Album: Even Worse (1988)
Charted: 80 99
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Songfacts®:

  • A parody of Michael Jackson's hit "Bad," this song is all about the state of being overweight. It's similar in concept to Yankovic's previous Jackson parody, "Eat It."

    Food is a common theme in Al's parodies - he drew inspiration from cafeterias when he started writing songs.
  • The video is based on "Bad," with Al wearing a fat suit and gorging himself throughout the clip. It was a big-budget production with special effects that required lots of ingenuity - to make Al's face expand, tubes were placed in the latex on his face and inflated by technicians blowing through them.

    The subway set is the same one used in the "Bad" video. Jackson had built an exact replica of the original set for his Moonwalker film that was used in the segment called "Badder". Before taking it down he offered it to Yankovic for use in his clip. Yankovic said that Jackson's support helped to gain approval from other artists he wanted to parody.
  • Weird Al stopped performing this song and "Eat It" in 2019 after HBO aired the Leaving Neverland documentary, which makes accusations of child abuse against Jackson.
  • His food-themed parodies of Jackson's hits earned him the chance to open for the King of Pop on tour, but he turned down the offer to work with Al on the box-office bomb UHF. Although the movie tested well with preview audiences, it couldn't compete against huge blockbusters such as Batman and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
  • This won the Grammy Award for Best Concept Music Video in 1989.

Comments: 1

  • Moosehead from Scmy son LOVES him some of that weird AL. we just watched the movie. very clever fellow. go RJ!
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