"Weird Al" Yankovic

Few would have guessed that “Weird Al” Yankovic, who as a shy, accordion-playing teenager got his start sending in homemade tapes to the Dr. Demento Radio Show, would go on to become the biggest-selling comedy recording artist in history with over 12 million album sales. Now in his fourth career decade, he has won 4 Grammys (with 14 nominations) and countless awards and accolades for “Weird Al” classics like “Eat It,” “Like a Surgeon,” “Fat,” “Smells Like Nirvana,” “Amish Paradise” and “The Saga Begins.” His 2011 album Alpocalypse (featuring the Lady Gaga parody “Perform This Way”) debuted in the Billboard Top 10, and was nominated for two Grammy Awards (Best Comedy Album and Best Short Form Video) only to be topped by 2013’s Mandatory Fun, which debuted at #1 on the Billboard Top 200 album chart. This is the first time that a comedy album has debuted at #1 on the chart in history.

In addition to his recordings and world-famous music videos, Yankovic is also well-known for his cult-hit feature film UHF (1989), his late ‘90s CBS Saturday morning series The Weird Al Show and the numerous AL-TV specials that he’s made for MTV and VH1 over the years. His 2006 album Straight Outta Lynwood spawned the Billboard Top 10 single “White & Nerdy,” the video for which spent two months at #1 on iTunes and garnered over 150 million hits on the Internet.