Weird Al Yankovic
speaker
271 appearances
2 recordings
2 series
first heard May 2025
last heard 22 May
Weird Al Yankovic’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in May 2026 with 1.
Appearances
Well, that's definitely another pinch me moment because I was weaned on Mad Magazine. You know, that along with Dr. Demento, those two things are responsible for the lion's share of my sense of humor, I think. I mean, I collected old mad magazines and, you know, this is pre-internet. So there wasn't really a way to see or to read back issues other than to literally read
go around town to used book and magazine stores and try to go through the stacks and find old copies of Mad Magazine. And thankfully I had very loving and supportive parents who made that happen. My mom would drive me all around greater Los Angeles and we'd try to find these old magazines.
And that was just a window into a world that I didn't know existed at the time because I got to see parodies of movies that I was too young to see. and TV shows that I couldn't stay up late enough to watch. And the whole sensibility of mad, the anti-authority, like be skeptical of everything you read, like the advertisers are lying to you.
This was a lot of information that was important for a young humorist slash satirist to be aware of. So that was definitely a huge part of my early education. Were your parents funny? I mean, not in a real traditional sense. I think my dad maybe was funnier than my mom.
My mom was very quiet and withdrawn, and my dad was certainly more gregarious and loud and more likely to talk to strangers on the street. I suppose he was funny in his own way, but I wouldn't say that he was like a class clown, life of the party kind of guy.
I was pretty quiet and withdrawn myself. I didn't have like a big personality, but the fact that I could create these silly songs and put myself out there in performance, I mean, I got to extend a part of my personality that didn't come through in everyday life. So I found that kind of appealing to be able to present a different version of me that way.
Yeah. I mean, I'm not one of those people that loves being the center of attention. I actually don't, which seems kind of odd for a person who makes a career out of performing on stage. But I'm not one of these people. I mean, I knew people in high school that were dying to be famous and that was very important to them. And like, It's not important to me. I mean, I like it. It's nice.
But I just enjoy doing what I do. And the fact that other people enjoy that too, that's great. But I was never like somebody that had to make it or had to, you know, had to be the guy.
Well, they probably said it to me in high school as well, but I mean, I remember distinctly in college, my freshman year, I became known around my dorm as Weird Al, just because I suppose they thought I was weird.
Yeah. So, you know, and they probably had reason to think that too. I mean, I probably was very odd and stood out from everybody else. But I thought, you know, I'm just going to take that on as my college radio name because my sophomore year I got into college radio and everybody had some kind of stupid nickname. And I thought, oh, they're already calling me Weird Al.
I'm going to take it on as an empowering name. Like, all right, I'm Weird Al.
Yeah. And what's really nice is that now I hear from all these kids over the last couple generations, kids that were, you know, uh, ostracized in school that were considered freaks or weirdos or whatever that didn't fit in. And they looked at me as somebody that, that owned my weirdness and was okay with it. And, and they find that very empowering.
So it means a lot to me to get, to hear from them and to get letters to that effect.
I think something that I read about Tex Avery, the famous Warner Brothers cartoonist from the 40s who did Droopy Dog and a lot of Tom and Jerry and a lot of amazing, amazing animation. And apparently in his deathbed, he was just grumbling that he'd wasted his entire life doing stupid cartoons. And I just thought that was so insane.
I mean, I don't know if he ever, like, read fan mail or anything like that. But, I mean, humor brings so much to people's lives. I mean, even if what you're doing is kind of ridiculous and, you know, it affects people. And I've read so many letters from people. You know, I've read probably a couple dozen letters from people saying they were on the brink of suicide.
And they started listening to my albums, and it kind of snapped them out of it. And it got them excited. you know, feeling better. And, you know, that's no small thing to make people feel better. So, you know, even sometimes when I think that what I do in life is not that much important, I just think that it really does, you know, seem to affect people.
I think it was about two weeks ago. No. I guess when I signed my record deal because I graduated from college with a degree in architecture, which I've never really used. And I thought, well, you know, I'm very young. I've got some options before me. At that time, I had some minor hits on the Dr. Demento show because I'd sent him tapes of My Bologna and Another One Rides the Bus.
And they'd gone viral and made big hits on his show. And I thought, well, let's see if I can get a record deal. So for a couple of years while I was working at a day job for minimum wage, I would go around knocking on doors and sending in tapes and trying to solicit a deal. And finally, a couple of years, I think 1982 is when I signed my record contract with Scotty Brothers Records.
And it wasn't a great deal because, you know, record companies aren't going to offer some kid with an accordion a lot of money. It was basically this like draconian contract where they had me for 10 albums. I'm sure they didn't in their wildest imagination think they're going to do 10 albums with me.
It's one of those things you put into a contract on the extremely off chance that this kid makes it, we've got you for this amount of time. So at that point, I'll tell you the exact moment when it occurred to me because slightly after I signed my record deal and I put out my first single, I mean, they didn't give me any money up front. It was just sort of like, you know, here's your contract.
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