EPISODE 833: SHAIMAN SONGS, CON FADS AND A DOOMED TIME LORD
Also, Finally, the Truth about Mickey Mouse
POP CULTURE SPIRIT WOW
Hi and welcome to a very soggy Pop Culture Spirit Wow, the li’l Substack newsletter that could, even if it never gets out on the weekends because that’s when it rains. I’m your host and part-time imaginary tiger Jim McDermott, here to hopefully get your week off to a good start full of that sweet sweet pop culture goodness.
Let’s get it on, shall we?
THE WOWND UP
I spent last weekend at New York Comic Con reporting for the pop culture site Popverse (aka My Happy Place). One of the best parts about that job is that they send me to a million different kinds of panels, some where I have a good base of knowledge, and some where I know literally nothing. And you just learn so much.
So, for our Wownd Up this week, here’s five things I learned at NYCC 2023.
1. There is an Actual TV Series about Chucky, and it’s Pretty Good: The doll that apparently can never die apparently now lives on the small screen. It’s in its third season on USA and SYFY, and when it gets violent, wow is it violent.
Here’s a clip of SNL’s Kenan Thompson getting murdered last week.
The other big thing I learned from this: USA is still a network!
2. Anime Shows Look at “Long Running” American Shows, Throw Back Their Heads and Laugh: Forget Grey’s Anatomy or Doctor Who, anime shows take the prize when it comes to most episodes ever. I was sent to a showing of the newest episode of a show called One Piece, which is about a sweet, nerdy kid living in a world filled with pirates with special powers who decides he’s going to become the King of the Pirates. The episode number for the ep they showed us was no joke like 1033.
3. Disney Really Screwed up with Owl House
The cancelled-Disney+ animated show Owl House, about a Latina girl who stumbles into a fantasy world where she learns to become a witch, has just about the most passionate and diverse fan base of any show I’ve ever seen. And “diverse” here is not code here for race alone; kids are there with their parents (all of them cosplaying—the group above is a great case in point); college students love it, the queer community loves it (the main character is bisexual and the show features many different queer and straight characters and relationships). Cosplayers freaking love it because the looks of the characters are so creative and original.
Here’s another group, after the panel. I want to say there were over 100 cosplayers.
The show also seems to have a massive fanbase amongst people who are neurodivergent; this is my third Owl House panel in two years and at every single one that community was really well represented.
Disney suddenly cancelled the show after two seasons, allowing them to have three extra long episodes to wrap their story. The word on the street has always been the company didn’t like that the show had so many queer characters (because Mickey Mouse is super straight).
First of all, no one straight whistles or moves their hips like that.
He never lets Minnie kiss him on the lips. I’m just sayin’.
Whatever the reason, Disney’s decision was pretty clearly a mistake. The show’s been over for about a year and if anything the panels I’ve seen since are even more passionate and excited than they were a year ago.
4. The Fan Fic Community Rocks: I got sent to cover a pop culture and romance panel. I had no clue what to expect. The conversation that the panelists had was not really about their romance novels as much as it was about the fan fiction community, in which fans takes existing pop culture characters and write them into romances of one kind or another. It turns out all of these writers were or are big fanfic people, and as they talked about their experiences you could tell that was a shared experience amongst the audience, too. Some of it is pretty wild—try googling “Omegaverse”—but there was just such a great sense of community in the room. Instead of a panel, it was like a meet up at a wine bar. By far my favorite panel of the con.
5. David Tennant is Brilliant and Doomed
I got to watch an hour interview between my boss Tiffany Babb and the great Scottish actor David Tennant. The whole thing was amazing simply because Tiffany and David were not allowed to ever mention anything to do with television or film—aka what David Tennant does for a living—because the U.S. studios appears to have decided to punish the SAG for striking in the first place by waiting to make a deal until all the scripts now being written are done. (Those studios, man. The worst.)
Tiffany had a million great questions for David to play with, like which was his favorite New York food, bagels, pizza or cheesecake? At one point she asked him about his upcoming role at the Donmar Warehouse as Macbeth. And because the panel was taking place within a space that might be considered a theater—it had a stage, an audience—she referred to the play only as “The Scottish Play.” This has been the custom for centuries, because the play is believed to be cursed. There are many, many, many examples of actors and casts suffering horrifying things on or as a result of this play.
(A very strange case in point: Just seconds before Chris Rock insulted Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith attacked him, he mentioned the Scottish Play by name in a joke.)
Here’s the conversation they had about the play:
Babb: So, you’re going to be in the Scottish Play at Donmar Warehouse?
Tennant: I hold no truck with such superstition. I think we should say the word “Macbeth.” Macbeth Macbeth Macbeth.
Yeah. Not only did he diss a 400 year old curse and use the word, he also said the name three times in a row, as though also asking for Beetlejuice, the demon who if named three times ruins your life.
Here’s the reaction of every theater person everywhere.
And here’s the reaction of Arya Stark, which really tells you just how much trouble David is in.
So keep your eyes inclined toward the UK production of Macbeth. If history is any indication, !%!% is about to get very real.
(The last Broadway production, in 1988, went through 3 directors, 5 Macduffs, 6 stage managers, 2 lightning designers, 2 set designers, 26 bouts of flu, torn ligaments, groin injuries and 6 cast changes.)
THIS IS THE WOW WHERE WE CELEBRATE MARC SHAIMAN
Yesterday was the 64th birthday of Broadway composer Marc Shaiman. (God I love a self-ridiculing head shot.) Whether you know Marc’s name or the name of his writing and life partner Scott Wittman or not, you definitely know their work. They did the music for Hairspray, SMASH, Catch Me If You Can, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and the current Some Like It Hot.
You know that Captain America musical in the Hawkeye TV show? They wrote that.
You know Bette Midler’s incredible performance as the last guest on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show? Shaiman did the arrangements for that. (He’s done a ton with Bette Midler over the years; that’s really how he got his start in the business. He told that story and a bunch of others at Marie’s Crisis last June.)
The two also did the music for South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, including this very funny song.
In honor of his birthday (and my dad’s, which was also yesterday!), here are five great Marc Shaiman moments to get your toes tapping and your hearts soaring this week.
5. FunnyorDie.com, “Prop 8—The Musical”
After the people of the state of California passed an amendment to the constitution insisting marriage could only be between a man and a woman in 2008, Funny or Die had Shaiman and Wittman do a mini-musical that became this very funny attack on the whole idea of this amendment, starring Jack Black as Jesus.
4. Catch Me if You Can, “Fly, Fly Away”
I don’t hear a lot of people talk about the musical version of the Spielberg film Catch Me If You Can and I think it’s too bad, because there’s some great numbers in that show—“Christmas is My Favorite Time of Year,” “Don’t Break the Rules” (the dancing in that, WOW).
In the second act, Brenda—this nurse that young Frank the con artist falls in love with—gets a song of her own for the first time. It just comes so completely out of nowhere, and it’s amazing. A great performance from Kerry Butler.
3. Hairspray, “I Know Where I’ve Been”
I think most people would say this is not only the greatest Shaiman/Wittman song, but one of the all-time great Broadway numbers. In 2016, NBC did Hairspray Live!, in which the goddess Jennifer Hudson got to sing it. It’s really something.
2. Smash, “They Just Keep Moving the Line”
Few songs have stayed with me like this one. Megan Hilty’s performance is outstanding, and it’s also so damn true.
1. Johnny Carson Show, “One More for the Road”
While “They Just Keep Moving the Line” is my absolute favorite Shaiman/Wittman song, “One More for the Road” is one of the most iconic moments in TV history. I can still remember watching it in my grad school dorm room in Boston with my dad, the night before we started the drive home. Our eyes definitely got a little misty.
Happy birthday, Dad!
THE BIG TEASE (AKA ME)
I had a big Ryan Reynolds piece for you today, which in my head I’ve been calling Ryan Reynolds Has Some Sauce for the Cole Slaw Synod.
I actually googled “Ryan Reynolds Cole Slaw” and prayed to the Baby Jesus for gold.
This is what I got.
Very exciting!!
Then I looked to the right.
Feeling for you, Ryan, and checking out Courier Press!
If anyone has an in with the other Ryan Reynolds and can get him to tweet something about cole slaw this week, I’d be very grateful.
In fact, let me get the ball rolling.
Come back later this week for more on Cole Slaw, Ryan Reynolds and the Catholic Church.
THE FISHBOWL
For those new to the Wow, and there are a whole bunch of you—Hi! And thank you!—I just wanted to add a note to explain this fishbowl. I started this newsletter 8 years ago as a free and hopefully fun little thing for people interested in the intersection of culture and spirituality. A message in the bottle to other people who like to think about Star Wars, God, comic books, life and/or queer stuff.
My work here has grown lately to include a lot of different kinds of pieces: interviews, essays, reported things. But so far I’m still keeping the newsletter entirely free. Some people have done a paid subscription on their own (and thanks to each and every one of you that’s done that). But so far I’ve never required it.
I do love a tip, though. :) It tells me I’m on the right track. And call me romantic (or foolish), but I also kind of like the idea of entrusting the newsletter in this way to you the readers.
So if you do like what you read and want to help me get that Venti English Breakfast tea that I buy early most mornings before hunkering down at a table at Starbucks to write for six hours, my Venmo is below. Thanks always for your kind support!
MOMENT OF WOW
Merrily We Roll Along, which stars Daniel Radcliffe, Lindsay Mendez and Jonathan Groff as three friends whose friendships slowly fall apart—but the tale is told in reverse—is really rolling along on Broadway, with great reviews and fantastic box office. It’s actually kind of a mixed blessing, as the box office ticket prices are ridiculous. I don’t know what Sondheim himself would say about the amount of money that is being charged for even the nosebleed tickets to his shows right now, but it definitely seems like a short-term cash splash that will probably only add to Broadway’s long term problems with bringing back audiences after the pandemic.
But the three stars have unbelievable chemistry together. They did a video for Vanity Fair recently where they each question the others while taking a lie detector test that is tremendously fun. (There’s a section near the end with Jonathan Groff talking about spitting that is amazing.)
If you need a little something extra this week, enjoy.
Coming soon: Ryan, Synods, and Slaw!