Weird Al Yankovic
b. 1959, USA. Yankovic achieved popularity during the '80s by creating parodies of popular songs and accompanying himself with an accordion. Yankovic first found renown in 1979 with a parody of the Knack's hit My Sharona, retitled My Bologna . The song was recorded in a bathroom at a college he attended in San Luis Obispo, California, USA and played on the syndicated Dr. Demento radio programme. It subsequently appeared on a Rhino Records sampler album, DEMENTIA ROYALE, which led to further appearances on the Demento show. Another One Rides The Bus, Yankovic's version of Queen's Another One Bites The Dust, became the most-requested song in the 10-year history of the radio programme and was issued as a single on TK Records. 
In 1983 Yankovic signed to Rock ‘n’ Roll Records, a division of CBS, and released his self-titled debut album, produced by Rick Derringer. It included the Knack and Queen parodies as well as Ricky, a parody of the Toni Basil hit Mickey which doubled as a salute to the I LOVE LUCY television programme. WEIRD AL’ YANKOVIC IN 3-D, also produced by Derringer (as were all of Yankovic's albums through the '80s) was released in 1984 and reached number 17 in the USA, with the single Eat It, a take-off of Michael Jackson's Beat It, reaching number 12. All of his record releases were accompanied by videos which received heavy play on MTV, furthering Yankovic's appeal. With his Hawaiian shirts and crazed appearance, Yankovic was a natural for the video age, as a post-modern version of early '60s parodist Allan Sherman who was an inspiration to him. 
Although he included original material on his albums, all of it humorous in nature and much of it set to polka-like rhythms, Yankovic's biggest hits remained his song parodies. King Of Suede, a 1984 spoof of the Police's King Of Pain, was followed by I Lost On Jeopardy, a parody of Greg Kihn's Jeopardy which changed the focus to that of the US television game show JEOPARDY. In 1985, Yankovic took on Madonna, changing her Like A Virgin into Like A Surgeon. His final chart single of the '80s was Fat, which returned to Michael Jackson for inspiration, this time skewering his Bad. The jacket of EVEN WORSE, was itself a parody of Jackson's BAD. Yankovic appeared in the 1989 film UHF.