I don’t listen to its news, but I value NPR for their Tiny Desk Concerts, intimate live performances held in their Washington DC office with only staffers as the audience. They released a new one last week featuring parodist extraordinaire Weird Al Yankovic, who started the show with a catchy tune I didn’t recognize.
Most of Yankovic’s spoofs involve writing new lyrics for established hits, but occasionally he writes a song in the style of a band without copying any single tune. “Skipper Dan” is one of those. Intended as a style pastiche of Weezer, it tells the poignant tale of a promising once-young actor who’s reduced to working as a tour guide on Disneyland’s Jungle Cruise ride.
The song sprang from a visit to Disneyland with his family, when one of the guides mentioned his failed acting career. “The bells went off in my head,” Yankovic said, “and I thought, ‘Well, here’s a song right here.'” He released it online with an animated video in 2009 before it appeared on his 2011 LP, “Alpocalypse.”
Fan opinion is sharply divided. Some find it hilarious; many think it’s just sad. A few get angry because they perceive Yankovic as punching down at people who didn’t make it. On Reddit, actors tend to react negatively, unless they work at one of the Disney theme parks – then they love it. Every Mouse House employee has heard it, apparently, and they say it’s spot-on.
Some listeners think it sounds less like Weezer and more like Fountains of Wayne, who often wrapped tales of middle-class disappointment in hook-filled melodies.
