Weird Al, king of the Orange County Fair, returns to his loyal subjects

July 21, 2002

By STEPHEN LYNCH

The Orange County Register

WEIRD AL YANKOVIC visits the Weird Al Experience tent at the Orange County Fair.

Source: Eugene Garcia / The Register

They're out there, hidden among us. Lurking at work. Someone you date. That man in the convenience store. That woman in the BMW. More than you'd suspect.

Weird Al fans.

Oh, they look just like you and me. But frizzy hair, Amish beards and fat suits reduce them to fits of giggles. They make puns. They won the last Scrabble match with "zany," triple-word score. They own too many Hawaiian shirts. That is, more than none.

"People I meet, it's either 'Who's Weird Al?' or 'I love Weird Al!'" says Huntington Beach aficionado Jan Vincent, summing up his polarizing appeal. "He has fans everywhere."

But for this week at least, his fans are here, at the Orange County Fair. If the fair crowned royalty, parody artist Weird Al Yankovic would be king. So popular that he holds the attendance record for fair entertainers, drawing 14,000 fans in 1999. So popular that, at this very moment, people are flying in, from 13 states and three countries, including Australia, just to see him.

So popular that the fair isn't just dedicating five nights, starting Monday, to his concerts - they've devoted an entire exhibit to his life.

The Weird Al Experience is a journey through the past quarter-century of popular music, by way of a mirror-universe transporter accident. There's the original single for "My Bologna." The black leather plus-size bondage gear from "Fat." The blond Kurt Cobain wig from "Smells Like Nirvana." There's his Grammy, for 1984's "Eat It." But more importantly, there are 25 pairs of Vans shoes.

"In 2000, he came here on tour. I've never seen a clamor like that before or since," says Steven Beazley, deputy general manager for the fair. "I thought, 'What can we do for people who have this fervor?'"

Um, counseling? Psychotropics?

The ultimate novelty

But no. Instead, they get a giant inflatable Al, Hawaiian shirt, frazzled perm and all, looming above one of the fair's main boulevards. And then there's Al himself, dressed similarly, though with slightly less hot air, tickled by all the fuss.

"I'm flattered," he says, after acing the computer quiz of his career. "This is pretty amazing."

It is perhaps as amazing as Weird Al's career itself. Looking at his early records, the song lyrics about breakfast cereal, it's not hard to see why critics thought he'd be headlining polka festivals by now. Instead, Al became a transcendent novelty act, a ubiquitous presence at every shift in popular culture.

His fame is parasitic, but he's also become a checkmark on the road to success, like having Casey Kasem announce your spot on the countdown. The members of Nirvana once said they knew they'd made it when Weird Al decided to parody them.

Al doesn't always get the credit he deserves. Although most of his songs are extraordinarily silly, he has moments of brilliant social satire. "All About the Pentiums" (a parody of Puff Daddy's "All About the Benjamins") tackled both the excesses of hip-hop and the Internet age. "Smells Like Nirvana," meanwhile, mocked the dour earnestness of grunge, along with Cobain's inscrutable vocals. "What is this song about? Can't figure the lyrics out. How do the words go? I wish you'd tell me, I don't know."

"He's really smart about the subjects he picks," says Jay Levey, Al's longtime manager. "It's never mean-spirited, but it's sharp."

Alfred Yankovic grew up in Lynwood, learning music on the accordion his mother bought from a door-to-door salesman (seriously). Not surprisingly, he won the math and science award in high school.

He received a degree in architecture from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, but that was beside the point. Before graduation, he had already garnered the more important distinctions of a nickname and a recording of "My Bologna," a parody of "My Sharona" by the Knack, which he made at the student radio station.

The song was picked up by Dr. Demento, a DJ who hosted a comedy program. Doug Fieger, lead singer of the Knack, heard it, loved it, and persuaded his record label to sign Weird Al.

The deal didn't last, but by 1982, Weird Al had joined a smaller label and recorded his first album, featuring parodies of Queen ("Another One Rides the Bus"), Toni Basil ("Ricky") and Joan Jett ("I Love Rocky Road").

True fame arrived in 1984, however, when Al hitched his star to Michael Jackson's mammoth record "Thriller." Like Jackson, Weird Al was a star by way of MTV, his "Eat It" matching "Beat It" scene by scene, only with street gangs eating doughnuts and walking around in their underwear.

Parody poster child

And on it went, through Madonna, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Coolio. Weird Al always seems so of-the-time, like he's going to make you laugh, earn a few bucks, and then vanish off the face of the planet. But his biggest-selling album - the best-selling comedy album of all time, actually - was in 1992. And in 1999, he scored again, with a fusion of "American Pie" and "Star Wars: Episode I." Much to the surprise of those who never sang along to "I Lost on Jeopardy," he's endured.

Because of his success, Al is virtually synonymous with the entire parody genre.

"When Napster was around, you'd do a search for my name, and half of the songs weren't by me," Weird Al says. "They were off-color, vulgar, stuff I would never do. But if it's a wacky parody, I get the blame for it."

That Weird Al never does off-color, vulgar stuff is integral to his appeal. He's family-friendly, goofy, roping the parents with "Eat It" and the kids with "Pretty Fly For a Rabbi."

"He has this wonderful sense of humor, but he's always appropriate. He does really bizarre things with words," says Vincent, 49, who runs a Web page devoted to Al, and shares a love of his music with her son, 30, and daughter, 14. "He's just really entertaining."

Like many fans, Vincent was disappointed that Weird Al skipped the fair last year. But she's thrilled by his excuse. At 42, after years of being single, and lots of jokes about his lack of dates (the VH1 "Behind the Music" special wondered why he was so obsessed with food), Weird Al got married.

"He's a complex guy, he's sweet and smart," says Suzanne Yankovic, who met Al on a blind date set up by a mutual friend, Bill Mumy, the kid from "Lost in Space." "But there's definitely a quirky side to him."

Returning to 'the hometown crowd'

Marriage hasn't much changed Weird Al, although the 80 Hawaiian shirts on display (of a collection five times that size) were the ones Suzanne deemed "too '80s ugly to stay in the house," Al says.

Weird Al also doesn't get recognized as often these days, probably because he had his eyesight fixed and grew a goatee to replace his signature mustache. "They were such a part of me that when they put me on 'Celebrity Deathmatch,' they showed me that way," Al says.

Who'd he fight?

"Al Gore," he says, sighing. "Unfortunately, he sucked my brains out though my eyeballs."

Walking around the exhibit, Weird Al is all grins, admitting that it's surreal to see old pictures on display and costumes he wears on stage behind glass. There he is, giving bunny ears to a producer. A looping radio interview has him saying that, if he were president, he'd ban Styrofoam. There's a picture of Don King -- "He has absolutely nothing to do with Al's life or career. We just wanted to see if you were paying attention," the placard says.

"I honestly didn't know I had this much of a career," Weird Al says.

He's kidding, but only a little. Weird Al is well aware of how much luck - added to hard work and talent, of course - has meant to his longevity. "It's absolutely unusual for a guy like me to be around this long," he says. "Rock careers are fairly short- lived in general, and for people who do what I do, they're usually one-hit wonders."

What set Al apart? "Boy, that's hard to say. I don't know. My warped sense of humor, I guess."

The Orange County Fair is Weird Al's only concert date this year, wooed as he was by the exhibit and what he considers "the hometown crowd."

But fans will travel long distances to be there, too, and Al knows who they are. They're the ones in the first three rows - every night.

"It's gratifying to see those guys," he says, dismissing any talk that his fans may be, well, weird.

"He's got the best fans in the world," Suzanne adds. "They are so loyal. It's fun to watch them at shows, the different moves they do. When he does 'Fat' and he jumps up in the fat suit, they all jump," like he's set off the Richter scale.

Weird Al is in negotiations with his record label, so he doesn't know when his next album will come out, but he promises one or two new songs for his fair performances.

Mostly, though, he's "just waiting for the next thing big enough to parody." Weird Al skipped the whole Britney Spears, 'N Sync wave, and isn't sure about Eminem. "He's huge, but his videos are like Weird Al videos already," he says.

"It's hard to say what the next big thing will be," Weird Al adds, and stops to mull it over.

"Moby, maybe," he says, and considers the possibilities. "I could shave my head for that." Weird Al Yankovic

When: 8 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 8 and 9:45 p.m. Friday

Where: Orange County Fair, Grandstand Arena

How much: $10

Also: The Weird Al Experience exhibit, next door to the Grandstand, free

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