'Weird Al' Yankovic relives his younger days on screen and in tunes

White & Nerdy isn’t just a song for “Weird Al” Yankovic, it’s a way of life — and has been most of his 57 years.

But the comedian and musician’s latest project gets him back into a young mind-set, starring in the Disney XD animated comedy Milo Murphy’s Law. In addition to singing the theme song, Yankovic voices the main character Milo, a descendant of the guy who spawned the adage “Murphy’s law.”

“You know, it's not a big stretch for me to imagine myself as a 13-year-old,” Yankovic says. “I think part of my development is probably stunted at that point anyway.”

The Mothership podcast: Getting 'Weird' with Al Yankovic

Fans have been listening to his voice for years on parody hits such as Eat It, Yoda, Like a Surgeon and Amish Paradise, and those and others are featured in the upcoming collection Squeeze Box: The Complete Works of “Weird Al” Yankovic (out Nov. 27), which includes 14 studio albums and a CD of “odds and ends.”

Yankovic recently stopped by USA TODAY’s The Mothership podcast to discuss Milo and his music career.

Does Milo remind you of a 13-year-old Al? 

Well, I like to think I was optimistic, but I thankfully didn't have disasters following me everywhere i went. So that's one big difference between me and Milo. I wasn't a walking disaster zone but you know, I try to pull as much from my own personal teenage experiences as I can.

What kind of shenanigans is Milo up to in upcoming episodes?

There's a great one where they go to an amusement park called Lard Land and Milo helps his friends overcome their secret fear of roller coasters. There's one about going to the zoo, there's one about a school dance. There's one called "Academacathalon" where they're participating in an event that combines academic and athletic decathlon. And that doesn't really do it justice.

What led to releasing Squeeze Box now?

A lot of people think, "Oh, Al's done, he's retired, he's not going to do anymore." And no, it's the complete works of Al Yankovic, but I'm still alive and I'm not intending to actually retire, but this seemed like a good place to stop, and a good demarcation because I'm probably not going to be doing any more actual record albums. It's the end of my record contract. and I'll probably release more material, but it'll probably be in drips and drabs of singles and EPs and things like that.

What’s on the disc of rarities?

There’s a Beatles parody called Pac-Man, which is a takeoff on Taxman that I wrote and recorded in 1981 and it's not being officially released until now. There’s a track that I did when I was in college in 1978. There's a lot of TV themes, some instrumental tracks and karaoke tracks. It's just a weird, random assortment of little gold nuggets.

Are you actively writing new songs?

I haven't been terribly proactive about coming up with new music. Probably in the back of my mind it might be because of the box set because if I put out something new this year, people might say, "Hey, how come that's not in the box set!" I promise that that's on the backburner and hopefully at some point I'll get back on that.