February 28, 1984: "Weird Al" Yankovic Wants You to "Eat It"

February 28, 1984: "Weird Al" Yankovic releases his album "Weird Al" Yankovic in 3-D. It contains his best-known song, "Eat It."

Alfred Matthew Yankovic was born on October 23, 1959 in the Los Angeles suburb of Downey, California, and grows up in neighboring Lynwood. Known as "Weird Al" Yankovic (always billed with the nickname in quotation marks) rose to fame copying Michael Jackson, turning Jacko's songs "Beat It" into "Eat It" (which actually hit Number 12 in the Billboard Hot 100, an extraordinary feat for a parody) and "Bad" into "Fat."

Early on, he seemed to specialize in food, turning The Knack's "My Sharona" into "My Bologna," Joan Jett's "I Love Rock and Roll" into "I Love Rocky Road," and Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger," from the film Rocky III, into "The Rye or the Kaiser." Years later, he became a vegan, and people asked him how he can be a vegan and still sing songs about meat. He said, "The same way I can rationalize playing at a college even though I'm not a student anymore." In a 2011 interview, he said he was still a vegetarian, but not a strict vegan, because he likes cheese on pizza.

Since this was the founding era of MTV, he also had to copy the videos, matching the joke along the way, and he turned out to be every bit as good at it as the original performers. A personal favorite of mine is his copy of James Brown's "Living In America" from Rocky IV as "Living With a Hernia."

He could have remained a briefly popular novelty act, like Jewish comedians and parodists Mickey Katz (father of Joel Grey and grandfather of Jennifer Grey) in the mid-1950s, and Allan Sherman in the early 1960s; or a niche performer, like political comedian and parodist Mark Russell, who, given his age (born in 1932, and still alive, but retired in 2016), specialized in Tin Pan Alley and show tunes.

But a funny thing happened on the way to becoming irrelevant: He didn't. He kept copying the trends of the time, and since he was an admitted joke -- unlike, say, Milli Vanilli or Vanilla Ice -- people accepted it.

He got more famous than ever in 1996, when he turned Coolio's "Gangsta's Paradise" into "Amish Paradise," which had fun with the image of the Amish while still managing to show respect for them. He even had an actual Top 10 hit in 2006, when he turned Chamillionaire's "Ridin' Dirty" into "White and Nerdy."

With his 2014 album Mandatory Fun, he turned Robin Thicke's twisting of Marvin Gaye's "Got to Give It Up," "Blurred Lines," into "Word Crimes," and it may be his best work: You don't even have to know Thicke's version to like it. (Lucky you.)

That same year, he played Isaac Newton against Nice Peter's Bill Nye on an episode of Epic Rap Battles of History, proving that a 54-year-old Polish guy from the L.A. suburbs could flow with the best of them.

In 2022, he produced the film Weird: The Al Yankovic Story. He was played by Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe. But it was a parody of rock star biographies. It suggested that Michael Jackson did "Beat It," stealing "Eat It" from him. It suggested an affair with Madonna, played by Evan Rachel Wood. It suggested that his father initially opposed his music career, based on his own experience, having left the Amish to be a musician, leading to "Amish Paradise." Finally, it showed Madonna having him assassinated, then standing over his grave, before a zombie Al pulls her in with him. As with everything else, Al let everyone know that the movie was a joke.

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February 28, 1984 was a Tuesday. Baseball and football were out of season. There were 9 games played in the NBA:

* The Detroit Pistons beat the Atlanta Hawks, 101-96 at The Omni in Atlanta.

* The Washington Bullets beat the Indiana Pacers, 100-92 at the Market Square Arena in Indianapolis.

* The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Chicago Bulls, 124-108 at the Chicago Stadium.

* The Kansas City Kings beat the Cleveland Cavaliers, 142-137 in double overtime at the Kemper Arena (now the Hy-Vee Arena) in Kansas City. World B. Free scored 35 points.

* The Houston Rockets beat the Seattle SuperSonics, 111-105 at The Summit in Houston. (The arena is now the Central Campus of the Lakewood Church, Joel Osteen's "megachurch." Lewis Lloyd of the Rockets scored 36 points.

* The Dallas Mavericks beat the San Antonio Spurs, 116-104 at the HemisFair Arena in San Antonio. Mike Mitchell scored 44 for the Spurs.

* The Phoenix Suns beat the Utah Jazz, 113-100 at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum.

* The Golden State Warriors beat the Denver Nuggets, 140-137 in overtime at the Oakland Coliseum Arena. Mickey Johnson of the Warriors scored 40 points.

* And the Portland Trail Blazers beat the San Diego Clippers, 117-99 at the Portland Memorial Coliseum.

And there were 5 games played in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers and the New Jersey Devils, metropolitan area rivals, played to a tie, 3-3 at the Brendan Byrne Arena at the Meadowlands.

* The Quebec Nordiques beat the Detroit Red Wings, 6-2 at the Colisée de Québec.

* The Vancouver Canucks beat the Washington Capitals, 3-2 at the Capital Centre in the Washington suburb of Landover, Maryland.

* The St. Louis Blues beat the Minnesota North Stars, 5-2 at the St. Louis Arena.

* And the Calgary Flames beat the Los Angeles Knigs, 9-1 at the Saddledome in Calgary.