Yankovic said his live shows are a fun, family-friendly "multi-media extravaganza" that includes multiple costume changes and film clips on a big screen.

"It's me on stage with the same band that I've had since the very beginning of my career, and the same band that's on all of the albums," he said.

Yankovic's new album, which hit stores last month, features parodies of songs by Chamillionaire ("White and Nerdy"), Green Day ("Canadian Idiot"), Usher ("Confession Part III"), R. Kelly ("Trapped in the Drive-Thru") and "American Idol" winner Taylor Hicks ("Do I Creep You Out"). One song that did not make it on "Straight Outta Lynwood" is his parody of James Blunt's "You're Beautiful," called "You're Pitiful." He danced around the system, however, and it's available on his MySpace page.

"We had gotten James Blunt's permission for the parody," Yankovic explained. "He was fine with it, and we were all set to release that as a lead single for the album. We had a release date set. In fact, it was going to be June 27, originally. And after we had announced the release date, we got a call from Atlantic Records, which is James Blunt's label, and they told us that they were not comfortable with my releasing that as a parody single. They felt it was too early in James Blunt's career and that they didn't want to focus anymore attention on 'You're Beautiful,' because, in their words, that song was getting bigger than the artist. They didn't want James to turn into a one-hit wonder. They wanted his career to be more established before any parodies came out, so would I mind waiting?

"I wasn't happy about it because we had a release date set, and I didn't want the song to get much older, because parodies, of course, are very topical, and you want to strike while the iron is hot, to coin a phrase. But I agreed to wait, and hopefully they would let me put out the song and the album some time in the near future. So I waited and I waited and a few months went by. And finally, we got the official word that the right time was never. They never wanted that song to see the light of day, which was very frustrating to me, because I had obviously put in a lot of time and effort and money into making the song. And now they had, effectively pushed back the release of my album with no new release date in sight," he added.

"So at that point, I decided that since the artist himself was OK with it, and since it was basically just a bunch of suits that were doing something that wasn't even in their artist's best interest, I really had no problem releasing the song on the Internet. So I put 'You're Pitiful' on WeirdAl.com briefly as a free download to fans. And within a few days it was basically a viral worldwide hit. It probably got more attention that way, than it would have even gotten if it had been released on the album."

One thing that does appear on "Straight Outta Lynwood" is a trademark Yankovic polka medley, "Polkarama!"

"At this point, it's sort of mandatory for me to do a polka medley," he said. "Fans would be rioting in the streets, I think, if I didn't do a polka medley. And this particular one--like most of my others--includes a dozen or so contemporary rock and R&B songs done polka style, the way God intended, everything from Kanye West, to 50 Cent, to Franz Ferdinand to Black Eyed Peas."

Usher's "Confessions" and R. Kelly's "Trapped in the Closet" were songs ripe for parody, Yankovic said.

"I felt after hearing Usher do 'Confessions,' and 'Confessions Part II,' I couldn't help but think that maybe he had left a few things out. There were a few confessions he had yet to make. And so I saved him the trouble of writing a sequel by doing it for him." Yankovic said.

"'Trapped in the Drive-Thru' is my longest parody to date. It's my epic period parody of 'Trapped in the Closet,' by R Kelly. When I heard 'Trapped in the Closet,' I thought it was brilliant and wonderful, and ridiculous all at the same time, and I felt I had to do something with it. And I decided I couldn't make it any more convoluted than it already was, but I thought I could make it just a little bit more stupid. So I made it about the most banal and mundane and trivial things I could think of, specifically a couple's trip to the drive thru."