Photo Courtesy of assets-s3.usmagazine.com
Weird Al Yankovic has brought on the hilarity again with his latest number “Tacky,” a parody of Pharrell Williams’ hit song and 24-hour music video “Happy.” The pop-funk mash-up is a perfect pick for the first parody-single off of Weird Al’s new album “Mandatory Fun,” which was released today. The rest of the album will include parodies of other recent hits, such as Iggy Azalea’s “Fancy,” Lorde’s “Royals,” Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines,” and Imagine Dragons’ “Radioactive.” Produced by Nerdist, the “Tacky” music video not only features Weird Al and his weird self, but guests a twerking Jack Black, Eric Stonestreet, Kristen Schaal, Margaret Cho, and Aisha Tyler all mirthfully moving through the Palace Theater in Los Angeles, which also happened to be used as Julianne Moore’s apartment in “The Big Lebowski.”
Weird Al does takes a page from Pharrell’s music video by featuring uniquely different individuals (otherwise known as your average “people”) dancing their hearts out while lip-syncing the words. The lyrics for “Tacky,” however, address a subject other than being “Happy.” Weird Al sings, “It might seem crazy wearing stripes with plaid / I instagram every meal I’ve had,” as he flaps his arms around and wiggles his lanky legs, actually wearing swirly-striped pants of brown, orange, and pink, with a painfully loud shirt covered in every pattern imaginable, and a jacket that looks like a collage of an ocean reef impression. “Never let you forget some favor I did for you / If you’re okay with that, then, you might just be tacky, too.” The verses carry on with other examples of rude behavior that make people incredibly uncomfortable as various performers awkwardly sing into the camera doing the oddest dance moves they can come up with.
For the bridge, Weird Al replaces Pharrell’s “Can’t nothin’ / bring me down,” with his own, “Can’t nothin’ / bring me shame,” and continues listing tacky behavior from fashion to being a guest to relationships to saying things you should keep to yourself. His fellow dancing comedians parade through the Palace Theater lip-syncing in delightfully tacky ensembles until the camera finds Weird Al again and he leads us outside so the camera can pan away to the blue sky. Happily tacky ever after.
Watch the happily “Tacky” music video here. View the “Tacky” lyrics here.