My daughters recently had me watch on YouTube an accordion parody of Ke$ha’s Tik Tok, after which I felt compelled (out of my own need to show them how cool I am!) to share with them a video version of Weird Al Yankovic’s My Bologna. (See player below.) The song – a parody of the Knack’s My Sharona – was one of Weird Al’s early fores into the pop song parody world, of which he has, of course, become king. My daughters enjoyed it, by the way, and were particularly intrigued (translation: embarrassed) when I told them that in my mid-20s, I bore an uncanny resemblance to Weird Al. (I really did!)Listening to My Bologna brought back memories of Sunday evenings during my sophomore year in college, when my roommate and I had a standing date with The Dr. Demento Show, a nationally syndicated radio program, broadcast locally in Philadelphia on WYSP. Although he wasn’t really a doctor (and, in fact, Demento was not his real name – surprise, surprise! – it was actually Barret Eugene Hanson), Demento was an authority on obscure and novel songs, which were featured weekly on his show.
One of Dr. Demento's claims to fame is that he can be credited with discovering Weird Al Yankovic, who in the mid-seventies began sending Demento home-made tapes of his song parodies, which at that time featured Weird Al singing the lead vocal while accompanying himself on the accordion. The result was an amazingly lame, but absolutely hilarious, song parody style, a prime example of which can be heard on Yankovic’s My Bologna, produced in 1979.
For the next 30 years, Weird Al produced numerous song parodies/videos, including hits like Eat It, Another One Rides the Bus and Amish Paradise, all of which are impeccably produced, and single out Weird Al as the master of his genre.
Of course, as good as Weird Al is, I still have a warm spot in my heart for the music of an earlier song parodist, Allan Sherman (Hello Mudda, Hello Fadduh). I grew up listening to his record albums, and to this day can sing by heart the words to many of his songs. But more on Allan Sherman another time…. Do you remember him?
