＂Weird Al＂ Yankovic - Like A Surgeon

What this video is

Released on June 18, 1985, 'Like a Surgeon' arrived at the precise moment MTV had cemented itself as the primary tastemaker of American pop culture, and when music video parody was emerging as a legitimate comedic genre. The video is a meticulous structural and visual spoof of Madonna's 'Like a Virgin' (1984), itself one of the defining video texts of early MTV. Uniquely, Madonna herself is credited with indirectly…

Why it matters

A landmark entry in the comedy/parody music video subgenre, 'Like a Surgeon' demonstrates the full maturation of Yankovic's visual parody method: not merely substituting lyrics but systematically dismantling and reconstructing the source video's iconography shot-for-shot. Its commercial success…

The director

Jay Levey is 'Weird Al' Yankovic's long-time manager and director, known for helming the 1989 Orion comedy film UHF (co-written with Yankovic) and numerous Yankovic music videos including 'Eat It,' 'Fat,' and 'Smells Like Nirvana.' Robert K. Weiss is a…