‘Weird Al’ Yankovic Rocks NPR’s Tiny Desk With All-Parodies Set: ‘We Did So Great They Invited Us Back 16 Years Later!’

If you’ve never seen legendary song parodist and accordion maestro “Weird Al” Yankovic live, then, seriously, what are you even doing? But if you haven’t, you’re in luck because the “Dare to Be Stupid” legend left his squeeze box at home, but still squeezed his eight-member Bigger and Weirder live band into the aptly named NPR Tiny Desk studio for set of four of his original songs this week.

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The set opened with the 2011 Alpocalypse Weezer/Fountains of Wayne homage “Skipper Dan,” a tribute to a failed actor’s lament about the mind-numbing work of manning the Jungle Cruise at Disneyland. “I’m a tour guide on the Jungle Cruise ride/ Skipper Dan is the name/ And I’m doin’ 34 shows every day,” Al crooned over the song’s chunky guitar and chugging rhythm. “And every time it’s the same/ Look at those hippos, they’re wigglin’ their ears/ Just like they’ve done for the last 50 years/ Now I’m laughin’ at my own jokes but I’m cryin’ inside/ ‘Cause I’m workin’ on the Jungle Cruise ride,” he added with some coordinated group hand claps.

In his typical self-deprecating fashion, Yankovic said it was great to be back at the Tiny Desk for the first time in nearly two decades — he played all originals for his first visit in 2010 — joking, “Apparently we did so great [in 2010] they invited us back 16 years later.”

He lamented that his second selection, “eBay” was “ripped off” by the Backstreet Boys two years before he wrote it, but soldiered on with the “I Want It That Way” homage from 2003’s Poodle Hat anyway, listing the treasures he’s found such as a used pink bathrobe, an ALF alarm clock and William Shatner’s old toupee.

Yankovic admitted that his next selection was not a fan favorite or even a hit people ask for, but it is one of his only original songs he’s recorded since his last studio album, 2014’s Mandatory Fun. He then cued up the closing credits, Emmy-losing blues-rock theme from his 2022 kind-of biopic Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, “Now You Know,” complete with multiple fake endings.

The command performance concluded with his classic 1999 Running With Scissors parody of Don McLean’s “American Pie,” the actual fan favorite “The Saga Begins.” Though said he felt “naked” without the band’s usual Star Wars drag for the tribute to the George Lucas universe, Yankovic closed his eyes and pumped an acceptable amount of emotion into the chorus, “Oh my, my, this here Anakin guy/ Maybe Vader someday later, now he’s just a small fry/ And he left his home and kissed his mommy goodbye/ Saying, ‘Soon I’m gonna be a Jedi.'”