And as I alluded to above, he wouldn’t be ripping off Coolio, he’d be ripping off Stevie Wonder.
Thanks acsenray, I always assumed permission was needed because Al always sought it, but as others have pointed out, that was just Al being respectful.
This is just my own wild speculation, but it sure seems like attention-grabbing on the part of Coolio. Weird Al does a parody, it becomes successful, then Coolio complains that the song was too important and serious to be taken so lightly.
So he gets to remain genuine in his persona, gets more attention from his “argument,” and gets more money from sales of both records. All this may depend on how much he knew about it, or how much he actually cared about it, but it sure seems like he got exactly what he wanted.
Count me in among the “Coolio’s ego thought his song was too high-falootin’ important for a parody” crowd.
It’s also worth mentioning that Al’s latest album was delayed due to a reverse of the Coolio situation: Al wrote “You’re Pitiful,” a parody of “You’re Beautiful,” with the blessings of James Blunt. But then Blunt’s label squelched the parody, and Al had to write additional songs for “Straight Outta Lynwood” to make up the difference. And since the only reason for the song to get yanked from the album was because of the suits, Al’s made it available as a free download instead. 
I’ve heard it live a couple of times in the last several years. He always busts out non-album parodies live, such as his brilliant parody of the Offspring’s “Keep 'em Seperated” called “Keep 'em Seperated” (about laundry). He did one when I saw him in 2000 that was a parody of Celene Dion’s Titanic song that had something to do with a pizza delivery guy (can’t remember the specifics).
Am I the only Weird Al fan too out-of-touch with popular music to know what he’s parodying anymore?
Ok, now I’m confused…if parodies are protected, how could the record company block the James Blunt parody?
No.
I don’t have any inside scoop on Weird Al, but my guess is that it has something to do with Yankovic’s own preference to move forward with a parody only after securing permission.
No, but that’s what Wikipedia’s for. 
It certainly clarified “Stuck in the Drive-Thru” and “Confessions Part III” for me.
I knew I was getting old when I listened to “Poodle Hat” and had no idea what about 3/4 of the songs on the polka medley were…
And “Ode to a Superhero” was the only parody whose original I knew.
As is already mentioned, one can parody a song without getting permission as per Campbell v. Acuff-Rose. However, Al always gets permission and pays royalties, presumably so that there are no hard feelings with the artist being parodied.
It costs time and money to push the issue. Volcano Records was disinclined to spend that time and money.
Related (but not really) was anyone else blown away by the scene in WA’s version that is shown in reverse and is great including the lip-sync! Is there any thing of this length in any other video. It seems like it ran for a long segment of the video compared to most small reverse sequences.
Sorry. Carry on.
It hadn’t occurred to me that keeping up (somewhat) with top 40 like my husband and I do has the additional bonus of making Al’s stuff better for us. Plus, there’s a lot of great music around these days. Honestly.
We just bought “Straight Outta Lynwood,” and it’s kinda hit-and-miss. “White and Nerdy” is absolutely brilliant, we love “Canadian Idiot” (for the obvious reason), and “Polkarama” is as good as any of his polkas. Some of his original stuff is weak as usual, and “Trapped in the Drive Thru” is an almost 11 minute long boring slice of life, and the album suffers from missing the James Blunt parody, but a solid outing, as usual.
I have a mental picture of 50 Cent listening to Al’s polka version of “Candy Shoppe,” and it just kils me. 
No. I heard the album a couple of weeks ago, and didn’t know a single thing on it. Reading the liner notes, I’d never heard of any of the songs nor most of the artists.
And earned Atlantic Records a spot of (dis)honor in the “White and Nerdy” video…
Weird Al is a fan of the Zucker/Abrams/Zucker films (he even appeared in all three Naked Gun movies), and the backwards scene in the Amish Paradise video is inspired by a similar backwards scene in the ZAZ film Top Secret! The ZAZ influence (sight gags-a-plenty) obviously rubs off in the videos that Al directed, especially Fat (one of my favorites)
My mistake- Al did not direct the Fat video, although it is a good example of his sense of humor.