This year marks the 25th anniversary of Weird Al’s first music video, “Ricky,” which reimagined Tony Basil’s “Mickey” as an ode to I Love Lucy, and to celebrate, Wired has a lengthy profile on the L.A. performer calling him the forefather of people making YouTube spoofs of popular videos and details the difficulties of being a song parodist in a time when no song is truly transcendental across culture.
"Back in the '80s, 'Purple Rain' would be number one for half a year," Yankovic said. "You still have Top 40 radio now, but it's 40 different stations. There aren't many hits that everybody knows, and there aren't many real superstars. That makes it more difficult for me."
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