When you take into consideration how many commercials over the years have incorporated both music and humor, a guy like “Weird Al” Yankovic seems like an obvious choice for companies to partner with. That’s probably why the legendary parodist has appeared in more than a few advertisements throughout the course of his 50-year career.
For example, here’s Yankovic in a Diet Coke commercial from the 1980s:
Decades later, he lent his talents to this 2014 RadioShack ad:
The singer-songwriter even took the time to help promote Jeopardy! at one point:
More recently, Yankovic became a spokesman for Prudential, but don’t let us give you the wrong impression: he’s not the kind of person who carelessly accepts any offer that comes his way. As VICE reported just last week, Yankovic bailed on an ad spot after learning it was for AI software, which he says he isn’t interested in being the poster boy for. This wasn’t the first time Yankovic said no to such an opportunity, however.
While speaking with Mojo magazine in 2010, Yankovic revealed that he turned down some serious cash for an endorsement deal in his early days. “I don’t have a lot of regrets,” Yankovic explained. “A number of years ago a beer company offered me five million dollars, back when that was a lot of money, to be their commercial spokesperson.” Yankovic opted against taking the gig, but not because he didn’t like the product; he walked away from the proposal for moral reasons.
In Yankovic’s own words, he decided not to do it because “a lot of my fans were young and impressionable, so ethically I believe I did the right thing.” That doesn’t mean he hasn’t second-guessed himself since then, of course. Yankovic also admitted during that same interview that a day hadn’t gone by since he made that decision that he didn’t think to himself, “Hmm, an extra five million dollars would really come in handy.”
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