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amadeus2490 t1_iy8xpkg wrote

Reply to comment by hiptones in Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ Returns To Billboard Top 10 After 38 Years by lightblue_sky

Michael Jackson personally paid for the music videos to Weird Al's Eat It and Fat. He even let Al use his photographer, camera guy and make-up and hair team. The deal was that Michael wanted to be officially credited as a co-writer for the parodies, so they would be splitting the royalties.

Al has admitted that he had to hire lawyers just to handle those two songs, and that Michael's estate is still receiving annual royalties from them today.

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hiptones t1_iy99au1 wrote

I know it. Sorry for the misunderstanding. My comment was a reference to Weird: The Al Yankovic Story. In the movie, the joke was that Al wanted to ditch his parodies in favor of writing original music and that "Eat It" was an original song that MJ parodied with "Beat It". It's a great joke because everyone who's familiar with Al is in on the joke.

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amadeus2490 t1_iyadb6l wrote

Haven't seen the movie yet. All apologies.

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hiptones t1_iyapa1l wrote

No sweat. That's why I wasn't jumping down your throat. On Reddit there are tons of people who believe stuff that on its face is completely untrue. I could have been one of hose people. It's a fun movie btw. Free viewing on Roku. Just need to sit through some ads.

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