From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Dare to Be Stupid"
Single by "Weird Al" Yankovic from the album Dare to Be Stupid
Released	August 1986
Recorded	January 3, 1985
Genre	Comedy
Length	3:23
Writer	"Weird Al" Yankovic
"Weird Al" Yankovic singles chronology
"One More Minute" (1985) "Dare to be Supid" (1985) "Living with a Hernia" (1986)
Dare to Be Stupid track listing
"Like a Surgeon" "Dare to Be Stupid" "I Want a New Duck" "One More Minute" "Yoda" "George of the Jungle" "Slime Creatures From Outer Space" "Girls Just Want To Have Lunch" "This is the Life" "Cable TV" "Hooked on Polkas"

"Dare to Be Stupid" is an original song by "Weird Al" Yankovic. It is a musical pastiche (or "style parody") of the band Devo, and was featured in The Transformers: The Movie. It was later released as a double a-side to "The Touch" by Stan Bush.

The following tracks appear on "The Touch/Dare to Be Stupid" single:

1. "The Touch" by Stan Bush – 3:54
2. "Dare to Be Stupid" – 3:23

The music video and song are, as Yankovic himself said, a "style parody" of Devo's works:[1]

• Yankovic and his band wear the yellow radiation suits from Devo's cover of The Rolling Stones' "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" video throughout.
• Segments of the video are reminiscent of several of Devo's videos:
  • "Devo Corporate Anthem" - in one scene, the band is standing in the same pose as Devo.
  • "Jocko Homo" - in another segment, the band wears nylon stockings over their heads.
  • "Beautiful World" - There are also several scenes of black-and-white stock footage, directed by someone in front of a big machine. In addition, "Tell me, what did I say?" also resembles the line from this song.
  • "The Day My Baby Gave Me a Surprise" - in this part the group is in front of very simple computer graphics.
  • "Freedom of Choice" - The use of stop-motion animation and computer graphics is also reminiscent of this Devo video. The use of Roman togas also comes from "Freedom of Choice," and at one point, a man must choose between a banana and an accordion.
  • "Whip It" - The guitarist is alone, wearing a cowboy outfit.
• The man with a pipe, smiling and watching television with a chainsaw near the beginning of the video is a very typical Devo-like image as well, juxtaposing violent, out of context or unexplained occurrences and objects with a 1950s-like "wholesome American" feel. See also Church of the SubGenius.
• The video also includes a lot of bizarre imagery which, for the most part, is irrelevant to the lyrics, such as Yankovic's face emerging from a bowl of Alpha-Bits cereal (a nod to the similarly Devo-esque scene in the video from early 80's band- and friend of Devo's- Wall of Voodoo's "Mexican Radio" when lead singer Stan Ridgway's face emerges from a bowl of cooked pinto beans) . A breakdancer appears at two points in the video whose style bears striking resemblance to Spaz Attack, featured in the Satisfaction (I Can't Get No) video by Devo.
• The clay animation was done Mark Osborne, who also did the clay animation on the 1993 Yankovic video "Jurassic Park".^{[citation needed]}
• The machine Yankovic controls during parts of the video is an interocitor from the film This Island Earth.

• The song is played in The Transformers: The Movie as the theme of the Junkions, a group of robots living on the planet of junk. Like the song, Junkion speech was littered with cultural and television references.
• Shortly after the song was released, Yankovic received a letter from Mark Mothersbaugh congratulating him on writing "the perfect Devo song".
• In celebration of the release of the new Transformers movie, nerdcore rapper MC Chris did a cover of Dare to Be Stupid and released it on his MySpace for download.

• List of songs by "Weird Al" Yankovic

This 1980s rock song-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.