Many people (even some besides Weird Al) have made parody songs based on popular songs. Sometimes the singers are good sports about it, but has anyone ever performed or recorded a popular parody of a song they originally made famous?
I seem to recall that Chamillionaire might have appeared in Weird Al’s “White & Nerdy” (based on "Ridin’ ") video, but I’m not sure about that.
Slightly differently, I knew someone who saw Don Henley appear onstage with Mojo Nixon to perform Mojo Nixon’s song “Don Henley Must Die”, which is being as good a sport as I can imagine.
Don McLean says when he performs “American Pie”, he sometimes accidentally starts singing Weird Al’s “The Saga Begins” instead. Which was based on the “American Pie” melody.
I don’t know about other singers covering parodies after the fact, but a couple of artists have appeared in Yankovic’s parodies of their work. Greg Kihn sang back up on “I Lost on Jeopardy” (a parody of his hit “Jeopardy”) and appeared in the video. And Mark Knopfler insisted on playing lead guitar on Al’s “Money For Nothing/Beverly Hillbillies” parody as a condition for giving Al permission to use his tune.
Even though Billy Joel’s “Uptown Girl” was not a parody of The Four Seasons, but an homage to them, I saw them perform it at the Skydome in Toronto. Their version could be construed as parody, as it wasn’t too great (they were obviously flattered). But I don’t expect to ever witness another original artist playing the song another artist recorded in tribute to them. If this doesn’t count, sorry.
I’m not sure if it was for “Eat It” or “I’m Fat” but Weird Al did a video in which he went to a dark eerie castle to approach an enthroned silent Michael Jackson for permission to parody his song, to which he responded with only a thumbs-up.
Ageing poptastic legend Cliff Richard first topped the UK singles chart in 1959 with Living Doll. His fifth No.1 was The Young Ones released in 1962.
The Young Ones was also the title of a BBC comedy series which ran for two seasons between 1982 and 1984. The theme song featured the cast members singing Richard’s The Young Ones.
For a Comic Relief item in 1986, Cliff Richard joined the cast members in a rendition of Living Doll which was issued as a single and again reached the top spot of the singles chart.
On **Let it Be ** Lennon adds a nonsense line to Get Back (“sweet loretta fat thought she was a cleaner but she was a frying pan”) before McCartney begins the song.
And Donovan similarly spoofed his own song Atlantis for a Futurama episode involving “The Lost City of Atlanta” (which has sunk under the waves by the 30th Century, despite being originally landlocked).
Did Al do any other Michael Jackson song parodies, because I know I saw it as prelude to a song video? Of course, they may have stitched it onto one of his prior videos.
I haven’t actually seen the segment, I just remember reading that it was a part of the mockumentary. If you saw it as a prelude to a video, it may have been on “Al TV” or some other show involving Weird Al. The first 10 minutes of it have been shown on TV, so that’s what you may have seen. I have seen both “Eat It” and “Fat”, but I never saw any extra footage attached to either one of those videos. As far as I know, they are the only two MJ parodies Al has done.
I videotaped “Al Music” when he “took over programming” at MuchMusic, Toronto back in the early '90s, and they showed the segment you refer to. I think it was an insert that they played before showing either or both of the MJ parody videos.
