In the world of Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, polka parties were the quickest way for rebellious teens to get back at their parents, and Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” is a parody track of Weird Al’s 100% original song “Eat It.” The Al Yankovic Story, like the career of Weird Al that it takes many huge liberties with, is a series of winking parodies that fans of the original material will immediately get, but at a cost–if you don’t know the source material, you might not always be in on the joke.
Spoilers follow for Weird: The Al Yankovic Story.
NBC’s Community, in many of its best moments, was a send-up of television tropes–a constant acknowledgment that television is a construct made up of off-the-shelf parts that come from different shows, networks, and creators parroting each other. It felt like a show made that adored television as a medium even as it made fun of it.