"Weird Al" Yankovic in 3-D

In October 1983, Yankovic began recording his second album at Santa Monica Sound Recorders, in Santa Monica, California.[1][2] To produce it, he brought in former McCoys guitarist Rick Derringer, who also produced Yankovic's first album.[3] Backing Yankovic were Jon "Bermuda" Schwartz on drums, Steve Jay on bass, and Jim West on guitar.[3] During the first recording session for the album, five original songs were recorded: "Nature Trail to Hell", "Mr. Popeil", "Buy Me a Condo", "Midnight Star", and "That Boy Could Dance".[2] Two months later, Yankovic began recording the five parodies and polka medley that would appear on the album: "Eat It", "King of Suede", "I Lost on Jeopardy", "Theme from Rocky XIII (The Rye or the Kaiser)", "The Brady Bunch", and "Polkas on 45".[2]

Every song on Yankovic's debut album was played on an accordion, accompanied by bass, guitar, and drums. On In 3-D, Yankovic decided to restrict the accordion to certain sections, most notably the polka medley "Polkas on 45". In the "Ask Al" section of his web site, Yankovic explained: "Nowadays, I only use it on original songs where I feel an accordion is appropriate, and on parody songs where I feel an accordion is [comically] inappropriate ... and of course, on the polka medleys. I'm not really downplaying the accordion at all – I usually feature the accordion on three or four songs every album, which is three or four more accordion-based songs than most Top 40 albums have!"[4]

"It's kind of a backlash from the first album, where we had accordion on everything. It just became a little overwhelming to me. For a while I was relegating the accordion to just the polka medleys. I'm probably going to be using a bit more accordion in the future; I get letters from people saying they miss the accordion on the records."

— "Weird Al" Yankovic, speaking about the lack of accordion on In 3-D[5]

One of the first originals recorded for the album was "Midnight Star", a loving ode to fictional supermarket tabloids. The liner notes to Permanent Record state that a Weekly World News article about the "Incredible Frog Boy" helped to inspire the song. According to Yankovic, most of the tabloid headlines were real. He spent several weeks collecting and looking through old tabloids to find inane titles.[5] Initially, he thought that "Midnight Star" should have been the lead single for the album, but later relented and released "Eat It" instead.[5] "Buy Me a Condo" is a style parody of Bob Marley and the reggae genre in general.[5]

"Mr. Popeil" is a song discussing the inventor Sam Popeil (the father of inventor Ron Popeil) and his myriad inventions of varying usefulness.[5] Musically, it is a style parody of the B-52s,[5] which Robert Christgau wrote "exploits Yankovic's otherwise fatal resemblance to Fred Schneider."[6] One of the backing vocalists on the track is Ron Popeil's sister, Lisa Popeil.[7] When recording the song, Yankovic came across an article about Lisa Popeil and her singing career and later asked her if she would be interested in appearing in the song, to which she agreed.[5]

The last original song to be recorded for the album was "Nature Trail to Hell", about a fictional slasher film "in 3-D";[8] 3D film had enjoyed a brief resurgence in 1981–83, with the likes of Parasite, Friday the 13th Part III and Amityville 3-D being successful 3-D horrors. At the 3:40 mark, the song has a backward message that says "Satan eats Cheez Whiz!"[1][9] This, in turn, was a parody of the Satanic backmasking scare during the early 1980s. Online magazine Pitchfork Media has alluded to the song several times, once comparing it to "Thrill Kill" by the Damned,[10] and another time sarcastically calling the song a "classic".[11]

The first parody recorded for the album was "The Brady Bunch",[2] a parody of "The Safety Dance" by Men Without Hats, in which the narrator expresses his dislike of the sitcom The Brady Bunch. The song also contains a lyrical adaptation of the "Brady Bunch Theme Song", something that Yankovic would later do in his "Money for Nothing/Beverly Hillbillies" Dire Straits parody from UHF (1989).[5]

Michael Jackson, composer of "Beat It", thought Yankovic's parody was a "funny idea" (1984, White House Photo Office).

On the same day that "The Brady Bunch" was recorded, Yankovic started working on "I Lost on Jeopardy", a parody of "Jeopardy" by the Greg Kihn Band.[2] The song describes a situation in which the narrator loses spectacularly on the game show Jeopardy!. Show announcer Don Pardo lends his voice to a segment of the song.[7] In order to create the parody, Yankovic cleared the idea not only with Greg Kihn, but also with Merv Griffin, who created the show. Don Pardo, Art Fleming, and Kihn all appeared in the music video.[5] Kihn, the composer of the original song, was extremely pleased and flattered by the parody. In 2009, Kihn wrote a blog on his MySpace called "Weird Al and Mailbox Money", in which he complimented Yankovic's comedy and explained the mechanics of how a parody works.[12] Kihn referred to the royalty checks he still receives from "I Lost on Jeopardy" as "Mailbox Money".[12][13]

The next parodies to be recorded were "Theme from Rocky XIII (The Rye or the Kaiser)", a parody of Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger", about a washed-up Rocky Balboa who now runs a deli and occasionally beats up on the liverwurst; and "King of Suede", a parody of the Police's "King of Pain", about a clothing store owner who claims the titular title. In order to research information for the latter, Yankovic would walk around in fabric stores taking notes.[5] He later remarked, "I got a lot of nasty stares from store managers."[5]

The final parody recorded for the album was "Eat It", a parody of Michael Jackson's "Beat It", about an exasperated parent whose picky child is refusing to eat. Yankovic formulated the idea during a brainstorming session between himself, Robert K. Weiss, and his manager, Jay Levey.[14] They were bouncing ideas off one another until suddenly "[they] had the whole thing written."[14] Although he knew that the best way to get permission to parody a song was through the official songwriter, Yankovic was unsure what type of reaction he would get from Jackson when presented with the parody lyrics.[5][15] However, Jackson allegedly thought it was a "funny idea", and allowed the parody.[5][15] In the mockumentary The Compleat Al, there is a scene portraying the fictitious meeting of Yankovic and Jackson.[16] Musically, the parody is slightly different from the original, being set in a changed key,[17] comic sound effects, and an Eddie Van Halen-inspired guitar solo from Yankovic's producer, Rick Derringer.[4]

"Eat It" was Yankovic's first—and, until "Smells Like Nirvana" (1992), his only—Top Forty hit, peaking at number twelve on the Billboard Hot 100. It was also Yankovic's highest-charting single until "White & Nerdy" reached number nine on the October 21, 2006, Billboard chart. "Eat It" was a worldwide hit, even managing to peak at number one in Australia.[18] For many years, Yankovic became known colloquially as "The 'Eat It' guy."[5] He referred to this sarcastically on his own personal Twitter; at one point, Al's Twitter Bio read: "You know ... the Eat It guy."[19]

One of the last songs recorded for the album was "Polkas on 45".[2] The song, whose title is a take on the novelty act Stars on 45, is a medley of popular rock songs from the 1960s and 1970s.[5] "Polkas on 45" evolved from an early polka medley that Yankovic had played when opening for new wave band Missing Persons in 1982.[5] This early version included parts of various new wave songs, including "Jocko Homo" by Devo, "Homosapien" by Pete Shelley, "Sex Junkie" by Plasmatics, "T.V.O.D." by the Normal, "Bad Boys Get Spanked" by the Pretenders, "TV Party" by Black Flag, "Janitor" by Suburban Lawns, and "People Who Died" by Jim Carroll.[20] After being asked how he picked the songs to include, Yankovic responded, "I just pick songs that sound slightly better done polka style—the way God intended."[5]