It seems like the YouTube age of digital media was made for someone like Weird Al Yankovic.
The king of parody turned his ever sarcastic eye toward Lorde’s infectious song “Royals” for his latest video off the newly-released Mandatory Fun album. Weird Al, who teamed up with CollegeHumor for the spoof, goes to great length to dish on the advantages of aluminum foil in the hilarious clip.
When it comes to taking on “molds and oxidation” with his leftovers, Weird Al ensures listeners that he’s “got a secret up his sleeve” in the form of aluminum foil:
“Never settle for less/The kind of wrap is just the best/To keep your sandwich nice and fresh.”
Patton Oswald, who plays a sleepy director of a food channel special, calmly watches on as Weird Al continues to rap on the benefits of aluminum foil. He’s awakened however when Weird Al somehow starts ranting about the Illuminati’s plans to take over the world.
But never fear. Though Weird Al insists the government always “has someone watching you,” it’s his aluminum foil hat that protects him from the New World Order they have planned. His new accessory also keeps the aliens from probing his brain… or his butt.
The video wraps with Thomas Lennon and Ben Garant from MTV’s The State and Comedy Central’s Reno 911 appearing as men in black. The duo storm the stage to take Weird Al away. I guess he was on to something with all of that Illuminati talk after all. If only Lorde’s “Royals” was as informative as “Foil.”
For anyone other than Weird Al Yankovic, this kind of twist on “Royals” might just be down right…well, weird. But for the brilliance that is Weird Al, this song is right in line with his zany sense of humor. As reported by The Inquisitr , Weird Al recently debuted Mandatory Fun with a spoof on Pharell Williams’ song “Happy” called “Tacky.” Yankovic followed that video with his own take on Robin Thicke’s equally famous song “Blurred Lines.” Weird Al’s version was instead called “Word Crimes.”
Weird Al went into detail about Mandatory Fun and parody in the age of YouTube during an interview with NPR recently. Weird Al expressed how YouTube by its nature creates greater challenges when trying to parody a song simply because of the greater amount of competition out there:
“When I do my parodies, because of YouTube, I’m never the first person to do a parody of a certain song. And all the obvious ideas seem to be taken already, so nowadays when I do a parody I try to think of an angle that might be a little bit different or left-of-center that somebody else hasn’t thought of already. And I don’t think anybody, to this point, had done a ‘Blurred Lines’ parody about proper use of grammar.”
Watch Weird Al Yankovic’s “Foil” video here: