Weird Al Yankovic takes a stab at everything from the much-hated Comic Sans font to the annoying habit of posting food pictures on Instagram in his latest geektastic album "Mandatory Fun." To promote his record, the comedy crooner is releasing eight music videos in eight days on his website.
"I'll let each one of my videos go viral for a day," Yankovic said in an interview with Diffuser. "I'll make release week a special event. There's no precedent. I'm trying to see what's going to work and this seemed like a fun thing to try."
Yankovic's first video "Tacky" -- which parodies Pharrell's hit song "Happy" -- mocks YOLO license plates, bad Yelp reviews, twerking in lines, and taking selfies at funerals. His comedy comrades Jack Black, Margaret Cho, Aisha Tyler, Kristen Schaal, and Eric Stonestreet provide hilarious cameos in the video which was actually filmed in one continuous shot.
"While it looks like there might have been an edit somewhere, I absolutely guarantee you, that was all done in ONE CONTINUOUS SHOT," Yankovic revealed in his Reddit Ask Me Anything interview this week. "That was a bit of a challenge for me, because I start the video on a 5th floor fire escape, and I reappear on street level wearing completely different clothes. That means - for every take - as soon as the camera was off me I had to run down five flights of stairs while changing my clothes so I could be on camera again at the end. Definitely got my workout that day!"
"'Tacky' was the most fun I ever had on a video shoot," Yankovic added in his Reddit AMA interview. "It was over much too soon. I would have been happy shooting that thing all day and night! It was a huge honor to work with such a talented, professional, FUNNY group of people (Aisha Tyler, Margaret Cho, Eric Stonestreet, Kristen Schaal and Jack Black). And it was an honor and a privilege to engage in a rap battle with Bill Nye's doppelganger."
The new album also parodies Lorde's "Royals" with his song "Foil." In the video, Yankovic reminds listeners that the aluminum foil protects food from spoiling and our minds from aliens and the Illuminati. Comedy pal Patton Oswalt makes a cameo in the video as his exasperated director, and Tom Lennon and Robert Ben Garant show up as the Men in Black.
Yankovic's "Word Crimes" video, which parodies Robin Thicke's song "Blurred Lines," warns us all about using the wrong punctuation and word choices, which undoubtedly will become the next anthem for the Grammar Police already dominating Twitter.
Imagine Dragons' "Radioactive" and Iggy Azalea's "Fancy," among other songs, get the full Yankovic treatment on "Mandatory Fun." Alas there's no new "Star Wars" parody on this new album.
"I used to joke that 'I do a Star Wars parody every 20 years, like clockwork!'" Yankovic said in his Reddit AMA interview. "I guess we're not too far away from the next 20-year anniversary! I really don't know if I'll ever do another Star Wars song -- I've already got two of them in the live show, and more than that would probably be pushing it! But hey never say never. Oh man, did I just quote Bieber?"
Visit his official site to see new music videos drop, with the last one debuting on July 20.