Weird Al

How come you're always such a fussy young man?
Don't want no Captain Crunch, don't want no Raisin Bran
Well, don't you know that other kids are starving in Japan?
So eat it, just eat it

Follow me back to the era of Trapper Keepers and Transformers. Michael Jackson and Madonna are dominating pop music charts, and MTV is a brand new cultural phenomenon.

In the midst of all the hero-worship and lowest common denominator songwriting, what we need more than anything else is for someone to throw a rock right into the middle of the pond.

In the same way that Monty Python questioned the status quo by way of humor during the 1970s, along came Weird Al Yankovic doing something similar during the 80s, but with his own particular style. Some heroes wear capes; Al wore trademark Hawaiian shirts and played the accordion.

I first heard Al some time in elementary school, where the coolest thing you could imagine was a Michael Jackson jacket (at least one kid had a good one). It’s really hard to overstate…