"Weird Al" Yankovic

When the third installment of Weird Al's Nose Picker Trilogy came out, many of today's thirty-somethings were rocking Velcro "shoelaces" and rolling with multi-sided dice. It was a special time when all that mattered was procuring ninja throwing stars and learning the secret warps on Atari's Crystal Castles. Yankovic's reworking of a Huey Lewis hit yielded these brilliant lyrics: "I want a new duck - one that won't try to bite. One that won't chew a hole in my socks, one that won't quack all night." Turning the Kinks' "Lola" into a song about master Yoda was another magnum opus.

Sitting down with this year's summer crop of comedy records is a little like having the
proverbial dinner in a Chinese restaurant – one from column A and so on. Every time you
think you've found a working general description, somebody passes you something you
don't recognize. Of all the dishes here, the one that's least likely to leave you hungry an
hour later is the most traditional of the bunch. Emo Philips, a Midwesterner who... More >