Music / "Weird Al" Yankovic in 3-D

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"Weird Al" Yankovic in 3-D (or just In 3-D) is the second studio album from "Weird Al" Yankovic. Released in 1984 through Rock 'n' Roll Records, the album was his first huge success. It featured the breakout hit "Eat It," which helped put him on the map as a star musical satirist.

It also established many elements of the typical formula for most of his future albums: all of the original songs being style-based parodies of other musical acts, the order in which they'd appear (odd-numbered tracks are parodies; even-numbered tracks are originals), a medley of other pop songs done as a polka, and the longest song going last.

Tracklist:

Side One

1. "Eat It"^note Parody of Michael Jackson's "Beat It".
2. "Midnight Star"
3. "The Brady Bunch"^note Parody of Men Without Hats' "The Safety Dance", featuring the lyrics to The Brady Bunch TV theme song.
4. "Buy Me a Condo"
5. "I Lost on Jeopardy"^note Parody of Greg Kihn's "Jeopardy"
6. "Polkas on 45"^note Title is a parody of the 1980s novelty band Stars on 45, best known for its self-titled 1981 medley single. Ironically, "Weird Al" didn't use any of the songs from "Stars on 45" in this medley.

Side Two

1. "Mr. Popeil"
2. "King Of Suede"^note Parody of The Police's "King Of Pain".
3. "That Boy Could Dance"
4. "Theme from Rocky XIII (The Rye or the Kaiser)"^note Parody of Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger", the real-life theme from Rocky III.
5. "Nature Trail to Hell"

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You can read all about it in the weekly TV Tropes.

• Acid Reflux Nightmare: Or in this case, an Acid Reflux Dream, as Al wakes up at the end of the video for "Eat It" feeling a pain in his stomach and dropping two antacid tablets in a glass of water.
• Album Title Drop: In "Nature Trail To Hell," making this Al's only album to have one that isn't just a Title Track.
  Nature trail to hell!
  Nature trail to hell!
  Nature trail to hell!
  In 3-D!
• Animal Eyes: "Weird Al" with cat eyes at the end of the video for "Eat It", parodying the ending of Michael Jackson's "Thriller".
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Don Pardo's speech that singles out Al as the worst loser that Jeopardy! has ever known is a barrage of insults ending with "You don't even get a lousy copy of our home game!"
• Badass Bookworm: "That Boy Could Dance".
  He was kind of a jerk, he was kind of a bore.
  But the women would scream when he walked in the door.
  'cause one thing I could tell you for sure — that boy could dance.
• Badbutt: The two gang leaders, who fight each other with eating utensils while holding a rubber chicken together, in the video for "Eat It".
• The Cameo: "I Lost on Jeopardy": The music video takes place on a reproduced version of the 1964-75 Jeopardy! set and features both Art Fleming and Don Pardo reprising their roles plus cameo appearances by band members, family members, Demento, and even the guy who sang the song Yankovic was parodying, Greg Kihn.
• Camera Abuse: Al fogs up the camera with his breath in the video for "Eat It".
• Careful with That Axe:
  • During the bridge of "Nature Trail to Hell".
  • The guitarist in "Eat It" plays his guitar so hard that it explodes in his hands.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: As this is the first album to include a polka medley, this one includes songs which span the (as of then) previous two decades of pop music as opposed to songs that were popular at the time.
• Face on the Cover: "Weird Al" emerging from a slanted picture frame.
• Finger-Snapping Street Gang: His parody hit "Eat It" has a music video that mirrors Michael Jackson's, including a West Side Story homage to the finger-snapping Jets.
• Food Songs Are Funny: "Eat It", "Theme from Rocky XIII".
• Formerly Fit: The opening stanza in "Theme from Rocky XIII" is about Rocky post-retirement.
  Fat and weak, what disgrace.
  Guess the champ got too lazy.
  Ain't gonna fly now, he's just taking up space
  Sold his gloves, threw his eggs down the drain
• Game Show Appearance: The subject of "I Lost on Jeopardy." Amusingly, he later appeared on Rock & Roll Jeopardy! in 2001 and lost.
• Genius Ditz: Jimmy the Geek in "That Boy Could Dance", an awkward nerd who smells bad, has acne, never got a driver's license, had a bad sense of fashion. His one hidden talent: he had some awesome dancing skills, and later on, he has his own dance studio, fan club, and TV show when he grows up, and he owns half of Montana.
• "Have a Nice Day" Smile: Seen on the back of the black gang leader's jacket in the video for "Eat It".
• Here We Go Again!: From the last verse of "I Lost on Jeopardy!":
  Well, I sure hope I do better
  Next weekend on The Price Is Right.
• Humiliation Conga: Al is subjected to a shamefully embarrassing one of these in "I Lost on Jeopardy":
  Don Pardo: That's right Al—you lost! And let me tell you what you didn't win: a twenty-volume set of the Encyclopedia International, a case of Turtle Wax, and a year's supply of Rice-a-Roni, the San Francisco treat. But that's not all! You also made yourself look like a jerk in front of millions of people! And you brought shame and disgrace on your family name for generations to come! You don't get to come back tomorrow! You don't even get a lousy copy of our home game! You're a complete loser!!
• In the Style of:
  • "Buy Me A Condo" - Bob Marley and reggae
  • "Mr. Popeil" - The B-52s
• Medley: "Polkas On 45". Songs featured in it are:
  • "Beer Barrel Polka" by Jaromír Vejvoda
  • "Jocko Homo" by Devo
  • "Smoke on the Water" by Deep Purple
  • "Sex (I'm A...)" by Berlin
  • "Hey Jude" by The Beatles
  • "L.A. Woman" by The Doors
  • "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" by Iron Butterfly
  • "Hey Joe" by The Jimi Hendrix Experience
  • "Burning Down the House" by Talking Heads
  • "Hot Blooded" by Foreigner
  • "Bubbles in the Wine" by Lawrence Welk
  • "Every Breath You Take" by The Police
  • "Should I Stay or Should I Go" by The Clash
  • "Jumpin' Jack Flash" by The Rolling Stones
  • "My Generation" by The Who
  • "Ear Booker Polka" by "Weird Al" Yankovic
• Let's Just See What WOULD Have Happened: In the bridge to "I Lost on Jeopardy!", Don Pardo announces all the prizes that Al didn't win upon fulfilling the song's title: twenty volumes of the Encyclopedia International, a case of Turtle Wax, a year's supply of Rice-a-Roni, his dignity, his family's dignity, a spot on the next episode, and the show's board game.
• Longest Song Goes Last: The album ends with "Nature Trail To Hell" (5:50)
• Mundane Made Awesome: "King of Suede", a passionately-delivered song about... selling clothes.
• Now How Much Would You Pay: Called out verbatim in "Mr. Popeil."
• Off with His Head!: A female in the Bad Guy Bar gets her head pulled off her body and handed over to another person in the video for "Eat It".
• Parody Assistance: If the video for "I Lost on Jeopardy" didn't take it up to eleven, it sat right in between there and ten. Appearances by (last, at the time) host Art Fleming, announcer Don Pardo (also on the track), and even Greg Kihn of the original song, "Jeopardy".
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Al gets a doozy of one from Don Pardo at the end of "I Lost on Jeopardy" which crosses over into Disproportionate Retribution.
• Record Producer: Rick Derringer.
• Ridiculous Future Sequelisation: "Theme From Rocky XIII" suggests that many entries in the Rocky franchise.
• Ripped from the Headlines: "Midnight Star" contains several headlines from actual supermarket tabloids including one about "The Incredible Frog-Boy!"
• Shout-Out:
  • The album art is modeled after the poster for the 1953 3-D film Sangaree.
  • "Midnight Star" featured several headlines originally used in Weekly World News. In the liner notes to Permanent Record, it was noted that Al kept the article about "The Incredible Frog Boy" for a long time.
  • The single, echoing piano chord at the end of "Nature Trail To Hell" parodies the cacophonous three-piano ending of "A Day In The Life" by The Beatles.
  • "Polkas On 45" is named after the Dutch novelty group Stars on 45, known for doing medleys of note-for-note re-recordings of contemporary pop hits.
  • "King Of Suede" paraphrases the chorus of "Blue Suede Shoes" by Carl Perkins (later made famous by Elvis Presley).
• Slasher Movie: The genre's tropes are mocked in "Nature Trail To Hell".
• Special Guest: In a play on Eddie Van Halen providing the guitar solo in "Beat It", "Eat It" has producer Rick Derringer himself providing the guitar solo for the parody. His guitar explodes at the end of it.
• Spit Take: A person in a greasy spoon diner does this when another person pats him on the back to summon him in the early part of the video for "Eat It".
• Spoken Word in Music: Don Pardo guest-stars in "I Lost On Jeopardy" to give "Weird Al" a "The Reason You Suck" Speech.
• Subliminal Seduction: Parodied in the backmasked phrase in the song "Nature Trail to Hell". ("Satan eats Cheez Whiz!")
• Second Place Is for Losers: Exaggerated with Don Pardo's speech to Al coming in third place in "I Lost on Jeopardy", listing all the consolation prizes he won't be receiving.
• Title Track: By way of the chorus of "Nature Trail to Hell".
• Toilet Humour: A belch is heard in "Eat It".
• Would Hurt a Child: The homicidal maniac in "Nature Trail to Hell".

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