At this point, Weird Al Yankovic is basically the elder statesman of musical comedy. The guy has been writing parody songs since the ’70s, including international hits like “Eat It” and “Like a Surgeon.” He’s parodied big franchises, too, like his 1999 song “The Saga Begins,” which narrates the events of Star Wars: The Phantom Menance set to the tune of Don McLean’s American Pie:
Generally speaking, Weird Al likes to get the permission of the artists he parodies before he makes his songs. That’s not something he has to do — parodies aren’t considered copyright infringement under U.S. law — but he tries to do it anyway rather than risk ticking someone off.
And there are times it hasn’t worked out. For instance, he told The Hollywood Reporter about the time he wanted to make a parody of “Hedwig’s Theme” from the Harry Potter movies, written by legendary composter John Williams. “Whenever it was, a decade or two ago, I approached the movie company just to get a general blessing like, ‘Hey, I’d like to do a Harry Potter parody,'” Yankovic remembered. “And I think they said no, or never responded or whatever.”
George Lucas loved Weird Al’s Star Wars parody
If you don’t know the title “Hedwig’s Theme,” I can more or less guarantee you’ll remember the music. It’s all over the original Harry Potter movies, as well as the Fantastic Beasts prequels:
These days, Yankovic isn’t quite as precious about getting permission to do parodies, at least when it comes to big franchises like Harry Potter. “If I’m doing a franchise, it’s usually better to do it and ask for forgiveness rather than permission,” he said. “[…] When you are dealing with franchises, and you ask permission, you know, there’s so many people that can say no, and they usually do.”
I’m not sure whether Weird Al got permission from Lucasfilm for “The Saga Begins” back in the day, although according to the singer, the studio’s response involved telling him, “You should’ve seen the smile on face.” When Yankovic makes a parody of your work, everybody wins.
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h/t CBR