his manager saying directly to our. A friend of mine, still in Al's voice, a friend of mine was in the cast of Saturday Night Live, his UHF co-star, Victoria Jackson. I told her, if you ever get Kurt Cobain, the vinyl's front man, alone in a room, put him on the phone because I'd love to talk to him.

And she did directly. So he's in the green room or whatever at Saturday Night Live and cast him, do you mind talking to my friend, Weird Al Yankovic? And he's like, sure. Al continues, he was sweet and he got it in like five seconds and said, of course you can do a parody. The famous quote from him was, is it going to be a song about food? Because at that point, that's primarily what I was known for. Yeah, at that point, Al.

Definitely not now. Back then. And I said, well, no, it's actually going to be a song about how nobody can understand your lyrics. Because it sounds like you're mumbling or whatever. And he said, oh, sure, of course. Yeah, that's funny. That's one of those phone conversations I wish I had recorded. I'd love to hear it.

Does that mean you are recording some conversations? Yeah, and some, you're not. And this is the one I wish I had. You regret. I now record them all just in case. It's not a bad idea. You can do that, yeah. Yeah.

I think it's probably worth doing. You'll notice if you're ever on the blower too. Weird Al, that there's a beeper. I've got phone calls that I wish I had recorded. Yeah, for. for contractual legions, legal reasons. Yeah. People welching out of deals.

No. I think my credit card company was trying to lead me Australia recently. Oh yeah. That sounds about right. I think they were giving me some pretty dodgy mats. I'm like, hang it. After the call, I'm like, that's definitely not right.

I bet you're recording it from their ending case. Yeah, I was wondering. I'm like, should I call them and like request a, because I think you can just request and they have to give it to you, right? Freedom information. Is that a thing? Yeah. I don't know.

If you're a cop, you have to tell me. Yeah. Anyway, I didn't. I should have gone down that road, but I didn't, you know, I should have though. You should have. Those crooks. Because fuck them, right? Yeah.

They're a fucking critic. Whoa, whoa, whoa, Evan. Anyway. I don't mind you just besmirching certain people, but not credit card companies. And weird Al's mentioned briefly in one of Kirk Cobain's journals that were found, I guess, after he died. What? What? One of the, oh, I'm so sorry, yes.

This is how I find out. I just started listening to Bonner this week. Is we can defame him as much as we like. Oh, yes. Kirk Cabain, what a c-oh. And you said it with confidence, and I think that's important when defame him. I don't feel good about it. I don't know him.

No, never met the man. Yeah. Wouldn't know him from a block of cheese. Is that the same? I think so. And I can recognize a block of cheese. I go, that's a. Gooter.

That's, oh, I just made him. I'd be able to say cheese. Oh, yeah. Oh, that's Greg, my friend, the block of cheese. So anyway, the line in Kirkabane's journal reads, Weird Al Yankovic is America's modern pop rock genius. Huh. It's just a problem I already put down in this.

That's pretty cool. Paul McCartney knows his name. Jesus, Chris. Kevin, do you want me to start mentioning you in my journal? Yes. In case it's ever found. Yeah. Okay.

I was just playing a horror game yesterday. And what does that mean? What do you mean? Like a horror game? A video game? Yeah, a video game. Sorry, a video game. Oh.

But the genre. Horror. Right. I never heard of, I've never, I didn't know that was a thing. Really? So you're going in, there's like jump scares and stuff? Yeah, kind of. That's fun.

It's spooky. It's like, you know, you're running from monsters. I just never heard of it. Yeah, right. Love it. Anyway, and I was, and one of the tropes of horror games is that these, you sort of come across like journal entries and stuff like that, the sort of drip, sort of feed you. Story elements, it's like, oh, all these things.

going to have This diary entries coming from within the house. Yeah. But I would, but I, um, one of my thoughts was that we don't, we don't journal much anymore.

Yeah. Everyone in these games is constantly writing journals and leaving them everywhere. Yeah. But, um, I don't do a lot of journal. I think livejournal.com probably ended it. Yep.

Is that a thing? Then what ended livejournal.com? The Facebook.com. Yeah, I guess so. Microblogging. Yeah. YouTube and Myspace. I guess YouTube is,

is, is it. Modern journaling? Yeah. I guess I don't do that either. But anyway. You Twitch. That's the even modern art. Yeah.

You don't see Gamey Gamey Game as a journal. No. Dear Gamey, gaming, gaming gamey game. I guess it's documenting some aspects of my life. I guess what's nice about finding someone's journal is like seeing what they think about stuff or just being able to see their handwriting or like get a little glimpse of somebody that you love and miss. Yeah. But like our loved ones have currently over 400 episodes of a podcast to go listen to or there's, Like, there's so much evidence of us everywhere that, you know, you wouldn't forget the sound of my voice.

You know, and that's comforting, I'm sure. Yeah, I think there's, you'll live forever. There's got to be enough of Jess Perkins to put together an AI, Jess. Oh, yeah. I have said before, I think I tweeted it once, that I take great solace in the fact that when I die, Evan has a lot of footage of me and can make a really, like, really, like, really make them cry. A lot of slow motion laughing. Yeah.

I will remember. you love that. Why don't you do it, you know, like current affair programs do and just always have an updated, ready to go. Yeah, they always have one for the queen. Right, yeah. You should, I'm the queen. And you're just constantly updating it.

You just update it. Yeah. You should have that ready to go, Evan. I don't believe they'll ever have to use it for the queen, but yeah, bad example. But, yeah, others, I think it makes sense. Other world leaders or. You should get on to that, Evan. What's the opposite of posthumously?

I've never heard of this. Presumously. Presumously. They probably doesn't need to be an opposite of that. posthumously because that's sort of things that are awarded after death right yeah so otherwise it would just be an award you were given well no but he's recording this prechumously yeah yeah i think you just say while you're alive anyway do go on matt yep uh what was i took oh yes uh so he gets permission from kirk cabane of navana and they made a video for the song that

is probably like beat it or eat it was super accurate this one takes it's to another level. It's incredible how accurate it is. According to Jay Levy, one of Evans friends and the videos director, all the stars aligned. We were able to track down and book the same soundstage. The sound stage in essence is four bare walls, so you could be in any sound stage and not know it was the one. But from a calmic standpoint, it was pretty heavy to be in the exact same places where they shot theirs. The vast majority of the fans in the bleachers were from the original Nirvana video. So that, because Kirk Gbane was on board,

you know, the team behind it were like really open with. Yeah, you can have all the details. That's so good. That's awesome. One of the kids, Weird Al, didn't find out for until 20 years later or something, was Tony Hawk. Really? Yeah, so you could see split second on the screen, Tony Hawk in the crowd.

That's cool. And the janitors, you know, I don't know if you know the film clip, the original film. I know the weird Al one more than, I don't know if I've ever seen that one. It's the same janitor in both clips. Wow. And according to your mate, Jay, he says, I don't even know that he knew anything about Nirvana. I believe he was a real janitor. And, yeah, there were cheerleaders in it, and most, if not all of them, were the same cheerleaders.

So it was so accurate to the original. That's cool. Do you happen to know? Because the album cover is a copy of the Baby in the Pool. cover. Part of me is like, I think it was like the same photographer who did it. But that's another, there's a little tidbit, but I'm not like, I'm not 100%. Is the album?

Is the album called Smells Like Nirvana? That's the song. It's called Smells Like Nirvana, but I, what is, what album is that? Hang on. It is. Sorry, I don't have all the facts. Is it bad headache? No, that's the cool one.

Yeah. Off the deep end. Yeah, yep. Let's see. Is he, he, is he still got his glasses? Yeah. It's interesting. He went from his trademark glasses look.

And glasses and mustache look. And he got Lasic. And he got Lasic surgery, yeah. And shaved off the mustache. That's also an FAQ. That's a fact on his website. What happened to the glasses and mustache? Yeah.

He got Lasic surgery. He corrected his vision. And laser on the mustache. So he can't go back in now. He got his Lasic surgery was live on TV. He got it for free because like a morning show or whatever agreed to broadcast it live. I believe it. What?

Yeah. That looks like Kirk Weddle looks like he did take both photos. Right. Cool. There was just a little of, yeah. Sorry, what did I just miss then? So the, so Weird Al had his Lasic surgery done. He got it done for free live on TV because like a morning show paid for it.

Oh. Is he okay? What, yes. Financially. Is that what you mean? Oh, yeah. I don't want the time. Yeah, that seems like a.

I'm sure he's fine, but I actually don't know how much LASIC costs. I can't imagine it's cheap. It was like an interest. It's interesting real-class. Wow, yeah. And he did both. All right, got the double. Yeah.

I reckon I'd just do one. Yeah? I'm going to go talk to him about it soon. My old boss, when I worked for the air conditioning company. I don't know why. Air conditioning. It's funny. I wasn't very good at it because I can't even pronounce the business.

Hi, I'm Matt from air conditioning. Would you like some air conditioning? Yeah. I'm here to measure up for air conditioning. Conditioning. But yeah, he got the laser, and he told me in two, I'm like, I don't want to hear about this. And he's like, you can smell the burning of, and I'm like, I don't want to hear this. I want to get this dump one day.

I don't, I just want to go in blind, basically. Well, I guess that's how you got to go with it. No, you go out blind. I love that one of the future Simpsons episodes where Ned Flanders was blind in the future. And they're like, oh, what happened to your sight? And he said, oh, I had Lasix. surgery back in the 90s. They didn't realize at the time, but a few years later, if you got it, everyone's eyes just

fell out. It's pretty incredible, though. Like, in the broadcast, he's like, you know, he has 21,000 vision, like, without his glasses. And, like, in the same live, at the end of the same live broadcast, he's reading letters off a chart. And he's like, that's 2040 vision. Like, and he's like, you'll obviously recover more.

and essentially whenever it's wear your glasses again kind of thing. It's pretty incredible that that's a thing. That's like medical science. I think maybe the best thing about getting it done on TV like that live is that the doctor will put in his best effort. That's something that I worry about you go. I also assume that maybe the doctor paid. Like I don't know if the morning show paid for it.

If the doctor did it or the clinic or whatever did it was tough. Surely you didn't get it done for free. You got it done for and was paid for the ad. Well, maybe I don't know. Yeah, hopefully. I don't know. Otherwise, weird Al, if you're listening, call me. I can represent you, mate.

Yeah, yeah. That's a really fun fact. Yeah. Yeah, so that became a big hit. This album bounced back. The song was a big hit as well. It was his first single to chart since Eidit, reached its high as number four in New Zealand and went gold in Australia. Wow.

To this point, he still hasn't had a top 10 hit in America, but yeah, he's had top 10 hits down here. So being rejected by Michael Jackson led to a bit of a career comeback. It was, you know, the best possible scenario, really. Yeah. Who would have confirmed himself as a Michael Jackson cover artist almost. Yeah. But this, yeah, gave his career more longevity and a bigger comeback. I guess, you know, Michael Jackson was probably on the edge of being,

it was becoming less relevant through as the 90s went on. Black or White was still a huge album, dangerous, I remember that. But anyway, that wasn't the only time he failed. to receive approval from Michael Jackson. It happened a few other times. Most of the time, they're happy to do it, but according to Gil Kaufman for Billboard magazine, part of the reason Al makes such an effort to get permission from the Axi

parodies is linked to the time. He thought he had the high sign. He had the sign off from rapper Coolio to remake Paradise as Amish Paradise. After the 1995 release, Cullio balked and said he never approved and he never liked the song. And Al felt really bad about it, apparently.

There was quite bad blood between him. Coolio would say stuff publicly about it. It was quite negative. And as far as there was cross-wire somewhere, Al and his team thought they'd given permission, but it seems like someone from Coolio's side gave permission without maybe talking to Coolio. Yeah, right.

According to Ross and Coelho held a grudge about it for a few years before eventually admitting that the parody was funny as shit. According to Yahoo! Yahoo! Serious. Coolio is quoted saying, I sat down and I really thought it out. I was like, wait a minute, Cooleo, who the fuck do you think you are? Speaking to yourself in third person? You're lone, Cooleo?

He did Michael Jackson. Michael Jackson didn't get mad. Cullio acknowledged that his ego got in the way. I was being too magnificent and too terrific about myself and that's not what you want to do he said i love that phrasing yeah i was being too magnificent you know what i'm like sometimes i can just be a bit too magnificent and that's on me we can all be like that i'm working on being less magnificent it's just such a fun way to say my ego was getting out of hand yeah yeah being too magnificent i was literally about to say i love

this self-awareness and this self-reflection then you've ruined it a bit with i was being too magnificent. Yeah, it's fun. He later made a mental weird owl saying, I've since apologized to him. Again, that was so stupid. That was a stupid thing for me to do. That was one of the dumbest things I did in my career. So he really, really regretted it.

Nice. And it sounds like that is pretty common for the acts who don't give permission. They usually come to regret it later. Like, I was being silly. I was being too precious about my art. I was being too magnificent. Yeah, I was being too magnificent. Yeah.

I was being too magnificent. I was being too terrific. Yeah. I can remember the second word. I was just, oh, God, I can be too terrific sometimes. Oh, sorry about that. I'm so sorry. You know what?

You know what it is? I get terrific when I'm hungry. God, I've had my coffee and I can be really terrific. What the fuck are you talking about? I could snack all night. Yeah. That's a, um, it's like a. objects and reference.

Who's regretted doing? Oh, yeah, okay. Well, so here's some examples. Beck says he regrets turning down the parody of loser, schmoozer, saying, I regret denying him permission to do it. I think it would have been an amazing video. I'm actually really sad it didn't happen. Oh, okay.

Daniel Pouter, does it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Had a bad day. Oh, you had a bad day. Take a one down, turn the dances and turn it around, so you don't mind, seven of these. So that was a 2006 hit. Yep. And he didn't give permission for had a bad date, which we don't want us to do.

He changed his mind not too long after and gave permission. But unfortunately, it was too late. As Al later put it, quote, the train had already left the station. Whoa. Yeah, it was a bit of a one hit. wonder anyway. So I wonder if he uses that now with artists. It's like if you don't give permission, you'll regret it. Yeah. Yeah. He doesn't feel like his kind of energy though, does it? No, because he's not so, he's not so terrific. That's right. Yep. He just doesn't get as

terrific or magnificent. He didn't get permission from Lady Gaga. It got to be poker face. No? He actually did poker face, poker melody. Medi-law. Yes, he did, yes. That's right. That's what I'm thinking of. But he wanted to put parody born this way as perform this way. And Lady Gaga's team knocked him back. But apparently they did that without talking to Gaga herself. And when she found out, she reversed the decision because she loved his version.

And it ended up being on his 2011 album, Alpocalypse. Great song? Great. So, yeah, she was like, what the heck? Apparently, James Blunt had a similar thing. where his label was like, no, you can't do, you're beautiful as whatever. You're pitiful, which I think I can see why the label would be. He was like he was keen, but he didn't overrule the label.

Like he didn't quite have the same power, probably that Lady Gaga, did he? He could have, weird Al has said that he technically, if I got his permission, I didn't need the label's permission, if I got his permission, but he didn't feel like he was probably in a position over all the label. He was still trying to keep good with them, whereas Lady Gaga. I was like, what are you going to do? Fire me? Yeah, fuck the label.

So your pitiful did come out, but I think maybe it missed an album because of that. It was released as a single. So some of the ones he's already recorded and doesn't get permission for whatever reason, he'll release for free online. Yeah. And I think that's what happened with that one. Yeah. According to Kaufman, our man, who we've already talked about, Paul McCartney,

said yes to Al doing a take on his Bond theme, live and let die. but then when Yankevick told him the title was going to be chicken pot pie, McCartney said, oh, I can't because I'm quite a strict vegetarian or vegan. And yeah, so we can't. But interestingly, Al's also vegetarian. Yeah. Yeah, that doesn't, being a vegetarian or vegan doesn't mean that chicken doesn't exist. Yeah, yeah.

Well, that other people... But you don't want to be promoting that. Do you? Oh, yeah, how did I mean, it's probably a song about how great. chicken pot pie. Chicken pop pie. That would actually rule. That would actually rule.

Chicken pot pie sales would skyrocket. I imagine it can't. His band would have had fun playing that as well. That would be such a great love song too. Yeah, I get that but yeah. Saw McCartney play that a few years ago. The fireworks on the psh da-na-na-da-na-na-push. That would have been sick.

It's so good. The great if he's saying chicken. Chicken pot pie. Who was it that said he, oh, the Star Wars song, the American, you know. The Star Wars song. The Star Wars song. The, it's called The Star Wars. It's called, as the song is called.

And it's a parody of a long, long time ago. Oh, American Pie. Yeah. Who's that? Who sings? McLean. There you go. What's his name?

McLean McLean What The singer No I don't know Oh no The parody version

No the original Who's the original The original singer The original's Don McLean Don McLean Yeah yeah I was gonna say John

And I knew it wasn't quite right I think he said he's on stage He's like mixed up the lyrics With the parody Because his kids Will listen to the parody Or something And that's a weird

Al song It's about Star Wars About Right Yeah Yeah A long long time ago In a galaxy

Far Away Naboo was under That's very funny that he's mixing up. But yeah, like, so I was saying it's interesting that McCartney said no because he's vegetarian, but Al is vegetarian to his website says that he changed his diet in 92 after a fan gave him a book called Diet for a New America. Currently, it's no meat and tries to avoid eggs and dairy products.

God, imagine being that fan. Yeah. Having an impact on someone's life like that. Jeez, they must be like, all right, I guess I do have to dedicate my life to spreading the good Word. I'm quite resistant to that. I've had people, like, Sammy Jay was trying to give me a go vegetarian. Pete McCyke.

Sammy Jane reading both were separately. We're just like, you should check out this film. What's the film? Oh, what to talk? This is like a really full on, like, on YouTube. Anyway, and I'm like, I don't want to watch that. Anyway, for respect if you are. Went reverse.

Yeah, Beck went reverse. She was vegetarian for like 10 years. I haven't spoken or since, have they? Seven ties, yeah. No, they're actually quite good. They don't. It is hard to be, to get a moral, a moralising lecture from a purple puppet, I guess. Yes.

Well, they weren't ever a lot. To be fair, to set the record straight, they were never like, putting pressure or anything. They were just like, you know, what? I don't think Randy eats. Yeah. No, you're right. He's like a cookie monster. It's pretty easy for you to have a restrictive diet when you don't eat.

I didn't really think about that. Yeah. Yeah. He really has that purple privilege, which is. I don't really anything. I don't want to eat anything. I'm a puppet. Purple privilege.

I don't actually have an esophagus. But you are publicly calling them out, which I think is right. I think that's right. And that's obviously been a long time brewing. Yeah. I hope that gets back to them. I say fuck both of them. Yeah.

Yeah. Especially Sammy Joe, who's always been nothing but wonderful to me. It's been so nice and kind. Very good. Such a beautiful human. I can't believe it. How does somebody be so talented and so nice? It doesn't make sense.

Well, that's what the cracks are appearing now from what we've heard from heaven. Yeah. But you know who also is very talented and very nice. Weird Al Yankovic. Oh, I thought you were going to say me for a second, genuinely, genuinely thought you were going to say Jess Perkins and I was going to say, Evan, you stop it. But unfortunately, you were trying to get us back on track. I was trying. Rosson actually says about why they got uploaded.

He said, in the MySpace days, with the blessing of the actual artist behind the tune, Al just released it as a free download to avoid any hassles. Oh, yeah, cool. So he's like, because Blunt's happy, I'm happy to put it out. You're not making money off it. Yeah, so the label can't kick up a stink. Maybe the most famous rejection or rejections that came from Prince. He just apparently rejected him quite a few times. But it was always a dream of weird out to do a song of his.

And he said soon after Prince died, sorry that you're finding out about his chest. But you know what that means. My favorite actor from New Girl. He said. He's in one episode of New Girl. Really? And he, um, yeah, apparently afterwards, I was like, oh, I always kind of had this fantasy that one day he'd have another song and he'd like, you know what, you can.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, he repeatedly turned down his request. This is Rosson writing. At one point, Prince's management team sent Al, along with other people, apparently, a letter warning him not to look Prince in the eye when both were scheduled to appear at the AMAs. Amazing. Also, not only he's like, you can't do the songs, but don't even look at him. Yeah, wow.

In response, Al sent Prince a letter back warning him not to look Al in the eye. And yeah, this was his quote about the fantasy. I had this fantasy that he'd come out with a new song. I'd have a great idea. He'd finally say yes, and it would erase decades of weirdness between us. But that's obviously not going to be the case. Yeah. Well, shame.

Geez, we're coming towards the end. It's hard. Biography story is always hard to know what to put in and what to put out. I remember you saying that's a bunch of times just you're like, they had a whole life. I don't know what to. Yeah, exactly. Where do you stop? It's hard with, like, people with such big back catalogs.

It's all like discographies or filmographies. It's hard to be like, and then the next year, they did this. And then this. This episode would have been just as fun to just read a list of all these parody songs. Totally. But just quickly, because Gregory Gritman said that, where is this thing he said? Oh, yeah, he said, this topic has everything. Aside from the sheer insanity that is his success in humor, Weird Al is surprisingly smart

and talented. Many artists don't think they've made it into Weird Al parodies their music. There's also his healthy marriage and family life. And I'm like, oh, yeah, okay, I should look into this. I mean, there's not much to say, but according to Osberg, he married in 2001 marketing executive Suzanne Krodouski, and had a daughter, Nina, born in 2003. But Gregory also mentioned this, that he tragically lost his parents when the house he bought them burnt down, which I did not know about, but talking to Evan this week about doing this

episode, you also mentioned that. Yeah, what year was it? Because it was, I remember it was on my birthday. It was April 9th. Oh, wow. Weird coincidence, obviously. That's the only reason I would remember the date that it happened. Yeah.

I think it was 2002. But, yeah, it was like a carbon dioxide. I don't, carbon monoxide leak or something like that. Oh, shit. Which you don't smell or something like that. Yeah. That's why you need those detectors. I've got an article from that week from the LA Times wrote,

The Parents of Grammy winning recording artists with Al Yankovic were found dead in their home, apparent victims of carbon monoxide poisoning. Awful. The bodies of Nick Yankovic 86 and his wife Mary 81s, you know, they were... Getting on. You know, there's... It's brutal anyway, but you're like, oh, thank God they lived pretty long lives. They were discovered by members of the family, said Sheriff...

Sheriff Sergeant Conrad Grayson. The relatives went to the house because they had not seen the couple in a while and were concerned. Paramedics found Nick, that's not true, and I'll tell you, Weird Al talks about all the incorrect things in this. Oh, yeah, right. Paramedics found Nick Yankovic in a chair in the front living room, his wife was lying on the bathroom floor. A fire had been recently set in the fireplace. The house was full of smoke and they opened the door. We examined the fireplace. They were burning wood. The relatives had found the flu closed and they opened it. So I think it was just because the flu wasn't releasing the carbon monoxide to the house.

Oh. Filled with it. The article also says, attempts to reach Jankevick by phone through his agency, the William Morris agency were unsuccessful. He was scheduled to appear in Grand Forks, ND, or that North Dakota as part of his tour for his new album. A neighbor of the parents described them as nice people

who were proud of their son's accomplishments. Everybody who came to the neighborhood, new Nick, said John Booman, who lives across the street. They're going to be missed big time. So super sad. Yeah. But I just thought reading about this before, it's so strange how many things they got wrong in that article. Yankevick put out a statement, I think it was the next day maybe.

He said, in fairness to the memory of my mother, in some of the press reports also said she had Alzheimer's. He said, although she was starting to have a problem with short-term memory loss, my mother was never diagnosed with Alzheimer's. As long as I'm pointing out errors that the press had made, it was my aunt Dot who found my parents when she was bringing them lunch that day, as she routinely did, and not a group of relatives concerned that they hadn't heard from them in a while. Yeah, right. Like, it wasn't, they'd been there for weeks. Yeah.

It was actually, she would just happen to be. It wasn't a welfare check. It was just a routine. She brought them lunch. So he's like, oh, it really makes it seem like we're disconnected. He said, the family was close and caring and saw each other several times a day. Also, my aunts and uncles all live in separate houses, not together, as some articles implied. What?

And for what it's worth, I'm not represented by. by the William Morris agency. Oh, wow. It's like, how can so many details be wrong? I guess that's why they couldn't reach him. Yeah, exactly. I tried calling and they said, we don't represent weird Al and I said,

oh, I can't get this guy on the phone. He said, like, it was a really lovely statement though. He said, needless to say, I feel pretty much the way you would expect me to feel shocked and devastated beyond words. I love my parents so much. And this is all still seems like a horrible nightmare that I can't wake up from.

I want to thank my family, friends and fans for the incredible outpouring of love and support that they've shown me. It's quite long. I won't read all of it. I take a small measure of comfort in knowing that they died peacefully and that they never had to suffer through the pain and loneliness of living without each other. I'm also grateful that they both lived long enough to see me happily married to Suzanne and particularly happy that they got to meet our beautiful baby daughter, Nina. She filled their lives with so much joy this last year. Nina may be too young to remember playing with her grandparents when she was. gets older, but don't worry, we'll have some great videotape to show her.

Oh, it's really sweet. That's really nice. And then he goes on to talk about, you know, just how much he loves him and all this sort of stuff, but also about his dad's kind of dark humor. Apparently, he talked about death a lot and Al was like, I don't like this. I don't like it to go. But apparently his dad, Nick, made the joke a few times that he was planning to go on a diet so that his casket would be easier to carry.

And he said, I guess that's where I got my job. my sixth sense of humor from. And he was always talking about how much he was looking forward to seeing his old army buddies again in the next life. I sure hope they're having a great reunion right now. Oh, that's so nice. It's a really, really... That's heartbreaking, though.

Yeah, it's so heartbreaking. But, yeah. One last paragraph already says, as unthinkable as this tragedy is to me, I just know that my mom and dad were very much at peace with the world and with their lives. And I guess I can take a small amount of comfort in that too. Thank you all again. for your overwhelming kindness and support.

It means more to me than you can ever know. He's so lovely. And Evan, we were talking about this the other day. And you said that you thought he kept going on with his tour. And he talks about that as well. He said, I considered everything. But in the end, I decided to keep going with the tour because I thought that would be the best thing for me to do personally.

He said, I know that people in the past have said really nice things about my finding comfort in my music. Yeah. I'm hoping that I'll find some comfort in my music at the moment. And he said that he felt so loved and supported at those shows. That, yeah, it was almost like, you know, it was kind of a nice thing almost.

Can imagine there'd be something quite cathartic in in performing his kind of music and he's kind, you know, because it is, he does get to have fun and be quite silly. And maybe that would be nice in that kind of, yeah, it's a way to escape the grief. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. I think, you know, leading into your work, you know,

it's something to sort of take your mind off things rather than just sort of sitting at home and... There's no one way to deal with stuff too. People deal with things in really different ways and it can be very confusing to witness. Yep. You're like, really, this is what you're, okay, that's what we're doing and that's what you do. That's okay. And I imagine you wouldn't know until the time necessarily.

Yeah, of course, yeah. I couldn't. I'd be probably canceling personally, but maybe I wouldn't. I don't know. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so, like I said, it could. talk about all sorts of things. I thought maybe just briefly at the end.

Evan and I have seen it, obviously, just hasn't. But he's kind of back in people's minds recently because of the 2020 film, Weird, the Al-Yankovic story, which is a parody biographical film, premiered on the Roku channel. And it was co-written and co-produced by Yankevick starring Daniel Radcliffe, of Harry Potter fame. And in 2024, the movie,

The film won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Television Movie and an Emmy for Outstanding Music Composition for a Limited or Anthology Series movie or sequel. Oh, cool. So I was super successful, critically acclaimed, so much fun. Yeah, it's great. Really funny, fun movie. And I didn't know his story at all. Yeah.

And I really enjoyed it. I wonder, I think if I, and I probably will go back and watch it again. I realize, you know, some, like, big chunks of it are kind of based in. truth. Yeah, there's like, there's the door-to-door accordion guy. To me, like, honestly, I'm like, that's such a funny way to spoof origin stories like a guy came to your door selling. And you're like, oh, that's, no, that's how it happened.

That's one of the real things. But then he leans into the trope of, like, his disapproving parents and he's, oh, he's a rebel and stuff like that when really his parents were very supportive. So there's, you know, some bits have got a bit of the truth and some of them are just completely rock and roll parties that are just full, like there's this. one scene and they every it's just full of cameos like quite big celebrities playing other celebrities right yeah yeah which is really fun i think Conan plays like anti warhol or something yeah that's right yeah jack is in there uh-huh yeah jack black is the wolf man jack yeah yeah that's right yeah who i

know it of as well but yeah apparently i think they're all real people and yeah and it was you know i think they're all favors and that it was like all done in one day and it was a really tricky schedule to put together but yeah yeah really fun all right you i think you'd enjoy the movie i'd like you to watch uh yeah and rain wilson plays a real person dr demento in a top hat uh ever maybe we can finish with you you you said you you met him again more recently it was a nice sort of way so he hadn't to it for a while um around here anyway he did a he did a tour in the state a smaller tour I can't remember what it was called, but the ridiculously self-indulgent something tour.

He did a few things in the meantime. Anyway, he came to Australia and did this sort of like, he was calling it a more indulgent sort of tour because he wasn't, the idea wasn't to play hits so much. It was like, this is something for the fans and played kind of a different sort of set lists each night. So I wish I went to both nights that it was in Melbourne. But yeah, it was cool to go see him play. a lot of like originals as well, like a lot of those tracks that.

Albuquerque. In this video I watched earlier, he was saying that he wrote this original that was almost, he's like, I was almost trolling my fans by making it longer and longer. And he's like, I can't believe they love it. It is a great song. It's one of the most requested songs I do. Yeah, no, I don't think you played that the night that I was there. I think you played that the night, the other night, the night that I wasn't there.

Anyway, great, um, great show. and I managed to go backstage again, not because of anything that had happened in the past, but because I'm known around this office as a Weird Al fan and kind of by chance the Arnie Donner guys had, they were doing their Netflix show. Which he had a cameo in. Yeah.

Yeah, which he had a cameo in because it was produced by the guys, the Comedy Bang Bang guys and Weird Al has been the music guy on Comedy Bang Bang, the TV show at some point for a season, I think. So they're all mates and stuff like that. And so they sort of wrangle them into a cameo on that show, which is obviously very fun. Yeah, it plays a vampire or something.

Yeah, yeah. It's a little part, but yeah, it's great. And I was very jealous of that. And I remember Broden messaging me like the day that they were filming in. I was just like, oh, my God. And so I, but anyway, he's a big fan. Did you react to that? Like, Jess did when her friend came and told her they'd met,

tripod. Yeah, scream. Scream and cry? Screaming on the inside. Yeah, yeah. But I was just like, oh, because you're an adult and a professional, you know, you didn't scream. So, but then, you know, weird, I was going to Melbourne and he, um, the, I think the

donors sort of organized to do it, have them on their podcast or something like that as a bit of like part of the promo tour and stuff like that. And, um, he, he invited them to come, come along. And Broden's like, I'm going to get you, I'm going to get you backstage. I'm like, yes, this is, I'll have an inn. And so. So, yeah, I was really lucky to go backstage and... Save you from waiting at the door.

At the door. Yeah. Stage door. Yeah. Well, it's like it's interesting now. Like, he's got a different company managing the tour and it's like a much bigger thing. And it's like there's a whole like system for like meet and greet stuff afterwards. And we were very like a bypassed that. So before he did like the actual meet and greet, we kind of went backstage or only like half a dozen of us or whatever.

They went backstage and just to sort of say hi in his dressing room, which is like really really nice. Anyway, it was just nice to, you know, say hi again and get a photo with him. And I posted on my Instagram, maybe this is a show notes or something. There's a, you know, a photo of me like, what, 15 years ago or more? Yeah. With a photo with him and then one from last year. Oh, great. I'm a photo of him.

And it's just, uh, yeah, it's all. We put in the show notes. Could we just post it? Yeah, of course. I don't know how podcasts work. I don't have a podcast. We got, we got social media. People can follow it.

Dig on pod. Instagram, Twitter, Facebook. Wow. TikTok. Really? We're huge. YouTube. We've got it all, man.

We've got it all. We do have Twitter. I don't, I always forget to tweet, so sorry about that. I always remember. Yeah, you always remember. I'm always, always tweeting. Matt's picking up the pieces when I don't post anything on socials. He just sort of quietly just does it.

Yeah. And I go, fuck, thanks, man. We really should get someone to help us with that. I want to do that on game again. It's, uh, I have social media. Why don't we do yours and you do ours? Yes. And we can be incompetent for each other.

That'd be nice, but it'd be nice to have somebody else to blame for the incompetence. I'd journey myself. It would be easier to do someone else's social media than my own stuff. I just, oh, for sure. One thing, I'm just thinking of all the things I didn't put in the report, but one thing I thought was kind of funny was, so he, I think it was capital records that he got that first sort of, I guess it was my balona, I think. And so that's the one he recorded in his, in the toilet.

Yeah. Great acoustics. So they paid him 500 bucks for it. Yeah. And then when he wanted to put her on his first album, does this line up? Was My Bloner also on the first album? It doesn't matter. Whatever the song was.

Yeah. He went to them and they, so they owned the Masters then, and they charged him a thousand bucks to record, re-recorded. So he lost 500 bucks on that song. Amazing. Yeah. The record business is wild. He leans in the interview, he sort of leans in the camera, he says, that's why they call it show business or something like that. Yeah, I mean, that's it, right?

Yeah. He comes across as a cool guy. I think just the fact that he's like, no, I won't do it if I don't have their permission. Even though he can, he's like, no, I don't want to piss anybody off or. Yeah, I like that. It comes across as very sincere, like for a guy who is kind of always taking the piss a little bit, it feels like it's not really at anyone's expense. Yeah.

In interviews and stuff, it seems like that as well. There's no meanness to him. Exactly. He's never really being sarcastic. Yeah. It's all kind of being sincere and genuine. I think it's probably a bit fun, a bit different in comedy. Yeah.

Yeah. I think it's part of his longevity. Like, he's, he's lasted so long because he's not screwing anybody over. He's not starting any beefs. He's just like, he's just. Apart from with cool, yeah. Obviously, yeah. Oh, I'm Prince.

Don't look at me. That's so funny. Yeah. Don't look Prince in the eye. But he's had such an incredible career. And like, and like, still like, last year won a Grammy. You're still winning stuff and, you know. And he's got bit, like, fans.

And his first Emmy was last year, right? Like, that's for this, for the movie weird. It's like, that's incredible. Like, what a... Kirkabane's writing in his journal that he's a genius. Yeah. That's something I don't think I've ever fully got it. I really, I think I like them and stuff, but it still feels, it's like, is it

genius? I guess it is. Yeah. But it's not just, it's like, I mean, he's good at writing parody songs. I've heard a lot of bad parody songs. Yeah, yeah. And when you hear a bad parody, you're like, oh, yeah. You can appreciate a good one.

But it's incredible attention to detail and stuff. Like there's like a 10 minute behind the scenes documentary he made when he was recording Poodle Hat, I think. I also love talking seriously about... So, when we're in the studio making Poodle Hat, yeah. We laid down the bass tracks. And that's when we knew we had another hit record. The melody to Poodle Hat.

actually came to me in a dream. But yeah, they were filming that. I think he might have him as well as just filming that while they were in the studio. And they cut it together and released it with the album. This is a 10-minute documentary behind the scenes. It just looks like he's all over it. He's just like he's every little thing. He's just like he's across everything.

He's got a lot of like different instruments. Like he's not just working with his band, but also like other guests, you know, sessionals and stuff and choirs and the, you know, recording engineers and stuff. And he's just like, he's just. You know, he's impressive to watch work. Like, he's just... Yeah, the man's impressive. Yeah, he's not just some guy, a silly guy writing some silly songs.

Like, he takes it all very seriously and, you know, his stuff, his work endures. Yeah. Evan, would you be up for hanging around for everyone's favorite section of the show? Yeah, probably. Well, the way this works is, we talk to people who support the show on Patreon. Patreon.com slash do go on pod. Patreon cot. Condom.

Patreon condom. We're selling Patreon brand and dingers. Yeah, you can you can fuck with dogo on. Do go on. If it's not dogo on, it's not dogo on. Anyway, so. I love that. Can we get that happening?

Yeah. Can we get that in the merch page? Easily. So, Evan, we thank people in a few different ways. Yeah. So if they want to, if you are listening, you want to get involved, patreon.com slash dogo on pod. And the first thing we like to do, we spend about half a lot of,

an hour oven. So feel free to bail at any point. But first thing we like to do is the Sydney Schoenberg level. This is people supporting us on their get to give us a fact quote or a question or a bragger a suggestion. And if you are on that level, please do send them in because we've only got a few left before we're all caught up. So, Ev, I read out their name. They give themselves a title and they ask a fact, or they ask a question, in fact, give a fact. A quote, brag suggestion, really whatever they like now. Jokes we occasionally get. Oh, yeah?

And then we just, you know, we go from there. So the first one comes from Drew Forsberg. I should also say, I don't read them out until I read them out. And actually, I think this section has a jingle, go somewhere like this. Fact quote or question. You say ding. Ding. He always remembers the ding.

She always remembers the thing. I like that better. I like his ding better than. Yeah, ding. Than Dave's ding. Oh, what does Dave do? Ding. Yeah, he really

Yeah. He leans into it a bit much. Which like, if you're in a shop and it goes like, ding, you're like, that's obnoxious. Yeah, imagine that all that. You just need some service and there and it was just ding. I like that way better. Yeah. Anyway.

You can use that. Just copy input. Oh, thank you so much. Absolutely. Drew Forsberg has the title, classic early 90s elementary school bully. Okay. He's calling himself a bully? I'm not sure.

That's the title. Anyway. Drew is offering a brag. Classic bully behavior writing, My Uncle Works for Nintendo. Oh, Evan. What an appropriate episode video-in. It's such a trope that the whole My Uncle Works for Nintendo.

Is it really? It is, yeah. That's funny. It's like a kid when kids are bragging. Oh, right. Yeah, my uncle works at Nintendo and this game's going to come out. Oh, my God. I think that might be what he's doing.

He's doing it. He's doing that bit. He's doing that bit. My uncle works for Nintendo, because he's a bully from the early 90s. Of course, this makes sense. Now I get it. Sorry, Drew, that we've over-explained your bit now. My uncle works for Nintendo and gets to test the new Mario game. It's got 200 stages and it has a secret bonus levels where you get to play as Metroid and

Zelda in it too. And it's not even on a super Nintendo cartridge. It's on a system I haven't even released yet. Huh? Pictures? They aren't allowed to take pictures. It needs to stay a secret. Plus, the game and system need to be flown back to Japan every night.

Don't believe me, whatever. My dad could beat up your dad And that's not a threat It's a promise Whoa That reminds me of the kid at school Who said he won a world surfing championship On the holidays

But he couldn't bring the trophy to school Because it was too big to fit on the plane Wow He also said he got bitten by a shark But couldn't show us the bite mark Because it was too cold to bring up his shirt No, that's fair enough Yeah

It would hurt his scars I mean you gotta take his word for it Yeah yeah Scars hurt in the cold He wasn't a bully though. I think he was just a compulsive while. He was actually a mask guy. And you know what?

Like kids behaving like that? One's going on at home. You know what I mean? Yeah, you got to ask that question. You should. You should. I think you should butt in. I think you should probably drop by.

You have to ask and say, hey, what's going on at home? Maybe even like gossip about it a bit. I think so, yeah. That's probably the healthiest thing too. With the idea of like, we're concerned. Yeah. That's why we're chatting about it now. That's right.

Behind their back. Thank you, Drew. Next one comes from Rupert the Duff at Oh my God. Oh my God. I don't Rupert the dog. You've got a Rupert the dog. No, I know Rupert the dog.

There's sometimes a game of game supporter as well. Ah. And Rupert the dog. Ah. Rupert the dog. This title is the okayest Dane. Oh, I get it. Not a great one.

Yeah. But very, very okay. And it's a question here from Rupert the dog. I imagine it's going to be like, I love you. You love me? The question is, what's the best thing you know about dogs? Any cool facts? Oh, this is great because Dave, you're feeling in for Dave, Evan, and you've got a dog.

Whereas Dave, oh no, Dave has a dog too. It would have been better for me to not be here. That's right. It's always better if you're not here. Sorry, you walked right into it. I had to take it. You understand. As I always ask, Rupert has answered their own question here, writing, here's a fun fact about Norwegian Lundahum.

Wow. I hope I'm saying that right. They have six fully functional toes on each foot instead of the usual four. It helps them excel in navigating the rugged terrain of Norway, especially useful for hunting puffins in narrow cliffside crevices. Wow, hunting puffins. Poor puffins. Yeah.

No, good on them. Everyone's going to eat. Everyone's got to eat. It's true. So the question is, what do you know about dogs? What do you know a great fact about dogs? Any cool facts? Oh.

I, um, I, yeah, no. You don't know any What's... I don't really like dogs, except for our dog What's something interesting about Gonzo, your dog? Um Is there anything interesting about Gonzo? What are you talking about?

Gonzo is the weirdest looking dog I've ever seen in my life And you're like, is there anything interesting about him? Yeah, but he just is. He's missing hair on most of his body. Yeah. Yeah. On purpose. I mean, maybe that's interesting.

He's a Chinese crested and they don't, they naturally don't grow hair except for sort of around their little feeties. It's so cute. Did you? So cute. Tell me this fact recently, Jess, and might have even been on this podcast. I probably don't have an account, but teddy bears are based on dogs. I believe, that's what I've heard, that my friend who owned a chow-chow said that teddy bears are actually based on chow-chow.

So the appearance of a chow chow-chow. Let me show you a chow, Evan, and you tell me that's not a freaking puppy dog. Teddy bear. All right, okay. Okay. Hang on, hang on. Yeah, maybe that one. Like, that's what teddy bears look like.

Okay, yeah, I see. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They got like a bit of a bear face. Yeah. I thought they'd be based on bears, but I suppose you're... Yeah. Maybe you're right. There was some sort of reason why.

And again, this is coming from a... This is secondhand information. Probably third. Maybe it's because bears are scary and chow chow's look cute and they wanted it to be more cute than scary. Yeah. Teddy bear based on Chow Chow Chow. All right, Jess. Yes.

I'm on American Kennel Club. There's a list of effects here. Fact number nine, the most popular breed in 2022, French bulldog. Yeah. You know why? Because you're basic.

Because I'm a basic bitch. No, because more and more people are having to live in apartments rather than houses, and they're a low-energy, really chill, fairly quiet dog. I mean, some Frenches, like, they essentially scream. They don't just bark.

They go like, ah! Luckily, mine doesn't. That's so fun. He's very quiet. He doesn't really bark. He doesn't shed a lot of hair. He needs very little exercise and he sleeps all day.

Did you know this? Fact number four. All dogs dream, but puppies and senior dogs dream more frequently than adult dogs. Do you want to know the noise goose makes when he's dreaming? Sure. Oh, yeah, that's a good noise. It's so cute. Gonzo's very cute when he dreams as well.

He'll just sort of like twitch a little bit and sort of like do a muffled bark. Oh, that's cute. Yeah. Very, very cute. I just realized. that if your two dogs were to be found in like some sort of a CD library, they'd be right next to each other. They would, alphabetically.

G-O. G-O. G-G-O. That's cute. And they get along those two as well, so that'd be nice. Yeah. I don't know why I put it in CD library terms, but, um, CDs. It's the way your brain works and organizes information. I mean, where else are you going to alphabetize a dog?

Exactly. Um, so, yes, I think we did not beat your six-toe fact, I'm afraid, but. Rupert, hopefully a couple of facts there for you. If any listeners in the Sydney-Shaunberg section of the Patreon, have more dog facts, feel free to chuck them in the fact quote of question. Yeah, that can be a fact. Or any other, any facts. Yeah.

I like that one because it was a question and a fact. This one comes from Piper Galeher, or aka God Emperor of Dayton, Ohio, working remotely. And we've got a quote here. My quote is also a suggestion. It's just the song lyric that I find really. beautiful from my all-time favorite band Bleachers, whose second album Gone Now, I couldn't recommend more. The song is called Everybody Lost Somebody.

Ah, great song. It's got a good hook with the... That sounds like R2JT. Yeah, you could definitely sample that and put it in an RJD2 song and it would fit right in. It would work. Yeah, for sure. It's one of the most honest and profound explorations

on the feeling of loss that I've ever heard put to words. The lyric is from the bridge, which goes like this. There's a reason I wake up alone in strange places. A reason I see myself in a million faces. A reason I can't stop at all from changing. So come on, motherfucker. You survive. You got to give yourself a break.

Yep. Does it go sort of like that? Yeah. So it kind of. I helped emot it. It's very, he's very, yeah. It's, what's his name? He works his hells swift.

Jack at Antonoff. Is that his name? Yeah, check. Yeah. Right. He's, I really like that he did a tiny desk. He played this song in his tiny desk. And it's great.

That version of it is my favorite version of it. I think I like that way better than the album version. Cool. You stole Piper's bonus fact, which was a singer of Bleachers is Jack Antonov, prolific pop producer, producer, Taylor, Siff Lund, Del Ray, Lord and others, and former guitarist for the band Fun. Sorry for this was a bit long and a bit earnest.

It's my first time. I haven't honed my fact quote question BS skills yet. There's no one way to fact quote or question. You can be sincere in here or you can be very silly. We'll take it all. Nothing in between. Nothing in between. Check out bleachers doing Tiny Desk.

I recommend it. I like bleachers. I don't know that particular song, but I like that stuff. Yeah. Good. The final one this week comes from Ben Johnson. Okay, a sheep named Madeline. And we've got a question here.

Ben writes, hey guys. My last title, Shmoisen Taste Tester, was reference to a riff from the Tarmam-should-Summerton Man episode. Wow. Because I remember we were like, what, this rings a bell and we weren't quite sure. And now I bet you don't remember the time we didn't remember. No, that's right. I don't. It's the problem we're doing 400 on episodes.

I know. When you're saying it's the Summited Man episode. Is that it? Yeah. I'm like, but I couldn't tell you what year that was. Ben says, though that is episode 82 from six years ago, so understandable you couldn't remember. I don't remember anything.

So my question is, do you? do you have any favorite or especially memorable pod riffs from over the years? No. For me, it's almost impossible to choose. But a classic that never fails to make me laugh is from the sheriff from episode 65, The Roswell Conspiracy. Oh, yeah. Oh, that was Dave.

Dave to be your sheriff. Um, was one of his one. Yeah, one of his high-pitched voices. Sometimes Dave will get quite lost in the character. His drama degree really comes out. His gaze moves to the middle distance. And you'll ask him a question and something will come out and I'm like, how was you doing this? Full method.

Yeah. It's beautiful. It says, do go automation from that is incredible. A more recent favorite is the sheep name Madeline from episode 403, the beast of Javudan. I don't remember that at all either. There are hundreds of incredible riffs from every episode, but those are just two of my favorites. I remember having fun in that one where we joked that one of the guys who came to town to capture the beast had shot so many wolves in the past, and then we got an awryph where it was like shooting wolves in a barrel,

because they literally only ever hunted wolves when they're already in a barrel. Can't miss. But yeah, Evan, what's some of your favorite rifts we've done? I mean, the do-go animations were good for that. Yeah, yeah. There was some good ones there. The megatrots. Yes.

The big horse. You go to jail because you picked a dog up against its wheel or something. Oh, man. I got home from a birthday party, not home, I got to the after party from a, and the dog was this cute little dog. It was a pug or something. It was about to run out the door. So I picked it up and someone snapped a photo of me.

And it looks like I've picked it up again. I guess I did pick it up against, it's will. And life imitated art there. Oh, that's. good stuff. I call this podcast art, by the way. Yeah, obviously. Appreciate that.

Yeah, that was fun. Yeah, Ben, a great question, but not one I can answer. We're not the right people to ask. Yeah, yeah, they'd be, I mean, people ask questions like that in the Patreon group and it starts this long thread, but it's always all new to me. I remember, release the slugs. I'll remain, I've got memories of memories. So when people point things out enough times, then I'll remember them better.

Release the slugs did make me like cackle laughing. It was so dark. Again, Dave's just getting. lost in a character. Yeah, he's had a few. His Sydney-Sharmberg's always very funny. Always good. What else has he done?

So much easy to talk about this sort of stuff when the person's not here. He's like going, and Evan, that really funny thing you did? It's like, oh. Gross. Yeah. But yeah, everything Dave's ever done. All right. Thank you, Ben, Piper Rupert and Drew.

Shmoisen, I think is Dave as well. That feels like Dave. Yeah, that does feel like Dave. Nothing clever has ever come out of my mouth. Yeah, nothing clever like schmoizen. Even sometimes, like, their Twitter account of, like, do go on quotes or do go on out of context? What is it? What is that?

Do go on wisdom. Oh, yes. A very out of context quotes from us. And reading that sometimes has made me laugh out loud, which feels awful because it's ass. It's very self-indulgent. But I have no recollection of any of it. That's so funny. That's great.

It's great to do something and then forget about it. That's nice. Evan, the next thing we like to do is thank a few of our other great Patreon supporters. And Jess normally comes up with a bit of a game based on the topic at hand. So I guess we got to do a, what are we thinking? I was thinking parody song. I was thinking parody song. That's so fun.

I was like, I can either look up weird L ones and just allocate them a song, or I was just going to see if there's a parody song generator. Oh, what a, I like that, but what about, how about we put Evan on the spot here? Yep. When you read out a name, I say a real song, Evan Parried is it? When I say a name, you. say a real song, Evan Paraget is it. Oh, that's tough.

Putting it all on Evan. Sure, let's try. I mean, we can... But bad is good here in everyone's favorite section. So if I can kick us off. So you and I are just naming a song. We just got to root a song and see what Evan does it. Based on the person?

No, it could be any song. I'm just going to write list of songs. But, you know, just in case... All right, I've got the 500-sop-grat songs all the time. That should do it. Okay. All right, first up, I'd love to thank from Nenamo. in British Columbia, Canada, dog martyr.

Oh, yeah, another gaming games. Jess, what's a song? Oh, a song. Who let the dogs out? Yep. I've already done it, but can you do better than who let the pogs out? What else rhymes with it? Who let the clogs?

I've got one. I've got one. I've got one. Who let the soge out? And it's about misogyny. Oh, who let the soge out? Yeah, yeah. Very political, Farrow.

Yes. I want to do something about shower grout. Oh, wow, okay. I just want to try and go a bit further than what rhymes with dog, you know. Okay, wow, I thought Hulet the subject was pretty good. Oh, no, no, it is good. I'm just trying to, you know, I want, you know, sitting it, I'm trying to hit a high bar. Wow.

Even higher. It's just good, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you're on your own. Who cleaned the tile grout? Who cleaned that's a tile grout? That's not bad. That's maybe something.

I think that's very good. Yeah, that is actually pretty good. How do you? Jess, what do you reckon? You want to do the next one? I keep going for a bit. I'll do it. From London, I would love to thank David Robinson.

Any songs coming to mind? What about I'm leaving on a jet plane? Is it related to the person at all? No. Is this a song? Just a song. Do you want me to do one? Mrs. Robinson.

The previous one was related to it. All right, how about Mrs. Robinson then? Jeez, Louise. What song is? I don't know what that song is. Here's a Beatles. Here, Mrs. Robinson. Simon and Garfunkel.

Oh. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Lemonheads did a pretty popular cover of it too. Go-goo-goo-Goochoo. They also mention Joe DiMaggio. Yeah, right. The baseball player. Yeah.

Where's my bobbins gone? He's trying to knitting. Where my bobbins are? sewing in his If you took two more seconds, I would have abandoned this as a concept. Yeah, I had the song name generator, open, ready to go.

Next up, I'd love to thank from Wilson in Western Australia. It's Christy. What about Wilson, the Beach Boys, what about Little, what is it,

Deuce Coop? What? Oh. It's about a car. I do not know that song. Little Deuce Coop. Little Deuce Coop. Is that the name of the song?

I've never heard of it. It doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Little doo's cute. A little tutto. Little two. Little two. Little two.

A little two. Okay. Traffic's also good. He is warming up. No, I'm lowering my standards is what I'm doing. Warming up. It's one of those songs where it's like, it pretends to be about cars, but it's about fire.

Maybe it's a bit of a double meaning kind of thing. Yeah. Okay. That's when it gets really clever. That's fun stuff. Next I would love to thank from East Grinstead in Wessex, I reckon in Great Britain. Katie Fitzpitz-Pryton. Katie Fitzpricis, Ella Fitzgerald.

Yeah. At last. The song is called At last. Yes. At last. Oh, that song. That is Ella Fitzgerald, right? Yeah.

Agast. I don't know. Agast. Yeah, that's good. I know. Surprised about something. That's good stuff. That is at last.

That's Ella. Fitzgerald. I love the word aghast. It's a good word. You don't hear that much these days. recently described a belly button as aghast. I will not explain further. Because it looked surprised?

Yeah. That's good. That's good. It's great use of the word. It's pretty funny. I would love to thank somebody, if I may. Sure. From Northcott right here in Victoria.

Wow. Fitzwilliam Gertler. What? Is that a real name? Fitzwilliam Gertler. Sounds made up to me. Yeah, it probably is. But good.

Fitzwilliam Gertler. I'm just saying it's bad. I'm just saying it's incredible. All right. What about bedroom philosophy? already comedy song, Northcett's so hungover. Yeah, right, okay. That's one of the lyrics.

Is that what you're doing? Yeah, no, it wasn't bad. Right, okay, yeah. No, that is a good song already. Jarl's in that film clip, I'm pretty sure. Really? Really? They might think they came up together, I think, they came up together, I think.

Yeah, yeah. Wow. Uh, uh, uh, I'm getting there. I've already forgot the name of the song. Speeding, so pull over. I don't know. Yeah. Speeding.

I don't know. Brackets, so pull over. You understand why weird else is like, this takes time. It is genius. Yeah, it's hard. Speeding. What about it? Sirens, so pull over.

Yeah, that's probably better. Yeah, some other reason to actually. New coat. New coat. No pull over. Yeah, okay, good. Yes. You don't need to bring a jumper.

because you've got a new Coke. Yeah, that's good. You're very good at this. Yeah, I'm pretty weird, I guess. I've been saying that behind you back for years. From Maple Grove in Minnesota, I think, MN in the United States. Samuel Walter Reeves, R-I-EBS. What about the darkness?

I believe in a thing called love. Oh, yeah. Yeah, okay. Uh, uh, shove. Yes, yep. Uh, uh, this is, it's, it's difficult to go up with like something good. Yeah, but that's what you're going to abandon that. All right.

That is good here. Yeah. I believe in a turtle dove. A turtle dove. Yeah, I don't know why it doesn't make, I don't know what that would be about. That would be a Christmas one. Yeah. Yeah, sure.

Yeah. It's in the 12 days off. Yep. Yep. I think that's fantastic. That's great. To me, that could be a weird album track. That's how good that is.

May I thank someone? I would like it if you could. I would love to thank from Coleroy Plateau in New South Wales, gorgeous. Locky, twos. Lucky twos. Lucky twos. Twos. That is so fucking cute.

Yeah. It's TWOSE. Twos. What about Goody Two shoes by Adam and the Ants? Oh, yeah, okay. Come on, do something poo related. Yeah Yeah

Goody Pooh Goody Pooh Goody Pooh Yes It wasn't Adam The answer was just Adamant solo Oh Oh

There you go Good stuff Thank you so much To Sammy Lockie sorry What was it Pooy Poohs Goody Poohs

Come on man Have some respect for the art That really feels like there was There was room to move there. No, there wasn't. There wasn't. That's the thing. It's goody pooh-poo's.

Finally, for me, I'd love to thank from Gourbridge in Great Britain, MLN. Where'd that be? Doesn't matter in Great Britain. Gorbridge. I'd love to thank Nathan needs a username. Another gaming game supporter. Love this crossover. There's a lot of crossover.

A lot of crossover. Okay, I've got a song. Traveling Wilburys, end of the line. Oh, yeah. men's the clothes line I'm just throwing out some ideas to make it harder for you to think of it. Just while you're

lemon and lime acidic things Yeah Lemon and lime Yeah Squeezing juice in your eye with my lemon and lamb. Yeah, great. That's nice.

That place that I didn't know what it meant was Midlothian in Scotland. Oh. That's where Gorebridge is. Cool. What a place. Jess, do you want to thank a final one? I'll bring it home. Finally, Evan, you have one more.

So you're so close. All right, I'm going to have to meet as good. From St. Austell in Great Britain, Bailey Sage. And the song, Matt? Give him a good one for the last one. Sage, Bailey, Sane with a lot of rhymes. Okay, something with a lot of rhymes. I'll just quickly, let's look at this

Greatest Songs of All Time list. Oh, here we go. Old Town Road, we mentioned it before. Oh, yeah. Mould. All three of those. words have plenty of wrongs if that helps. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Too many? Maybe. Gold brown toad. Yeah, I was going toad. That's pretty good. That is pretty good. Mold clown. Load.

Lode. That's the shortest horror story I've ever heard. Mold clown load. Yeah, no, they're all good. Yeah. Sold download. Sold, sold, soul download. Yeah.

That's all right. That could be something. Ooh, soul download. Not sold? Soul, I like that. Sol download. Yeah. I much, sort of, I imagine how the devil gets you.

Download your soul. Yeah. Maybe it's about Elon Musk. Got the devil. Yeah. And I remember them saying, we got to move on. Yeah. Came up in the news a few months ago.

And there's a quote. So, like, yeah, that was years ago, go. Okay. So what are we locking in, Ev? This is very important. Bailey Sage deserves you to come up with something really good here. I should say Bailey Sage, Nathan Locky and Samuel all message me because I told people if they think you've been missed, please DM me on the Patreon and I'll, I'll obviously put you on the top of the list.

All right, Evan. I really want to call something good for this. Yeah, we've still got one last section here. So you can come up with it right at the end while you're still thinking. Let me say thank you so much to Bailey, Nathan, Locky, Samuel, Fitzwilliam, Katie, Christy, David and Dogg. And the last thing we need to do is welcome some people into the Triptitch Club. Jess, do you reckon you could quickly explain how this works? Absolutely. So the TripDitch Club is for people who have supported us at patreon.com slash jagon for three consecutive years on the shoutout level or above.

And what it is, it's like I like to think of it as an airport lounge, but some people think of it more like a cool like gentleman's club, but not in a gross way. Just like an exclusive cool place to hang out. Yeah, like somewhere that, you know, there's velvet everywhere. Yes. Frank Sinatra's singing. Yeah, there's a bar. There's a we've got pickleball now. now, that's taken off.

We've got a couple pool tables. We've got all sorts of fun stuff. Activities for you, some arcade games, you know, fun stuff. Fun, it's fun. It's actually, actually, if you think about it, it's great that you're not allowed to leave. We do have Guitar Hero, but I do ask that if I want to play it, you fuck off. I get first as a guitar hero at all times. Because there's only one of them.

But when I'm not playing, you can have a go. Yeah, you can fuck on. But when I want to play, fuck off. Yeah. Um, yeah, so what we usually do is I'm behind the bar. I've got some drink specials going, um, some, some hors d'oeuvres. Uh, Dave books a band. And Matt usually, uh, he's, he's behind the velvet rope.

He lifts it up for you. He brings you in. He welcomes you, gives you a comforting little pat on the bum. Um, but it's not in a weird way. Not in a weird way. It's actually quite nice. It's not weird in any way. It's actually really nice.

It's actually lovely. Um, so. And I'm sorry. sick of people saying otherwise. Oh boy. I bought this riff. Have you booked a band this week, Matt? You wouldn't believe this.

What? But I've actually got Prince. Isn't that wild? Wow. And he said, please look into my eyes. Oh, we're allowed to. So everybody can look Chris and me out. He said he'd prefer it if we did.

Okay, great. It's quite intense. And it's actually turned out that him and Weird Al have made up and Weird Al's going to support him. Oh, that's so nice. Yeah. Okay, great. Evan, do you have any requests for Weird Al?

If you could get him to play one song live, what would it be? It's one of the ones that I think he has never played live because it'd be quite difficult to do. But one of my favorite of his, it's an original of his called Hardware Store. Oh, yes, he mentioned that on that interview I watched as well. Yeah. He's like, people request all the time. It's like, it would be really hard to play this.

It is hard. It's like fast harmonies or something you said? It's very, very fast. Yeah. And yeah. Wow. It would be very difficult to try and do cleanly. But, hey, I believe that he can.

If anyone could, he is the one who could. I think he's selling himself short. I reckon he could pull it off. I've got a drink special behind the bar as well if you. Oh, great. I've got a cocktail this week. Yeah. It's the weird Al Yank Gin Fizz.

Oh. That sounds like that's a kind of drink that would jerk you right up your seat. If I can put it into those sort of terms, Evan. I don't know if that means it to you. That's a phrase that Evan coined on a who knew it recently. Jerk you're right off your seat. Jerk you right off your seat. That rules.

So yeah, I've got that. We are, I think I cried laughing when I read that one out from us. It's pretty good. How much are they? No, everything. It's all free. It's all free? Is that included in the, wow.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Amazing. Yeah, it's a really good deal. I mean, once you enter the club, you can't leave. Yeah. But. Which some say is a negative, but that's actually a positive. What if I'd leave the Patreon?

No, you're not. Yeah, sorry. You're in. You're in. Once you're in, you're in. Incredible. Yeah. Yeah.

And it's a good thing that you're trapped. We're not trapped. Trapped is a weird way to phrase. No, I wouldn't say. You just have to remain there. You have to remain there. Okay. All right.

So it's not trapped at all. Not in a weird way. Some people talk about it like being trapped. It's not being trapped. Yep. In any way. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely.

Just one inductee this week. Wow. Okay. Short list. Okay. So very excited. And the way this normally works, you're in Dave's position. So you're on stage, you're the hype man.

Yeah. I am. I'm on the door. I'm reading out their name and all you've got to do is just hype them up in whatever way you would as an MC. Dave would normally do some weak wordplay. Yeah. Weird Al style on their name or their place. Well, their location.

You can do it. They're from Goldburn. And they're gold to me. That's no burn. That's something he probably has said before. Yeah. Okay. That level of shit.

Yeah. is acceptable, yeah. Okay. Yeah. If you can do really good, that's also fine. Anywhere in the middle, you know, what are we doing? Sure. All right.

So just the one inductee this week. Are you ready, Evan? Yes. And I hype you up. Yeah. No matter how bad it is. You cannot bomb because I'm here. Excellent.

Yeah. All right. So the one inductee this week comes from what's Sonia North here in Victoria, Australia. It's Jill Welch. What's only, hang on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's that? Welch, it's, I forgot a name.

Oh, Jill. Jill, Welch, it's Jill. Yeah, Jill's here. What a thrill. We want Welch on this deal, and that deal is, you're coming on in. Yeah. What a thrill that's Jill was, what a beautiful cherry you put on top of that. That's nice.

That probably would have been enough. It would have been enough. And now, before we go, we've only got one last thing to do, and that is give Bailey Sage an old Town Road. The best I've come up with, I think. You know, trying to make it like it could actually be a song. Sure. Is iPad Pro.

Oh, yeah, great. I'm going to watch that film on iPad Pro. Oh, yeah. Something like that. I think there's maybe something there. I think you've nailed it. Yep. Good stuff.

Unfortunately, he doesn't accept suggestions unless you're Madonna. Yeah, which is a hard bar to try and reach. I think of yours Australia's Madonna. I do. I've said that. Really? Yeah, yeah. In what way?

You're often backstage at a weird al show. Yep. Yeah. And she's often backstage at her own show. You wear those pointy boob things. Yeah, you both have point. You both wore pointy boobs in the 80s. Yeah, very conical chests, I see.

Yeah. Conical chess. More like conjugal visits. What? No, that's nothing. All right, time to go. I was still trying to weird ale. So, Jess, what do we need to tell people?

before we go. Just that we love them. That if there's a topic you would like us to cover, you come across a story and you think, that it'll make for a fun. Do Go On Report. There's a link in the show notes. It's also on our website, which is Do Go On Pod.

Anybody can suggest a topic, so go do that. Do Go On Pod is also where you can find stuff about upcoming live shows. You can check out information about the other podcasts that we have on the Do Go On Network. And you can find us at social media at Do Go On Pod across everything. Twitter, Instagram, Facebook. What else is there? TikTok, we're doing on podcast. And that's it.

Yeah. God, we missed Dave. Until next week, I'll say goodbye. Later. Bye. Thank you so much for having me. What a thrill. Oh yeah.

Love you, Evan. And watch Gamey Gamey Game. Do we plug any of your stuff? No, but that's fine. We're just starting a new season of Gamey Game of Gamey Game. I don't know when this episode comes out, but there's episodes up, the new ones coming out. It's a good show about video games. So sorry, AJ.

Yeah, can we just quickly ask Evan about that and you can put it a little bit more prominently? We can just do the end again, I reckon. Okay, great. Sorry, AJ, we'll just do that again. So I said like, that's it. So why don't you just ask Evan? Evan, people love you.

They want to get more of you. Where can they have it? I want to give it to them. Go to YouTube and look at Gamy Gamy Game. It's a show that I host about video games. It's a very silly panel comedy show. Both Matt and Jess have both been on. We've just started a new seat.

And there's a very funny episode out as we speak with Greg Larson and Michael Hing. You might know if you're a sort of fan of the comic scene. Very, very funny stuff. So go check that out. It's on YouTube. Gamey, game, game, game. Thanks so much for joining us. Thank you for having me.

What a thrill to come and talk about my interest. Send us some weird, those weird owl picks so we can post it. I will. Yeah. And just, could you just reassure everybody that Dave's fine? Oh, yeah, you don't. Look, I mean, I haven't spoken to him recently. Well, no, no, just say.

Just say he's fine. He's fine. And he was reading to. today's paper. Can you just say? Yes, I saw a photo when he was reading today's paper. And I don't think you can fake that. No, you can't.

No, I can only assume that was... No, in today's technology. Yeah, yeah. So he's fine. Yeah. And so, yeah, I guess that's everything we need to say. Until next week, I'll say goodbye. Later's.

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