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ALLISON: And the audience was meant to laugh, but no one did.

ANDREW: But they keep doing it too. Cus then they bring that joke over and he's like, “Oh, you need to go check the loo,” and the guy doesn't understand what he's saying.

JESS: Oh, yeah. Corey Vindaloo or something.

ANDREW: Just keeps going. And it's like, no one is laughing. It's not funny. And it doesn’t end.

ALLISON: He thought Chicken Vindaloo was in the toilet. That's so funny.

ANDREW: It's like, it's not funny. What’s the joke here? Oh my god.

JESS: All right. I think we need to go into a mid-show and shill some stuff. And then we'll come back and talk about the musical numbers.

ANDREW: Oh yes, the very not lazy musical numbers.

JESS: Of course. So, enjoy these commercials, kids, and buy all our merchandise, or else we'll get in trouble.

ANDREW: Buy our merchandise.

(Mid-show)

JESS: What was the opening number to this show? What song was that?

ALLISON: Did they start with the Spice Girls or was it something else?

JESS: And this is where not having a song list is really difficult. I tried to figure out who are the –because, this isn't nostalgia from my days. I don't know many of these songs is the problem.

ALLISON: I think they started with Spice Up Your Life at the airport. Right? I feel like they threw us in the deep end real early.

JESS: Threw us in the Spice World.

(Spice Up Your Life plays)

ALLISON: Yeah, we entered the spice world. Yeah, that was the first one I remember hearing. There were a few. There were a lot I recognized, there were a few that I didn't, and the time part of it might be because they were big over there but didn't make it over here or something.

ANDREW: The big ones I remember are when he sang Barry Manilow, when they did rickroll, the Baywatch theme song obviously.

JESS: The rickroll bothers me because it seemed like they were trying to play it off as sincere at first, because –

ALLISON: it was a romantic rickroll.

JESS: But the audience started laughing.

(Never Gonna Give You Up plays)

ANDREW: It was like a romantic tongue-in-cheek rickroll. It was like, “We know what we're doing. And you should laugh. But also this is serious.”

ALLISON: Yeah.

ANDREW: I don't know.

JESS: Because it felt like the second act breakup, storytelling wise, where it's really serious, depressing, and then just throw Rick Astley in there, and I guess we're good.

ALLISON: It was like what they were trying to do what Moulin Rouge did? You know, like, sometimes they would have songs that were ridiculous, but they would play them sincere and it would work out pretty well. But this is not competent enough to really pull it off.

ANDREW: It's also not the most surreal movie we have ever seen. You know, this is a stage show. It doesn't quite work the same.

ALLISON: When Hasselhoff first shows up, he's DJing at the club, and he does a medley of songs. So he starts singing – Relax? They do Frankie Goes to Hollywood, and then he says, “Don't hassle The Hoff” in the middle of it.

JESS: Yes.

ALLISON: He has to throw that out there. And then goes into Don't Touch This. Yeah, I’m sure there was a few more.

(Don’t Hassle the Hoff Medley)

ANDREW: It's a mess.

JESS: I mean, it kind of works. In spite of itself, by the end of it, it kind of worked.

ANDREW: I think the best song is David Hasselhoff’s opening. Because it almost feels like he is DJing for a party that I'm at, you know? David Hasselhoff is at my party and he's DJing, he's running through all the hits.

JESS: Oh my god, just envisioning that. I want to be there. I want to be at a party DJ’d by David Hasselhoff.

ANDREW: The best moment was he gets rolled out and he's just yelling, and he starts singing, and it's like, “Oh man, let's go.”

ALLISON: This is the bookend of the entire show - is DJing and then DJing at the end and getting everyone into it. It's like the ending of Shrek, right? Everything's over, you just want to have the music numbers, and you're singing with your favorite characters, and Hasselhoff’s there. “I'm a believer, he's horny, horny, horny.” It's good.

ANDREW: It really just makes me think, would this just be better if David Hasselhoff was just doing a DJ show?

ALLISON: No.

JESS: You know what? If you would take out the story and just David Hasselhoff sings the hits of the 80s and 90s -

ALLISON: Well, that would be his concerts.

JESS: Yeah, what's wrong with that?

ALLISON: That’s fine, but like, it wouldn’t be a play then. It would just be a concert by David Hasselhoff, which is what he does. He does covers and stuff like that.

ANDREW: Are we just saying that you should seek out a David Hasselhoff show instead of watching this?

ALLISON: Oh man, if you guys ever get a chance to find it - David Hasselhoff and the Night Rockers, the tape - where he went on tour in Austria that is worth seeking out.

ANDREW: I believe it. I think David Hasselhoff has some fun, and some charisma and he's, you know, he's fun to watch.

JESS: He is. He's endlessly watchable. He is one of the most watchable performers who's been in a lot of not-so-great things, but we have an expert here and I want to know – Allison - How does this rank among some of the other stuff David Hasselhoff has been in?

ALLISON: I mean, I've seen some Hasselhoff projects that weren't fun revisiting, but this is - I wouldn't call this a good production, but it's so bad, it's good. And it's fascinating that it exists in and of itself, just the entire production, not just that Hasselhoff was involved. So I don't know. I mean, I don't think I would rank it high, but I'm glad that they put it up for people to see.

JESS: I mean, I agree. I'm amazed they put it out for people to see. Like, why is this one the one that gets filmed is the question among all the other stage shows that have ever existed?

ALLISON: I did see that Hasselhoff was an executive producer on it, so maybe he was like, “We need the merch.”

JESS: That's his “created by” credit. What does that mean, David?

ALLISON: I wonder if he worked with the guy that wrote it, because it feels like a lot of very specific to Hasselhoff stuff in there. I mean, at the very least, the guy was familiar with a lot of things about him.

JESS: I mean, the guy is known in the UK for doing a lot of big broad theater. Looking at his work, it looks like he does stunt shows, cruise ships, and all the things we expected based on the aesthetics shown here. He isn't doing big Les Mis-style theater that is meant to be taken seriously.

ALLISON: No, the most creativity he put into it. He's like, “We got to make sure that these people have names that songs relate to. That guy's got to be named Ebeneezer so we can do the Ebeneezer Goode song.”

ANDREW: “And Rik, so we can do the rickroll.”

ALLISON: And a Mandy out there, but - Because they called one of the characters Mandy, but yeah. They do seem to connect all these things.

ANDREW: That might have been planned. Maybe they had to cut it out.

ALLISON: That’s true.

JESS: The only thing that this writer/producer/collaborator did that is close to a musical in the same way this is, is Elf the musical, which he produced.

ALLISON: I want to see Elf the musical.

JESS: It’s pretty good is the thing. It is not bad, apparently.

ALLISON: That would be great. I would love to see Elf the musical.

JESS: This year, I believe, they just did a recording of it with Ben Forster as Buddy the Elf, and they adapted the musical into the Jim Parsons’ stop motion animated thing that they put on NBC about three years ago.

ALLISON: Oh, so that musical was that?

JESS: No, that musical started on stage, got adapted into that stop motion and then was filmed on stage this year. So it's always been a stage thing but they've been picking from it. And it's written by the same guys that did The Prom, if I remember correctly Matthew Sklar and all that. So, that is the closest thing to legit he's been, Jon Conway.

ALLISON: Okay. I mean, I can't say anything about his songwriting skills or if he was involved with any songwriting cus he didn't write anything for this. As far as like the dialogue and the jokes go, I don't know - they weren't great. But if you're doing it for a cruise ship or a stunt show or that kind of thing, I mean it's serviceable.

JESS: I mean, I'd actually really enjoy this on a cruise ship. Like, on a booze cruise, you've been roasting all day and then you go into the deck and there's David Hasselhoff.

ANDREW: David Hasselhoff’s on my cruise ship and he's doing a show for me? I'd be impressed.

ALLISON: And he loves doing the theater, too. That's one of the things consistent with David Hasselhoff, he always brings up in interviews, like, “I want to do the theatre.” And he's done a lot of stuff in the UK, too because I think that's where he lives now. And he's done a lot of stuff that's with more legitimacy. I know he was in a production of Peter Pan playing Hook for a long time.

ANDREW: That's fun.

ALLISON: Which I think got better reviews than this.

JESS: Well, the thing is - this didn’t get bad reviews, as we've discovered.

ALLISON: Well, all right. I mean, I think they're being a little nice to be honest, even though I do enjoy it.

ALLISON: They're very, very nice.

JESS: I mean, I don't want to piss off David Hasselhoff either.

ALLISON: Maybe I'm being too cynical, I just need to give in, but I just feel it was really lazy. It wasn't done very well.

JESS: It felt like cheesy sitcoms from the 80s that lasted maybe a half season.

ALLISON: There was a Bill Clinton joke in there. He says like, “I didn't have sexual relations with that woman.” It’s so old.

ANDREW: What year is it?

JESS: It’s a reference to before -

ANDREW: Is this supposed to take place in the 80s or the 90s? Did the Bill Clinton thing already happen?

ALLISON: It has to be 90s at least because they say that he's stuck in the past being in the 80s, but the 80s is only like a decade ago in their universe. So it's not even that sad to be like, “Okay, I feel some nostalgia for 10 years ago.” They're not clear what the decade is, you just have to kind of glean from what you see, but none of it seems very specific to any sort of thing. But it's not like The Goldbergs where it's like, “Let's just take all of our nostalgia and everything happened that one year.” It's just like, “I don't know, this is what we had two minutes before the show we can buy or bring or like we had in our wardrobes already.”

JESS: I do want to bring up that this did springboard Hoff into a legitimate theater role right after this. He jumped into Dolly Parton's 9 to 5 as one of the lead actors on the West End.

ALLISON: Heck yeah.

JESS: Which - I think that is a perfect musical for David Hasselhoff. It's tongue-in-cheek and the vocals are Dolly Parton-range, which I think would suit David Hasselhoff’s voice very, very well.

ALLISON: I saw him as the boss in Click. I bet he could do this.

JESS: I forgot he was in that.

ALLISON: That sounds great, honestly. I think I did see a little trailer promo for that and that's fairly recent, too, because DJ Saved My Life was only four years ago, so -

JESS: That was in February of 2020 is when he put his last performance, right before COVID, so he was working in the theater right up to the moment theater stopped existing.

ALLISON: Oh man. Good for him.

JESS: I would pay money to see him in that. But now we've reached the end of the show - Allison, what is your overall thoughts on Last Night a DJ Saved My Life and your cheese rating?

ALLISON: Please check it out. What cheese rating? What are the ratings again? Just a specific kind of cheese?

JESS: Any cheese that you feel like you can justify relating to this show in any way.

ALLISON: Oh this is Cheez Whiz, it's cheap. You're not doing it because you're like, “I want something fancy,” you just want to have a good time. It's debatably called “cheese.” I think that's what that what I would call it.

JESS: I think that’s brilliant. Andrew, you're up next, what is your overall thoughts on this and your cheese rating?

ANDREW: I think, if you're a big David Hasselhoff fan, I don't even know if it's worth seeking out, but maybe. I don't think I could recommend this to anybody else, though. It's a little too cheap and lazy to be enjoyable for the average audience. But you know, that being said, we've watched things that are more unwatchable than this, I mean this is at least ironically enjoyable in some fashion. So I'm gonna give it a cheeseburger, for, you know, David Hasselhoff reasons, I guess.

JESS: Goddammit, Andrew. Stop, stop. That's bad.

ANDREW: It's mean, it's mean. I'm sorry.

JESS: That's bad. I made my joke and I've been feeling like crap ever since I made that joke.

ANDREW: It's fine. David Hasselhoff’s cool, okay? But nobody's gonna forget about that. I'm sorry.

JESS: I enjoyed this, the more I think about it. In the process of watching it, I was like, “This is bad,” but now I think about it like, “No, that was fun. That was goofy.” And thinking about it as a live performance and not a recording of a live performance, I soften a bit to it if that makes sense. I feel like, “Yeah, that would be a lot of fun,” or “I'd love to throw beach balls at this,” and bright flashing lights and shiny keys, like, yeah, let's go.

ALLISON: Yeah, I wouldn't be mad seeing this live.

JESS: No. So, what my cheese rating is going to be is coastal cheese because this feels like it would float around on a coastal type cruise ship, and it's made in England because this is an English show. It's coastal cheddar specifically. Bree, you’re up. What did you think of our discussion and your cheese rating of that?

BRIANNA: I thought your discussion was fantastic. It makes me want to go watch this. It sounds like something –

JESS: Does it?

BRIANNA: It does. It's something I want to see now. I feel like if I was to die tomorrow, and never got to watch this, I would be either in hell or heaven, very upset that I didn't get to see it.

ANDREW: Just need a DJ to save your life.

JESS: Yes, exactly. You need to overdose on drugs and then wake up to Baywatch.

BRIANNA: So, I'm going to give this what David Hasselhoff splurges on Sunday is a bagel with lox and cream cheese and capers and onions and something else cus I didn’t open up the website and I’m just reading from Google.

JESS: That's a lot of stuff to have just on a Sunday -

BRIANNA: He says it's his secrets to keeping young.

ALLISON: And Botox.

BRIANNA: Let’s be real. If I had that money, I’d have some Botox.

JESS: He looks great though. He looks really good.

ANDREW: He does.

JESS: Maybe I should get some Botox.

BRIANNA: Have you seen that meme, it's like, “You're not ugly, you're just poor.”

JESS: You’re right.

ANDREW: Man, never thought of it that way.

JESS: Man. Allison, this was so much fun. We love having you on, we hope to have you on a bunch more in 2021, but promote your stuff. We gotta shill everything that you've got. Tell everyone where they can find you.

ALLISON: Oh, okay, thank you. You can find my videos talking about Baywatch or so-bad-it's-good movies or Charmed or Star Trek and any sort of thing like that. You could find me on YouTube at youtube.com/movienightstheseries. You can find me on Twitter @allisonpregler. You can find my Charmed podcast at anchor.fm under Charmed Hard with a Vengeance or Charmed Rewind. I think that's the biggies there. Yeah. You can also find me at phelous.com - that's where my boyfriend's stuff is.

JESS: And I try to do this with everyone that comes on - my personal recommendation of things I always revisit is whenever she covers the Mary Kate and Ashley videos from when they were little.

ALLISON: Oh, thank you.

ALLISON: We do triple features.

JESS: Those are a joy to watch.

ALLISON: We do triple features. Oh, thank you. Yeah, we'll look at three random Mary Kate and Ashley shorts. Me and Phelan and Phelan just - He's not the target audience for this and I grew up on those. Yeah, those are a lot of fun to do.

JESS: Well, yeah and I grew up on them too because I was a weird child. So, it's like opening a box of nostalgia for me and it's like, “Man, they really did seem miserable shooting those.”

ALLISON: I didn't notice as a kid. I was just like, “Yeah, Mary Kate and Ashley is the coolest.” I was jealous of my friend, she was part of their fan club, she got all their merch and stuff. Man.”

JESS: Man, now I'm jealous of your friend. How do I get Mary Kate and Ashley’s merch?

ALLISON: Be a rich kid. That's what it was.

JESS: So you can stay beautiful and rich and you can be a part of the Mary Kate and Ashley fan club. But you know who's definitely not a part –

ANDREW: Why are we poor? Jeez.

JESS: Yeah, why are we poor? You know who's definitely not in the Mary Kate and Ashley fan club, Andrew?

ANDREW: Me?

JESS: Our wonderful patrons. Thank you guys for listening.

(Credits)

JESS: Allison, is there anything else you want to say before we call it a night?

ALLISON: Don't hassle The Hoff.

ANDREW: Yeah, good call.

ALLISON: I can't snap but I'll pretend.

JESS: We’ll see you guys next time on Musicals with Cheese.