Weird Al Yankovic takes Grammy-winning parodies on the road

Armed with a new Grammy trophy, musical satirist Weird Al Yankovic gets back on the tour trail this spring.

Yankovic's outing kicks off in late March and dates so far are set into early May. Tickets for a number of shows are on sale now.

"Poodle Hat," Yankovic's latest album, surfaced last May. On Sunday (2/8), the album won the Grammy award for Best Comedy Album of 2003, marking Yankovic's third Grammy win; his 1984 parody of Michael Jackson's "Beat It" (titled "Eat It") won for Best Comedy Recording, and his 1988 spoof of Jackson's "Bad" (titled "Fat") won for Best Concept Video.

On "Poodle Hat," Yankovic reworked cuts from artists including Eminem, Avril Lavigne and Nelly. The album also includes parodies of Backstreet Boys and Billy Joel songs, as well as the accordion medley "Angry White Boy Polka," which targets The White Stripes and Rage Against the Machine, among others.

In addition to comedic covers, "Poodle Hat" also includes the original compositions "Hardware Store," "Party at the Leper Colony," "Wanna B Ur Lovr," "Why Does this Always Happen to Me" (which features a guest performance by Ben Folds), "Bob" (an homage to Dylan) and "Genius in France" (a 9-minute tribute to Frank Zappa featuring a guitar cameo by Zappa's son Dweezil).

In November, Yankovic issued "The Ultimate Video Collection," which features all 24 music videos that he's made over the years. The DVD includes a photo gallery, on-screen lyrics and 5.1 Surround Sound, according to Yankovic's website.

Yankovic had planned to release a video for the "Poodle Hat" cut "Couch Potato," a parody of the Eminem hit "Lose Yourself," but the Detroit rapper put the kibosh on the plan, according to Yankovic, who explained the situation to SoundSpike during a recent interview.

"It was very disappointing, but I'm thankful that [Eminem] let me do the song," he said. "It was really a drag that I wasn't going to be able to do a video for it, because that was going to be our big video for this album. We were in pre-production, it was going to be a very ambitious undertaking, and we got the phone call too late in the game to be able to switch gears and start working on a different video. So as it turns out, there's no video for this album. It's still doing quite well, but I'm sure it would have done better had there been a nice video for it."