Best Of: "Weird Al" Yankovic / To Retire, Or Not To Retire?

Fresh Air

NPR

Tv & Film, Arts, Society & Culture, Books

4.4 • 34.4K Ratings

🗓️ 26 November 2022

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The hit parody artist "Weird Al" Yankovic talks about what made him weird — and bringing "the sexy back" to accordion. The new movie Weird, inspired by the story of his life, is a parody of music biopics.

TV critic David Bianculli reviews Wednesday, an Addams Familiy spin-off.

LA Times columnist Steve Lopez turned the issue of retirement into a reporting project, speaking to geriatric experts, a psychiatrist, a rabbi, plus people who had retired and some who refuse. His book is Independence Day.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	From WHY and Philadelphia, this is Fresh Air Weekend.
0:04.1	I'm Dave Davies, Infra Cherry Gross.
0:06.8	Today, Weird Al Yankovic.
0:08.9	La la la la la la la la la la la la la.
0:11.8	He talks about what made him weird,
0:13.9	and compares his life to the way he depicts his life
0:16.8	in the new film, Weird, a satirical biopic which he co-wrote.
0:21.5	It's a parody of a parodist.
0:23.7	Yankovic's instrument is the accordion,
0:25.9	and in the new film, Playing accordion gives him the status of a guitar hero.
0:30.3	I'm just trying to bring sexy back to the accordion.
0:33.0	Also author and LA Times columnist Steve Lopez
0:35.9	confronts a tough question.
0:37.6	Should he retire?
0:39.2	He puts on his journalist's hat to tackle the question.
0:42.1	He talks to geriatric experts to people who've quit working and love it,
0:46.2	and ageless wonders like male Brooks and Norman Lear, who never will.
0:50.6	And David B. and Cooley reviews the new Adams Family TV series
0:56.2	been off called Wednesday.
0:58.2	That's coming up on Fresh Air Weekend.
1:04.4	This is Fresh Air Weekend.
1:08.4	I'm Dave Davies, Infra Cherry Gross.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.