ROKU Original WEIRD: The Al Yankovic Story tells the story of the weirdly famous Al Yankovic who made a career out of being weird and putting his own spin on the lyrics of already famous songs. By doing that, he not only made fame for himself but also helped the sales of the original songs as we’re shown in the film.
The film is full of weird moments and not only that, we’re introduced by some of Al’s not-so-good moments where he’s smashing to phone on the table too many times when Tony Scotti of the Scotti Brothers Records informing him that someone else just put his own words on an original song of him, Al which gets him furious, ironically.
Well, in the film it was Michael Jackson who released a song called “Beat It” after Al Yankovic had released his song “Eat It”. Ironically, Al is enraged and furiously asks “What kind of monster does that to an artist, changing words to the lyrics?” because that’s what Al had been doing all along.
After Al doesn’t think of himself as a true artist since he only just changes lyrics and decides to not do that anymore and after a night of LSD that he’s deliberately given by Dr. Demento, he comes up with “Eat It” and after that Michael Jackson releases “Beat It”.
So, does that mean that Michael Jackson copied Al Yankovic’s song?? Isn’t it interesting that the pop culture star that we so know had copied a song from Al Yankovic? Well, that’s not correct.
Michael Jackson released “Beat It” in 1982 and it wasn’t until 1984 that Al Yankovic released his masterpiece “Eat It” so technically what the film showed you is a lie and tremendously weird but then, what else other than weird can you expect from Weird “Al” Yankovic right?
WEIRD: The Al Yankovic Story is streaming on ROKU.