Thirty five years ago this month, Michael Jackson put out “Black or White.” It was the first single from his album “Dangerous,” released in November 1991: Nov 4 in Australia, Nov 11 in the UK and Nov 12 to US radio. Its video premiered on Nov 14, 1991. By Dec 7 the song was No. 1 on the US Billboard Hot 100, and it stayed there seven weeks.
Somewhere in the middle of all that, a very different version of the song was sitting on a shelf.
“Weird Al” Yankovic is the comedy singer famous for turning big hit songs into funny parodies. Michael had already been very good to him. He said yes to “Eat It,” Al’s 1984 take on “Beat It.” He said yes again to “Fat” in 1988, Al’s spin on “Bad.”
So by 1991, Al was in a slump after his movie “UHF,” and he did the math. He later told SPIN, “Maybe I should do another Michael Jackson parody. That worked the first two times.”
He went ahead and recorded one. It was called “Snack All Night.”
Then Michael said no.
That surprises a lot of fans, because Michael was famously a good sport about “Eat It.” But this time was different. Michael saw “Black or White” as a song with a serious message about people of every color getting along, and he didn’t want it turned into a joke. So “Snack All Night” never came out.
You’d think Al would still be sore about it. He isn’t. “I certainly don’t hold that against him,” he told SPIN in a 2012 oral history. And then he went further: “I’d like to think that he was actually doing me a favor, saving me from myself.”
He wasn’t happy with the song anyway. And the “no” left an empty spot on his next album.
The song didn’t vanish completely, though, and this fan-posted clip lets you hear the very parody Michael turned down, performed live by Al himself.
“Weird Al” performing “Snack All Night” in concert
So what did Al do with that empty spot?
He went looking for the next big thing in pop culture. He landed on the rock band Nirvana. His parody “Smells Like Nirvana” came out in 1992, and it became one of the biggest hits of his whole career.
SPIN doesn’t say Michael’s “no” was the only reason that happened. But Al believes it worked out for the best, and his drummer, Jon “Bermuda” Schwartz, put it plainly: “The fact that Michael turned him down was a great stroke of luck.”
Then there’s the twist that makes the story almost too neat. Nirvana’s album “Nevermind” became the band’s first No. 1 album on Jan 11, 1992. The record it knocked off the top of the Billboard 200 was Michael’s “Dangerous.”
In other words, the band that took the top spot from Michael ended up giving Al one of his biggest hits, and the opening only existed because Michael Jackson said no to a snack.
And “Snack All Night” still gets a little life of its own. Al has performed it in concert, so fans who were curious about the parody Michael passed on have finally been able to hear it.