Weird Al's Life and Career Trivia Quiz

Answer: October 23, 1959

Al was born on October 23rd, 1959. His drummer, Jon "Bermuda" Schwartz, was born on August 18th, 1956. Stephen Jay, Al's bass guitar player, was born January 26th. Although Steve is best known for bass, he is also fluent in ethnic percussion and on the banjo. Jim West, Al's other guitar player, was born December 18th. He also plays the banjo and mandolin.

Answer: 3626 Burton Avenue Lynwood, California

Al grew up here with his parents, and lived here until he moved off to college. This is also where he started on the accordian.

Answer: Nick and Mary Yankovic

Al's father, Nick Yankovic, grew up in Kansas City, Kansas. He came to California after World War II and worked in numerous jobs, including a steel factory, a pipe factory, a bedspring factory, and as a forklift operator, a security officer, and gas station attendant.

He semi-retired in 1977. In 1949, Nick married Mary Vivalda, who grew up in Kentucky. Mary went to business college, and was a switchboard operator for a bank, and later became a secretary and stenographer for Firestone.

Answer: October 22, 1966

It started when a door-to-door salesman came through their neighborhood and was offering accordion or guitar lessons. Al's parents chose accordion, due to famous accordion player Frankie Yankovic(no relation). They thought there should at least be one more accordion-playing Yankovic in the world. Little did they know what this would bring.

Answer: Kindergarten and Second

Al started kindergarten a year early, and was moved out of Second grade and placed in Third. Al was also valedictorian of his senior class. He was in two honor societies: The Roundtablers and The California Scholastic Foundation. He was in the Key Club, an offshoot of the Kiwanis, and he also worked on the school yearbook.

Answer: Dr. Demento Show

Al would tune into the Dr.'s show on Sunday evenings. He listened for a few weeks. Then, one night his mom came into the room when a "risque" song was on, and demanded that he turn it off. That didn't stop Al from listening though, and thank God it didn't. Who knows what would have happened if he didn't get warped by his weekly doses of Spike Jones, Allen Sherman, Tom Lehrer, and Stan Freberg.

Answer: True

Three years earlier, Al gave the Dr. a tape to enter into a contest that was going on at the time, for a new version of Dr. Demento's Theme Song. Al didn't win, which was about the only time he didn't. Al sent "Belvedere Cruising" to Dr. Demento in 1976.

Answer: "School Cafeteria"

Al sent this tape in just a few weeks after "Belvedere Cruising". Dr. Demento says he could see potential in Al because this tape was much better than "Belvedere Cruising". "School Cafeteria" was a song a student could relate to. One reason it made the Top Ten was because of a petition signed by many of Al's Lynwood High friends.

Answer: California Polytechnic State University

Al majored in Architecture at Cal Poly. Cal Poly was located in San Luis Obispo, California.

Answer: It was his DJ name on the campus radio station

When he was DJing on the campus radio station he couldn't play "weird" music. He had to follow the station's format. In his heart, though, he wanted to be the Dr. Demento for Cal Poly. Eventually, as time went by he could occasionally sneak some funnies into the show. His first shift was midnight to 3 A.M.

Answer: "My Bologna"

Al used Cal Poly's radio station equipment to record "My Bologna", his first parody, of the Knack's "My Sharona".

Answer: The men's bathroom across the hall from the campus radio station

Al thought that the bathroom gave a great acoustic sound. He got a great response to "My Bologna", better than all of his other hits, including "Take Me Down", which was a hit about SLO Town.

Answer: Capitol Records

Capitol Records released "My Bologna" as a single, and included "School Cafeteria" on the B-side. This was when Al thought that he might have a career in comedy music. He got another blow though, when Capitol had no intention of releasing his next song, "Baby Likes Burping", parody of the Knack's "Baby Talks Dirty". That's when he decided to finish school and see what happened from there.

He graduated in 1980 with a Bachelor Of Science degree.

Answer: False

Al turned the hit song by Queen into "Another One Rides The Bus", which was Al's biggest hit so far at that time.

Answer: True

Al met Jon at a performance on the Dr. Demento radio show. He later held audtions for guitar players, and Stephen Jay was the best out of them all. He brought along one of the people he used to play with in a couple bands. Jim had been playing professionally since he was 16. Later on, Al met his keyboard player Ruben Valtierra.

Answer: Tress MacNeille

Marlene Aragon provided voice-overs during the "commercials" in "I Can't Watch This". Natasha Barr did the sexy vocals on "It's All About The Pentiums". Mary Kay Bergman did some of the vocals on "Pretty Fly For A Rabbi".

Answer: "I Love Rocky Road"

He took over a defunct restaurant next to an airstrip in a small town 50 miles from L.A. to shoot "I Love Rocky Road".

Answer: True

Rick also played the guitar solo on "Eat It."

Answer: "In 3-D"

Also on the album was "Midnight Star", "The Brady Bunch", "Buy Me A Condo", "I Lost On Jeopardy", "Polkas On 45", "Mr. Popeil", "King Of Suede", "That Boy Could Dance", "Theme From Rocky XIII", and "Nature Trail To Hell".

Answer: Scotti Brothers Records

Yes, as much as I hate to admit it, Scotti Brothers did produce his albums up until that point. I have to give Scotti Brothers some credit though, since they gave Al his first chance- actually Capitol Records did. Also, Scotti Brothers felt like it had to issue "extra" Weird Al albums, such as two Greatest Hits Albums and two Food and TV Albums.

Answer: 27

Al has said many times that this is a "funny number". Also, I thought I'd give an easy one to you people out there. It's NOT 14!

Answer: March 21, 1981

It was at The Country Club in Reseda, California, at Dr. Demento's 10th Anniversary Live Show.

Answer: UHF

"UHF" came out in July of 1989, I think. I wasn't born yet, so I couldn't see it when it came out, but I have at least seen it 300 times, and especially since the "UHF" DVD came out.

Answer: True

Two different companies issued "Poodle Hat", Cinram and Sonopress. They're different because of the fact that the picture on the CD is farther away on Sonopress and closer on Cinram.

Answer: Yes

Al got married in 2002, to a very pretty Suzanne, and they had a daughter in 2003. Her name is Nina. They live in the Hollywood Hills, and have a pet cockatiel named Bo, and a poodle named Bela, who appears on Al's album cover.