Weird Al Yankovic, who brought his song parodies to the Beacon Theater on Sunday night, belongs to an era when no form of entertainment stands alone. In a merrily recursive tangle, songs become videos shown on television to promote movies gaining attention for albums connected to tours and T-shirt sales.
Mr. Yankovic isn't the biggest, the most ingenious or the wildest purveyor of cross-marketing efforts, but he may well be the most persistent. In a career fertilized by MTV, he has been lightly mocking entertainment products for two decades.
Like Mad magazine he has no particular animus; he's after silliness, not pointed satire. He latches onto a pop hit, copies the costumes from the video and comes up with an alternate set of lyrics.
Onstage he and his band changed costumes for nearly every song. He was a writhing Trent Reznor worried about ''Germs,'' a mumbling Kurt Cobain and a mock Elvis handing scarves to fans as he performed a suffering love song: ''I'd rather rip out my intestines with a fork,'' he sang, holding up a fork, ''than watch you go out with other men.''
Parodies take time, and Mr. Yankovic has a problem staying current amid pop's ever-shrinking careers. Pop circa 1999 begs for lampoons of Ricky Martin and Limp Bizkit, but Mr. Yankovic was still singing about Eddie Vedder.
Mr. Yankovic's recurring jokes are the polka and food. Michael Jackson's ''Bad'' became ''Fat,'' Alanis Morissette's ''Thank U'' had its lyrics replaced by fast-food jingles. He's better when he warps a song's context: turning Coolio's ''Gangsta Paradise'' into ''Amish Paradise'' or remaking Madonna's ''Like a Virgin'' as ''Like a Surgeon.'' In the best song on Mr. Yankovic's 1999 album ''Running with Scissors'' (Volcano), Puff Daddy's ''It's All About the Benjamins'' becomes ''It's All About the Pentiums,'' exchanging hip-hop boasts for geek pride: ''While your computer's crashin', mine's multitaskin'.''
He and his fans seemed happiest when he did his own media tie-ins, using a pop tune to sing about a movie or television show. He recast Barenaked Ladies' ''One Week'' as a tribute to Jerry Springer and had two ''Star Wars'' summaries: ''Yoda,'' set to the Kinks' ''Lola,'' and ''The Saga Begins,'' retelling ''The Phantom Menace'' to Don McLean's ''American Pie.'' Among the video clips between songs were mentions of Mr. Yankovic from David Letterman and ''The Flintstones,'' the proof, finally, that he's a media figure in his own right.
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