Fat (song)
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| “Fat” | |||||
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| Single by "Weird Al" Yankovic from the album Even Worse |
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| B-side | "You Make Me" | ||||
| Released | April 12, 1988 | ||||
| Format | 7", 12" | ||||
| Recorded | February 18, 1988 | ||||
| Genre | Comedy | ||||
| Length | 3:55 | ||||
| Label | Scotti Brothers | ||||
| Producer | "Weird Al" Yankovic | ||||
| "Weird Al" Yankovic singles chronology | |||||
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| Even Worse track listing | |||||
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"Fat" is a song by "Weird Al" Yankovic. It is a parody of "Bad" by Michael Jackson. It is the second parody Yankovic did of a Jackson song, the first being "Eat It", a parody of Jackson's "Beat It". "Fat" is the first song on Yankovic's Even Worse album.
Nowadays, when the song is performed in concert, Yankovic wears a fat suit and a mask that makes his face appear fat. Though he has undergone laser vision correction surgery, he wears glasses for this song, which are needed to hold the mask on. Since he no longer needs to use actual glasses, the lenses on the mask have since been changed to clear plastic.
Contents |
[edit] Track listing
The following tracks are on the single:
- "Fat" – 3:55
- "You Make Me" – 3:04
The promo single only contains "Fat".
[edit] Music video
The video for "Fat" parodies various elements of the "Bad" video by Jackson. Here is a list depicting some parody elements:
- The lighting in Jackson's video is much darker. Yankovic filmed his parody video with much brighter lighting, and it appears as though it was filmed in the daytime.
- The video begins with a non-musical black-and-white scene, as in the original, but it is much shorter. It starts at the subway station with one gang of obese men (led by Lou B. Washington, who soon after joined the cast of Al's film UHF) criticizing Al for not eating much unhealthy food lately (possibly a parody of real gangsters pressuring unsuspecting kids to try drugs). They try to get Al to eat a slice of pizza, a hamburger and a Ding Dong, which they pull out of their pockets. The original video showed Jackson coming back from high school and his old street friends bugging him about going to school and becoming soft.
- The lines "Are you fat, or what?" and "You ain't fat, you ain't nothing!" mimic lines in the original, only using the word "fat" instead of "bad".
- In the beginning the dancers can be seen goofing off. Two of them miss a high five, while another can be seen waving to the men Al was just talking to, or possibly the viewer. He then gets his nose pinched from behind by another of the dancers. As a whole the group looks disorganized and fidgety, as a parody of the precise choreography in Michael Jackson's video.
- Yankovic has six dancers. The original video has Jackson with twenty dancers.
- The six dancers from Jackson which are now with Yankovic in the video are obese instead of skinny. They are also dressed similarly to the dancers in Bad.
- In order to get the dancers Yankovic simply advertised for "very fat dancers" in a trade journal, and his hunch that such people might exist was soon proven right. Yankovic stated in the liner notes for Permanent Record: Al in the Box that one of the dancers was actually a pizza delivery guy who delivered pizzas to the casting office. (He was put in the video because he had the "perfect physique", according to Yankovic)
- Instead of a troupe of dancers sliding along the ground, the beginning of "Fat" shows Yankovic getting fatter and fatter.
- Yankovic's black outfit is similar to Jackson's, but the buckle and zipper ornamentation is exaggerated.
- Yankovic does Jackson's famous "crotch-grab", but with humorous sound effects added, such as a "boing" and a cowbell.
- In the original song, Jackson says "cham-on", a distortion of the phrase "come on." Yankovic parodies this on one occasion by saying "ham-on, ham-on, ham on whole wheat."
- When Yankovic tries to jump over the turnstiles on the first bridge of the song, he can't get over. Jackson, by contrast, easily jumps on then off.
- In one musical interlude, Yankovic jumps on a dancer and crushes him. Jackson merely jumps on his shoulder.
- In "Bad", Jackson moves in a circle while the camera follows him. In "Fat", Yankovic does the same thing, but for much longer. Eventually, Yankovic moves too fast, and begins to fly. He grabs a hold of the tripod to not fly away, but loses his grip and flies off with a startled cry.
- When Yankovic flings his arms around, sound effects are heard. This is direct reference to the noises heard when Jackson flings his arms. Yankovic acts confused testing out the sound effect movements, and moves other parts of his body, making other sound effects. Al's dancers also appear confused.
- In "Bad", Jackson and his dancers scream loudly for no reason at random times. Yankovic parodies this by having a scene where he and his dancers scream "Ho!" every now and then. One of the dancers hands Yankovic a particular gardening tool, and Yankovic comments on it by saying "Hoe!" This also occurs when the song is performed live, though, occasionally, a man in a Santa Claus suit comes on stage and is belly-bumped (or, as seen on "Weird Al" Yankovic Live!, punched in the face) by Al. In the Straight Outta Lynwood tour, in keeping with the "gangsta" theme of the latest album, the man dressed as Santa was replaced by a man dressed as a promiscuous woman. Al points at the visitor and shows "Ho!"
- The camera follows Yankovic and the other dancers as they run through the station, when Yankovic is handed the gardening tool. After a brief pause, he and the others realize the camera is still moving, and they start to run again, moving even faster to try to get into the camera's viewpoint. Eventually they disappear off-camera. Upon returning to where they left off its discovered that they are now catching their breath from the running that Jackson and his troupe are able to do easily. Yankovic leans against a pillar and tilts it.
- When Yankovic runs up the steps and removes the air vent cover, he spins and flourishes excessively in a parody of Jackson's dancing advance towards the vent. Also, the wind in this video is much stronger. Several dancers get blown away, and Yankovic holds up a small pinwheel-type fan, and stays standing as his dancers are blown out of site. A chicken is seen passing by the camera.
- Instead of dancers dancing near the end, we see the dancers bumping into each other. In this scene, the word "FAT" is spray painted on the wall instead of "BAD".
- At one point near the end, Jackson whoops three times in a row. The third time, Yankovic holds up a speech bubble containing the word, "Woo!" instead of actually singing it.
- The wanted poster near the end is different. Instead of, "Wanted for sacrilege", with the word "BAD" below, it states, "Wanted for gluttony", with the word "FAT" underneath.
- The man in the roller skates walks very slowly and with much difficulty, instead of smoothly.
- When Jackson and his group run up the stairs nearing the end one of the dancers does a continuous amount of backflips, in "Fat" one of Al's dancers tries to do a single cartwheel and barely makes it.
- In "Bad", Jackson screams at the end of the video for some unknown reason. In "Fat", Yankovic screams for a reason: his fingers are caught in a mousetrap that seemingly came out of nowhere. The same sound effect is used for the trap as from earlier, when Yankovic was waving his arms around.
- Finally, at the very end, Yankovic says "Who's fat?", while Jackson says "Who's bad?" Officially, the video stops with a close up shot of Yankovic holding his fist. In "Bad", it stops with Jackson a few feet away from the screen.
The video won a Grammy for "Best Concept Music Video" in 1988.[1]
[edit] Jackson reaction to the video/song
It has been said that Jackson very much enjoyed the parody.[citation needed] When it came to making the video, Jackson allowed Yankovic to use the same subway setting to get the music video somewhat accurate.
[edit] Chart positions
| Year | Chart | Position |
|---|---|---|
| 1988 | Billboard Hot 100 (US) | No. 99 |
| 1988 | ARIA Charts (Australia) | No. 11 |
| 1988 | Official UK Singles chart | No. 80 |
[edit] References
[edit] See also
- "Eat It" another Michael Jackson parody by "Weird Al" (Released in 1984).
- List of singles by "Weird Al" Yankovic
- List of songs by "Weird Al" Yankovic
