Trivia / "Weird Al" Yankovic (Album)

• Approval of God:
  • Reportedly, Lucille Ball loved "Ricky" and its accompanying music video, to the point where Al received a signed letter expressing her gratitude. Al claims Desi Arnaz said he liked the song as well, but he did not send a letter.
  • Queen guitarist Brian May went on record stating that he found "Another One Rides the Bus", a parody of "Another One Bites the Dust", "extremely funny."
• Creator Backlash: Al views this entire album quite harshly because of the rushed, barely hours-long recording process done on spec. This led to what he felt was amateur audio production and versions of songs that were poorly balanced and in rushed tempos. However, Al has singled out his distaste for specific songs in interviews, regardless of production issues:
  • Al views "Gotta Boogie" as juvenile even by his standards, to the point it was one of the few original album songs completely absent from the set lists of The Ridiculously Self-Indulgent Ill-Advised Vanity Tour, as well as the one song he'd specifically cite in interviews that it would be absent on the tour.
  • "The Check's In The Mail" heavily relies on showbusiness lingo that was everywhere in the late 70's/early 80's but would be completely foreign to listeners today. Because of this, Al has referred to this song as dated and antiquated.
  • "I'll Be Mellow When I'm Dead" blatantly belittles both health food and vegetarians. Ever since Al became vegetarian himself in 1992, he has decidedly never performed this song live.
• Exiled from Continuity: Al admitted in an interview that he stopped performing "Buckingham Blues" after the death of Princess Diana.
• Orphaned Punchline: The LP was the only format on which the album was released which included a photo on the back of Al on a rock stage imagining himself happily sitting up in bed, turning the cover illustration of Al sitting up in bed imagining himself as a rock star into a Brick Joke.
• Throw It In!: The album version of "Another One Rides the Bus" was recorded as a soundcheck on the Dr. Demento show. The producers felt it was good enough to release as a single.
• What Could Have Been: "Buckingham Blues" was originally written as a parody of "Jack and Diane" by John Mellencamp. According to Al, Mellencamp chose not to give him permission to parody the song since he was planning on releasing a "Jack and Diane" movie at the time. Al eventually would perform a different parody of "Jack and Diane" on an episode of The Simpsons.

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