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[0:10] Jesse McAnally: Hi, I'm Jesse McAnally.

[0:12] Andrew DeWolf: And I'm Andrew DeWolf.

[0:13] Brianna Jones: And I'm Brianna Jones.

[0:14] Jesse McAnally: And welcome to Musicals with Cheese, a podcast where I try to get Andrew and Brie to like musical theater.

[0:18] Jesse McAnally: And you guys, not only is it Pride Month, but we've got a super special returning guest.

[0:24] Ethan: Hi!

[0:24] Jesse McAnally: Ah, he jumped the gun!

[0:27] Andrew DeWolf: Jump the gun.

[0:28] Jesse McAnally: I didn't even get to say something snarky, Ethan.

[0:30] Ethan: I'm so sorry.

[0:31] Jesse McAnally: You didn't even everything.

[0:34] Jesse McAnally: Please join us in welcoming one of our favorite guests for their fifth time around, which means he's gonna get the cheese.

[0:40] Jesse McAnally: Um, it's Ethan from Sideways.

[0:45] Ethan: You should play some like celebration music right here because you made it to five times.

[1:10] Jesse McAnally: And hopefully we'll figure out what happens with 10.

[1:12] Jesse McAnally: But you're joining an elusive club. I think only Brent Black and Adam Wokter have previously been in.

[1:19] Jesse McAnally: So you're lucky number three.

[1:21] Ethan: Cheesy.

[1:22] Jesse McAnally: Five timers club.

[1:24] Ethan: You know, I feel like I've been on way more than five episodes, and I've never gotten a cheese tray.

[1:28] Jesse McAnally: You're right.

[1:30] Andrew DeWolf: You gotta start backlogging the cheese trays.

[1:36] Jesse McAnally: Oh no.

[1:37] Jesse McAnally: So speaking of cheese trays, Jonathan Larson's was a gentleman that wrote a bunch of musicals and then sadly died of an aortic aneurysm.

[1:45] Jesse McAnally: Tick, Tick... Boom.

[1:47] Ethan: You the music free.

[1:49] Jesse McAnally: This is the life of Oba Boba Bob.

[1:52] Ethan: This is the life of O Bumbo.

[1:55] Jesse McAnally: This is the life above bone.

[1:57] Ethan: Bobia.

[2:00] Jesse McAnally: Bob.

[2:03] Ethan: Bob.

[2:37] Jesse McAnally: So Tick, Tick... Boom is a movie adapted from Jonathan Larson's's original musical by Steven Levinson.

[2:37] Jesse McAnally: You know, the guy that wrote Dear Evan Hansen.

[2:37] Jesse McAnally: Um, so the music and lyrics are both by Jonathan Larson's based on his original play.

[2:37] Jesse McAnally: Um, this hmm-mm-hmm.

[2:37] Jesse McAnally: This is where it gets confusing.

[2:37] Jesse McAnally: It premiered on Netflix in November of 2021.

[2:37] Jesse McAnally: Jonathan was played by Andrew Garfield, who would later be nominated for an Oscar for his performance.

[2:37] Jesse McAnally: And the plot of Tick, Tick... Boom is on the cusp of his 30th birthday, a promising young theater composer navigates love, friendship, and the pressures of life as an artist in New York City.

[2:46] Jesse McAnally: Alright, so Andrew, you and I did an episode on the stage musical of Tick, Tick... Boom.

[2:51] Jesse McAnally: We're gonna try to avoid talking about the stage musical too much, but I'm very curious as to Ethan's history with Jonathan Larson's, Rent, and the whole oeuvre of that.

[3:00] Andrew DeWolf: I don't know shit about him.

[3:02] Andrew DeWolf: That's, uh, like I'm completely honest.

[3:04] Andrew DeWolf: I don't, I really don't know that, uh, he's a huge blind spot for me, and sort of like my musical theater lexicon.

[3:11] Andrew DeWolf: The only exposure prior to this film that I really had to Jonathan Larson's was in high school, you know, like for like the last week of high school, like the last week of the semester, nobody's really doing anything, and you show up to class just to be there.

[3:21] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, yeah.

[3:22] Andrew DeWolf: I was in band and we were just watching movies, but like something happened, and they were in the middle of Rent as I walked into that period because people were just sitting in the room watching movies marathoning it.

[3:33] Andrew DeWolf: So I walked in halfway through Rent.

[3:35] Andrew DeWolf: I had no idea what was going on, and I leaned over to someone and I was like, hey, like, what's happening? What's the movie about?

[3:39] Andrew DeWolf: And she turns to me, she goes, Everyone's dying from AIDS, and that was it.

[3:44] Andrew DeWolf: It's always been a mosaic film.

[3:46] Andrew DeWolf: I've seen bits and pieces, but I've never seen the thing hook like all the way through.

[3:50] Andrew DeWolf: Um, and yeah, like that's literally all I knew about Jonathan Larson's, and then everyone on Twitter just lost their minds over this when it came out.

[3:58] Ethan: I mean, oh yes.

[3:59] Ethan: Yes, I was one of the people that lost their minds over this.

[4:02] Jesse McAnally: Um, so Andrew, I kept you a little away for this.

[4:05] Jesse McAnally: So when this originally came out, we were, I was going to force you guys to watch it, but then I thought, let's step back, wait for the hype to die down, and form an actual opinion on this as opposed to jumping on a bandwagon.

[4:15] Jesse McAnally: So, Andrew, with the context of Rent, Tick, Tick... Boom, the stage musical, and now the film, what did you think of Tick, Tick... Boom?

[4:22] Andrew DeWolf: Um, honestly, I think it was pretty good.

[4:24] Andrew DeWolf: Uh, the movie, anyways.

[4:26] Andrew DeWolf: I remember thinking the stage show was not great, but like better than Rent.

[4:31] Andrew DeWolf: A little bit better than Rent in that it made a bit more sense and felt like it was more personal.

[4:36] Andrew DeWolf: Um, but it feels like whoever was working on the movie took what was there, added some stuff, fixed up the narrative, and it's like a real show now.

[4:36] Andrew DeWolf: It's like a real story.

[4:46] Jesse McAnally: Um, I have to agree with you.

[4:48] Jesse McAnally: I like Tick, Tick... Boom better than Rent as a stage show because Rent is a mess, and it's not Jonathan Larson's's fault.

[4:55] Andrew DeWolf: That's what I always hear.

[4:56] Andrew DeWolf: Everyone always says it's like, oh, it's like it's weird, but you gotta listen to it.

[5:00] Jesse McAnally: Yeah, it's like a finished work that they have just pushed into the limelight.

[5:04] Jesse McAnally: Exactly that.

[5:05] Jesse McAnally: Um, work that Jonathan Larson's was not entirely happy with at the moment of his death.

[5:10] Jesse McAnally: In fact, famously he was sending Sondheim a lot of emails and letters like, I just want to fire the director, and Sondheim was like, just wait until after the off-Broadway. You can fire him when you transfer.

[5:20] Andrew DeWolf: Oh, that's really interesting.

[5:22] Jesse McAnally: Yeah, so Michael Greif, who is the director of Rent, made a lot of like terrible choices, um, that he still makes to this day.

[5:30] Jesse McAnally: Like, you know, the lack of set and saying things like, I don't care if the song is garbage, I need a song in Act Two, which is why we have the song "Your Eyes" right before the show ends, which is just a bad song.

[5:41] Andrew DeWolf: Huh.

[5:42] Jesse McAnally: So there's a lot of things that Jonathan likely would have fixed had he had the time.

[5:47] Jesse McAnally: Like that's what off-Broadway is for is to like fix the things before you get into the final house.

[5:53] Jesse McAnally: Take a look at Next to Normal before that turned into a Broadway show. Lots of changes.

[6:11] Andrew DeWolf: Because we've been a little too, well, it's been a little too precious about it.

[6:14] Jesse McAnally: One of the best things about the Tick, Tick... Boom film is that it isn't that precious about the stage show Tick, Tick... Boom or the one person three person monologue.

[6:23] Jesse McAnally: Yeah, they really changed a lot when we moved it into a movie.

[6:27] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah.

[6:27] Ethan: Do you want to know what the stage show is like?

[6:30] Ethan: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

[6:31] Ethan: I'm really, I'm really interested because again, kind of walking in blind.

[6:34] Ethan: Um, I feel like, you know, sort of divorced from Lin-Manuel Miranda, Jonathan Larson's, Rent, and everything, just looking at it like as a film.

[6:42] Ethan: It's a really good musical movie, especially like now when we're dealing with like some really funky musical movies.

[6:48] Jesse McAnally: Yeah, yeah.

[6:49] Ethan: It's like it does it really, really well.

[6:51] Jesse McAnally: You know, I still agree.

[6:53] Jesse McAnally: So I'm really interested to see like where it sort of changed in how it was adapted from the stage show and like what they had to change.

[7:00] Jesse McAnally: So the monologue was just three people on mic stands dance, and they include that into the film very well.

[7:06] Jesse McAnally: Um, then they in 2001, um, a guy named David Auburn adapted that monologue into a three-person stage musical with a proper narrative, so to say.

[7:16] Jesse McAnally: Um, and a lot of that was tossed out for the movie, but like elements were kept in, like small scene snippets were kept in.

[7:24] Jesse McAnally: Like so Susan in that version was much more of just a shrew, like a battering wife character just trying to br like you've seen Walk Hard.

[7:34] Andrew DeWolf: He was Susan was just the wife character played by Kristen Wiig in Walk Hard in the stage show.

[7:40] Ethan: Yeah.

[7:40] Andrew DeWolf: Huh.

[7:41] Ethan: That's so weird.

[7:42] Ethan: And the songs were used as proper, like non-diegetic, they are singing from their soul kind of ballads, unlike in the movie where they're kind of within their own like wacky world, like they are performed on the stage in the rock monologue, or obviously a fantasy.

[7:57] Jesse McAnally: Sure.

[7:58] Ethan: Yeah, it's interesting how they did the movie because it's almost like a movie about Tick, Tick... Boom and not an adaptation of it.

[8:05] Ethan: Because there's like parts of it where he's performing Tick, Tick... Boom on the stage, and we're watching that, and then it like cuts away from that and goes to something else.

[8:15] Jesse McAnally: Mm-hmm.

[8:16] Ethan: There's like multiple levels of what diegetic levels to it.

[8:19] Ethan: How would you want to play it? Where it's like he's on stage and that's like quote unquote reality.

[8:23] Ethan: Then there's like basically the main story of the film, and then there's this like hyper-reality fantasy sort of the diner's gonna open up and we're gonna have lights like descend onto it while they write his name in the sky kind of stuff.

[8:35] Jesse McAnally: Yeah.

[8:35] Ethan: Mm-hmm.

[8:36] Ethan: And like there's like things like the Sunday pastiche.

[8:40] Ethan: That's obviously a movie only thing, but the Sunday scene did exist in the stage show.

[8:44] Jesse McAnally: So there are elements that are there, but it just, it's a different kind of feel.

[8:49] Jesse McAnally: It's a wholly different experience.

[8:51] Jesse McAnally: And it almost works on stage, but it really finds its home in the film.

[8:56] Jesse McAnally: So the film in and of itself has a lot of cards that it uses quite well.

[9:02] Ethan: And there's some songs in the film that were not in the stage show, like "Swimming," where—

[9:09] Jesse McAnally: Okay.

[9:09] Ethan: I wanted to ask about that because it felt like it stuck out a little bit.

[9:12] Ethan: Yeah, that song was written for Tick, Tick... Boom, only used in the monologues, and then cut for the stage show.

[9:18] Ethan: And then the song "Green Green Jess" is used as like diegetic music within the world as opposed to like a sung song, even though the sung song was shot.

[9:28] Ethan: Um, and then they just cut some things, like the song "Sugar," which even in the original stage show, they had no idea what to do with that song.

[9:35] Jesse McAnally: So they just made a small little throwaway joke in the movie.

[9:38] Ethan: Very smart choices made there.

[9:49] Jesse McAnally: Yes.

[9:50] Ethan: Like, and having no familiarity with Rent, like it all just sailed by and I had no idea.

[9:55] Jesse McAnally: Well, there's Rent, but there's everything else too.

[9:59] Andrew DeWolf: Mm-hmm.

[9:59] Andrew DeWolf: Um, so let, what did you think of the film?

[10:02] Ethan: Like, why did you decide to watch Tick, Tick... Boom, Ethan, as a guy that doesn't know about Jonathan Larson's that much, wasn't attached to Rent, all that kind of stuff?

[10:11] Ethan: I really wanted to see what Lin-Manuel Miranda was doing.

[10:14] Ethan: Because this is his first directorial film, right?

[10:17] Ethan: Like first time he ever directed.

[10:18] Ethan: I wanted to see what he did, and everybody was talking about how great it was, and how like, you know, everybody just lost their mind.

[10:23] Ethan: And I was like, alright, it's on Netflix.

[10:25] Ethan: I don't, I don't even have to put on pants. Let's do it, you know.

[10:27] Ethan: Um, it was basically just curiosity, you know.

[10:31] Ethan: Um, and yeah, I really enjoyed it.

[10:34] Ethan: The thing I'm sorry, I'm thinking about like Dear Evan Hansen, because I just got through that at the film, yeah.

[10:39] Ethan: And how it's just like anyway, um, the bad?

[10:44] Jesse McAnally: Yeah.

[10:47] Ethan: In so many ways.

[10:50] Ethan: It's like, you know, hopping from that and Cats and a couple other, you know, things.

[10:54] Andrew DeWolf: Cats is bad now?

[10:55] Ethan: Oh my gosh.

[10:58] Jesse McAnally: Cat slander on this show.

[10:59] Ethan: Oh my gosh.

[11:00] Ethan: It's a lot, it's like kind of like a movie musical slump.

[11:02] Ethan: And so to see something work this well, right, especially coming from somebody who like obviously has is probably like the most prolific musical theater writer right now, Lin-Manuel Miranda, would you say?

[11:13] Jesse McAnally: See, that's where it's confused.

[11:15] Jesse McAnally: It's hard to say that right now because he's done two pieces of musical theater.

[11:20] Ethan: Uh-huh.

[11:21] Jesse McAnally: Oh, yeah.

[11:21] Jesse McAnally: He's moved on to movies at this point.

[11:23] Jesse McAnally: He's writing everything for Disney.

[11:25] Ethan: Right.

[11:26] Ethan: Oh, okay.

[11:27] Ethan: I almost count that because he's still writing music like a lot for and making a ton of money doing it, so I don't know.

[11:33] Ethan: Anyway, I thought, like, as far as the movie, the movie musical aspect, I thought it was executed really, really well.

[11:38] Ethan: And that was the part that I was interested in.

[11:40] Ethan: Um, this is much closer to like a Bob Fosse style stage musical than it is to let's just say Steven Spielberg's West Side Story.

[11:50] Jesse McAnally: Yeah.

[11:51] Ethan: This is an untraditional musical in that way, and the way that the songs kind of react to a scene that's going on as opposed to push the story forward.

[12:01] Jesse McAnally: Yeah, it felt at times like it kind of had a Chicago flair, the Chicago film from the early 2000s, where it would just like it just goes off, or like Big Fish, I want to say, where it just like it would just go off into a random fantasy world and then it has to bring you back to reality.

[12:15] Ethan: I can see both of those things very clearly.

[12:19] Ethan: Um, the problem with this film, uh, like I see very few faults with it.

[12:24] Ethan: I think it's a great film.

[12:25] Ethan: There are things that bother me though, um, but I don't want to dive into the negative.

[12:29] Jesse McAnally: Andrew, what are your thoughts?

[12:30] Andrew DeWolf: Um, I mean I already said I really enjoyed it.

[12:33] Andrew DeWolf: I don't think I have any general thoughts other than, well, how does it compare to the other movie musicals we got last year?

[12:39] Andrew DeWolf: The West Side Stories, the Dear Evan Hansons.

[12:41] Ethan: Well, Dear Evan Hansen is just garbage.

[12:44] Andrew DeWolf: It almost feels like it's hard to like talk about movie musicals right now because it's basically a binary.

[12:48] Andrew DeWolf: It's like there's good ones and then there's bad ones, and then that's like it.

[12:52] Andrew DeWolf: It's either, it's either like Dear Evan Hansen or it's Tick, Tick... Boom and West Side Story where they're like good.

[12:58] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, it's like competent or incompetent.

[13:00] Ethan: You know, it's like it's either good or bad.

[13:02] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, it's like, well, I mean, this one was good, and those ones were bad, and that's, there's no like gray area, you know, gray area, it feels like.

[13:13] Andrew DeWolf: Well, Andrew, last week we were literally talking about a musical of the same vein called Nine, about a creative that's struggling with his relationships and all that because they're trying to write one piece of music, art, film, all that.

[13:27] Andrew DeWolf: What makes this effective and makes that less effective?

[13:30] Andrew DeWolf: Um, you know, that's, I think a lot of it is just the portrayal of the lead.

[13:35] Andrew DeWolf: Um, I mean, in Nine, that guy was an insufferable piece of shit.

[13:43] Ethan: Who is Jonathan Larson's in this movie?

[13:45] Andrew DeWolf: Uh, Jonathan Larson's, pretty sure.

[13:47] Ethan: I mean, yes, but what are his character traits?

[13:49] Andrew DeWolf: Like, he is excitable, he is easily distracted, he is emotionally unavailable.

[13:55] Ethan: And the best thing that this movie does that Rent refused to do, that all of Nine refuses to do, is it gives a character saying, "What the fuck are you bitching about?" It gives so many people pointing out every single thing that Jonathan is doing wrong as a human being.

[14:11] Andrew DeWolf: That's actually a really good point.

[14:13] Ethan: There's in fact multiple people in it. In Rent, one of the biggest complaints that we've always had is like they just complain about everything in their whole life. And then I think there's one part lampshading it where like a homeless person tells them to fuck off. Um, but like in this one, I mean, what's his uh, his girlfriend is like, "Hey, you're never there for me, what the hell?" His friend is like, "Hey, I helped you out. What the fuck are you like? Why are you bitching all the time?" Like, I don't know. There's a lot of good stuff like that. And it's what separates this from All That Jazz and Nine is the fact that they don't deify Jonathan Larson's.

[14:51] Andrew DeWolf: Which is surprising because a lot of this is um like a love letter to uh Broadway figures. I mean, you have Steven Sondheim, you have oh my god, there were so many fucking people of everyone. And so you would think that they would want to portray Jonathan Larson's as like this perfect figure, but it's actually really good that they don't because I mean that's what's interesting about this story is that he's a person and not a god.

[15:18] Ethan: Well, it was really interesting to me because especially coming from Lin-Manuel Miranda, because in some ways this is really similar to Hamilton, right? Where like going into the film, going into the show, you know that the lead dies at the end, and you know that historically the main character does something like good or beneficial, legendary, historical, however you want to put it, something historically significant, right? So when you're watching Tick, Tick... Boom!, yes, Larson makes a bunch of really shitty moves. He does a lot of things that, like, I know that, like in my comp studio, would have been considered like really amateur-ish or just like not okay in a professional setting. But there's this like weird justification where you know that every choice that he makes leads to him writing Rent. And so even if it seems like it's the wrong answer, you're kind of like, "Ah, I don't know if this is like justified or not."

[16:08] Andrew DeWolf: Yes.

[16:09] Ethan: Um, and Jonathan Larson's in this show, he's never malicious. Like he is just driven in a way that in the 90s it was seen. Like he talks about selling out a lot, and like selling out to the man and how, I mean that's a thing in Rent that was the stage show of Tick, Tick... Boom! as well. Those were much bigger things in Rent and much bigger things in the stage show. And the fact that that is immediately contradicted from a modern perspective, which is like, who gives a fuck if you sell out? I don't want to die on the streets and I want to... there's a lot in this film where you have to like constantly remind yourself that this is the 90s. Cause you're sitting here nowadays, it's like, holy shit, dude, you got a job? Like, yeah. Why are you turning this down? Oh my god.

[16:51] Andrew DeWolf: And like, I hate that. Like, if there was any scene that I hate in this movie and I hate in the stage show, it's that scene where it's making fun of like the ad company and whatnot.

[17:03] Ethan: Yeah, yeah. It's yeah, there's a lot where it just does not hit, especially just because of the time frame where he really comes off as arrogant, condescending. I don't know. He's a real mark.

[17:17] Andrew DeWolf: Yes.

[17:18] Ethan: But Jonathan Larson, the man himself, I don't think he's in this movie. And I've gotten in trouble on Twitter for making this claim before. Um, and forgive me if I'm gonna cancel myself again. I think it is to the betterment of this movie, and it was a good decision, but this does not read to me when I see Andrew Garfield on screen as Andrew Garfield portraying Jonathan Larson's based on the books and stories and all those things that I had read and descriptions and stories and clips. He's playing Lin-Manuel Miranda. He is just doing a very heightened Lin-Manuel Miranda impression.

[17:56] Andrew DeWolf: Jonathan Larson's is a very calm stoner type whose excitement comes out a lot more in like voisterous kind of ways, like that kind of intensity. I'd say it's like the coolest kid in your band, like energy. He's a rock fan. Whereas Andrew Garfield's a little bit more flamboyant and big and moving his arms all about.

[18:24] Ethan: That's really interesting because at the end of the film they have clips of uh like actual real life clips of Larson. And you're like, "Oh yeah, Andrew Garfield totally rocked it." You know, like it's a total one-to-one representation. I mean, he looks like him, he looks like him, he looks a lot like him, but he replicates the performance when he is performing like on the stage. When he does "3090," he does all of that stuff. But as soon as like we're in the real world, when we're in the story, when we're in the world.

[18:51] Andrew DeWolf: He was way more subdued, yeah.

[18:53] Ethan: Oh, okay. That's where I get the vibe. Like, I referenced the Anthony Rapp story um from Without You, his audiobook, where the first time I met Jonathan Larson's, he just auditioned and they just saw Jonathan in a ball in the back, like you were in Dazed and Confused, weren't you? That was a really cool movie. Like he's a very kind of calm, soft spoken kind of... and he did the impression in the audiobook, and I was like, that feels right. Now, for the most recent production with Nick Blaemire of Tick, Tick... Boom!, I think he looks and sounds and like completely nails the entire Jonathan Larson's vibe.

[19:18] Andrew DeWolf: Huh.

[19:18] Ethan: Now, it is to the betterment of the movie because I think this makes Jonathan a lot more relatable, a little bit more open, a little bit more friendly. I think it is a good choice for the movie. It's just he doesn't fade away into the role to me. He may have seemed callous if he did the same things, but in like a subdued way, rather than a little bit.

[19:49] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah.

[19:51] Ethan: What do you think of the addition of the songs from uh his show that does not exist?

[19:57] Andrew DeWolf: Superbia.

[19:59] Ethan: I was really interested by this because there's they make a whole bit or a whole fuss over how like he's missing a number. And Sondheim himself tells him that he's missing this number. But there is like a portion of that number that comes back at the end for the final number, second to last number. And it's almost like light motivic, and it's if like was that always in the show, or did they just change that for the film?

[20:21] Andrew DeWolf: Um, no, that was... you're asking a very specific question that I did know the answer to.

[20:26] Ethan: Oh, sorry.

[20:27] Andrew DeWolf: I knew this answer because I just recently rewatched the Jonathan Larson's footage of his three-person monologue. And in that same song, why, you know, "Hey, what a way to send this day." Um, he does not sing that little "Come to Your Senses" defense. That is not what he sings in it.

[20:44] Ethan: Interesting.

[20:46] Andrew DeWolf: Um, he sings the LCD readout song that he was singing before in front of Sondheim.

[20:46] Ethan: Oh.

[20:46] Andrew DeWolf: 9 a.m., I'm right on lyrical to Mike sings a song on Madonna New. I sing "Come to Your Senses." "Defenses are not the way to go." Over and over and over till I get it wrong.

[21:54] Ethan: Um, because so that was not in Jonathan Larson's's thing. That was added when they added the song basically narrative to the stage show for the 2001 off-Broadway one.

[22:04] Andrew DeWolf: Okay, because that's like my favorite part of the show.

[22:07] Ethan: That's of note in that there is a plot of he needs to get this final song, and I don't think that's even at all in the stage show.

[22:15] Andrew DeWolf: Kind of in there.

[22:16] Ethan: Just crazy. That's like the whole second act, basically.

[22:19] Andrew DeWolf: It the yeah, that narrative tension of it being a ticking clock. Well, no pun intended, it's not in the stage show, but the "Come to Your Senses" song being a song that's written is in there. The ticking clock is just him turning 30, I'm pretty sure. That's it. That that's the ticking clock of the stage show.

[22:35] Ethan: Huh.

[22:36] Andrew DeWolf: Um, which I guess is the point, but it is more engaging when there's something happening in the story.

[22:44] Ethan: I gotta say, I have like a real big personal problem with the opening number.

[22:49] Andrew DeWolf: Okay, let's talk about that.

[22:50] Ethan: Uh, it's I don't have anything good. It's just it's just really, really personal. I was born in 1990, and I just turned 30. And so I'm listening to this whole number of him talking about 1990 and how he's about to turn 30 and his life is over, and I'm like, "Yeah." Okay, cool. But that's it. Just literally listening to the whole thing. He's like, "Yeah, I am aging. The earth is rotating, time is continuing, it won't stop. Yay."

[23:14] Andrew DeWolf: You felt seen in a good way, I think.

[23:20] Ethan: Yeah, yeah. It was like weirdly cosmic, where it's like, okay, so this is what the year I was born. Hey Siri, what's 30 divided by 90?

[23:28] Andrew DeWolf: One third.

[23:29] Ethan: Right. 0.333333333.

[23:34] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, one third.

[23:36] Ethan: Well, so this is this... okay. Well, sort of to bring it back into the like the world of the film, I have like I have these weird problems with it where it's like, yes, there are people in this film that hold him accountable whenever he's being like kind of a turd.

[23:48] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah.

[23:49] Ethan: Right. But there are a lot of aspects of this film, even for the 90s, where I'm like, "All right, now hold the fuck up. How did you pull that off?" right? Or like he's like, "Oh, Steven Sondheim did his first musical by the time he was 27." I was like, "Yeah, but that was Sondheim, and he had like a literal, like, since he was a sperm, he was studying under people who are like professionals in the industry and stuff like that." And then he's like, "Oh, you know, I have to have I have to have a hit musical by the time I'm 30." I'm like, "Dude, even having something read by the time you're 30 is such a huge accomplishment." And then he's talking about how like he's a part of this workshop where Sondheim will just show up and he can play songs for Sondheim, and I'm like, "How? What do you mean you're struggling?" This is like people would kill for this. What are you talking about? You know what I mean? Jonathan Larson's as a human. That's the vibe.

[24:36] Andrew DeWolf: Have you seen Rent?

[24:38] Ethan: I have not.

[24:39] Andrew DeWolf: I think seeing Rent paints a lot of the sprint pretty well. There's a character in Rent who is a struggling photographer, and he gets a job and then just doesn't do it because he doesn't want to sell out. Quits because he was sick of selling out.

[24:44] Ethan: Huh.

[24:44] Andrew DeWolf: He gets a job doing what he wants to be doing, and then he's like, "Nah, this sucks. I'm selling out with doing this."

[25:01] Ethan: It's like, what? Okay. So Jonathan Larson, I believe, won the Richard Rogers grant, which gave him access to Sondheim, like for at like a luncheon. And from there they hit it off and they became friendly co-workers.

[25:17] Andrew DeWolf: That's fucking wild.

[25:18] Ethan: Um, like he would just send Sondheim stuff over his answering machine and get feedback on it. Because Sondheim, like we've all seen the Sondheim letters like that have come out. You could just do that. And he would listen to it.

[25:30] Andrew DeWolf: That's so insane to me.

[25:32] Ethan: Just like that, you could just, yeah, that's just that's crazy. And he was like, and Sondheim, to his credit, would always give feedback, or he'd be like, "I'm too busy, but I wish you well." Like, I've seen the recommendation letters that I'm sure Jonathan was like, "Hey, can you write me a letter of recommendation?" And Sondheim wrote two sentences. "I highly recommend Jonathan Larson's." Like, I in the documentaries, I've seen those like things, and that is not as big of a stretch as you think.

[25:57] Andrew DeWolf: Now we have to write Weber.

[26:00] Ethan: He's not writing back.

[26:01] Andrew DeWolf: And I don't think that he would like help at all.

[26:05] Ethan: Just shoot him a TikTok, he'll stitch it.

[26:07] Andrew DeWolf: He just tells you to fuck off.

[26:09] Ethan: Kindly fuck off.

[26:12] Andrew DeWolf: No, if you send your song to Weber, he'll just put it into his music.

[26:16] Ethan: There you go.

[26:18] Andrew DeWolf: Oh no.

[26:20] Ethan: So do we want to talk about some cameos?

[26:23] Andrew DeWolf: Uh, sure.

[26:24] Ethan: You're gonna have to do it because I couldn't even name everybody at all.

[26:27] Andrew DeWolf: Okay, I want to know how many you picked up, Andrew, and I'll ask Ethan how many he picked up that you don't mention.

[26:33] Andrew DeWolf: Oh boy. You're expecting me to know names. Like, start with me. I'm gonna get fewer than that. Obviously, Bernard at Peters.

[26:40] Ethan: Yeah, that's a big one.

[26:41] Andrew DeWolf: Uh, André De Shields had the funniest one. I almost peed myself when when he was... we just kept spelling his name. I'm like, "That's the math test. It's customer service in a nutshell." That was amazing. Alright, I'm gonna leave room for you. Go for it.

[26:52] Ethan: Is that it? That was the only two you remembered?

[26:55] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, I'm on the spot. I don't have any names.

[26:57] Ethan: My goodness.

[26:57] Andrew DeWolf: I recognize people.

[27:00] Ethan: Just throw out some people you recognize.

[27:01] Andrew DeWolf: I don't know their names. Like I looked at their faces and I was like, "Yeah, I know that person," but I don't know.

[27:05] Ethan: You don't even know where you know them from.

[27:07] Andrew DeWolf: No, uh, Sondheim was in it.

[27:08] Ethan: Oh no, there you go. Well, that wasn't Sondheim himself, it was Bradley Whitford playing Sondheim, but then Sondheim's voice showed up at the end because he didn't like how Bradley Whitford's original voicemail. So he stepped in and was like, "Oh, here's what I'd really say."

[27:24] Andrew DeWolf: Um, there's so many things. Um, I I'd count her. So can we talk about this for a second? So Josh Henry, um, you know, the gentleman that's also performed with Vanessa Hudgens in the three-person show. He is playing literally, they call him by name, Roger Bart. Do you know who Roger Bart is, Ethan?

[27:44] Ethan: No.

[27:44] Andrew DeWolf: Have you seen The Producers?

[27:46] Ethan: Yeah.

[27:46] Andrew DeWolf: Um, the musical?

[27:47] Ethan: Yeah, yeah.

[27:47] Andrew DeWolf: Carmen Gia from The Producers. He is also the singing voice of Hercules in the movie Hercules.

[27:54] Ethan: No way.

[27:55] Andrew DeWolf: Like they were John, okay. And Andrew, you'll remember him as Doc Brown from the Back to the Future musical most recently.

[28:03] Andrew DeWolf: Uh, yes, that's where I would remember him from.

[28:05] Ethan: Yeah, that's your favorite show. So that is literally, oh my god, how did I miss him? I'm gonna have a stroke. How did that, how did I miss it? Hold on. I'm going to Google now. Yeah, so Josh Henry is playing Roger Bart. So who else is in there, Jess? Who do you know?

[28:20] Jesse McAnally: No, we got Laura Benanti, who is one of my favorite human beings on the entire planet, playing the one that's running like the little operation where she's like, America, what do you think about? That's Laura Benanti. Well, in that, you also have the gentleman that was originally lined up to play Aaron Burr, but had some personal issues and was part of the one of the creators of Freestyle Love Supreme, which is Lynn Manuel Miranda's improv hip hop musical that's currently touring. Also, Little Red from Into the Woods is in there, yes.

[28:51] Andrew DeWolf: Okay, no, that one, yeah. Um, if you look around, Joel Perez, um, is in the Superbia workshop, um, you'll know him from Fun Home. Um, then we're gonna get to um Judy Kuhn, who plays um Jonathan Larson's's mother, who you might know as the voice of Pocahontas. She was also in Fun Home as the mother. Danny Bernstein, who you might remember as playing Brent Black in the Moulin Rouge stage musical, he won a Tony for playing Brent Black.

[29:17] Ethan: Um, true, true.

[29:21] Andrew DeWolf: Um, then of course Richard Kind as the gentleman that just disagrees with Sondheim until he decides he wants to agree with Sondheim.

[29:27] Jesse McAnally: Such a great scene.

[29:28] Ethan: Yeah, such a very like cathartic scene. You know, that's funny. I was actually just gonna say that as well. Oh, and if you look in the background of that scene, um, you will see behind, like in the audience, Dave Malloy, composer of Great Comet, Shayna Tobe, composer of Twelfth Night in the upcoming uh Devil Wears Prada musical. Um, Janine Tesori, composer of Violet, Fun Home, um, and all those sorts of things. Um, Jason Robert Brown, everyone's favorite.

[29:55] Andrew DeWolf: Oh, yeah.

[29:56] Ethan: He's definitely. Did they just call all these people in for like five minutes and then pay them, or did they not get paid even?

[30:01] Andrew DeWolf: I think it was just like, hey, my friends, I'm Lynn Manuel Miranda. Don't you want to come in and be in like a quick scene behind us playing other musical theater composers that were inspired by Jonathan Larson's? Because, you know.

[30:13] Jesse McAnally: There you go.

[30:14] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah. Um, so there's a lot of composer cameos in that specific scene. Um, yeah, and then we have uh Chita Rivera for a frame. We have Baby New Earth. So many, so many people.

[30:25] Jesse McAnally: And we're not doing a countdown here.

[30:27] Andrew DeWolf: Um, oh yeah. Brian Stokes Mitchell, Grace McLean, um Matthew Sklar, who composed The Prom. Some people you know what's great is if you miss one, everybody's just gonna freak out.

[30:38] Ethan: They are. They're like, you forget this person!

[30:41] Andrew DeWolf: You're my favorite person. Oh my god. We already did high school together. How dare you? Mark Shaman, he was in there. Steven's a lot of people.

[30:50] Jesse McAnally: There's a lot of people, like literally too many to count. Like, I'm sure I'm missing so many, but does it help the story to have them there?

[30:57] Ethan: Uh particularly. Like, it's nice. It's people want to watch the movie. And sometimes when you're Netflix and you're uh hemorrhaging money at record pace, you need people to watch your film.

[31:10] Andrew DeWolf: They were. Is it a selling point? Is it a selling point to be like, oh, we just have a shit ton of cameos?

[31:15] Ethan: It was for this movie, because everyone did a fucking video essay about that. I just yeah, I just kept seeing constant Twitter pictures with all these circles and faces and oh my god, did you see that?

[31:24] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, it was this person.

[31:25] Ethan: Yeah, it's this person. I was like, that okay. I will say I saw this movie in theaters, and like it was obvious I was in an audience of people this movie was made for. It was pretty remarkable to hear us all gasping at the same moments.

[31:34] Andrew DeWolf: Oh, really?

[31:39] Ethan: They got that person. I mean, when you're not expecting it, it is pretty cool.

[31:43] Andrew DeWolf: But they got Kermit the Frog in the background there.

[31:47] Ethan: Hey, that's not nice to call Steven Sondheim that, Andrew.

[31:50] Andrew DeWolf: Oh no. Um, was there so you've listed your too close to home moment. Can I tell you mine, Ethan? Um, and this one has kind of...

[31:58] Ethan: Is it that this is about you?

[32:01] Andrew DeWolf: Is it that you are Jonathan Larson's?

[32:05] Ethan: I am not Jonathan Larson's. I feel like I have a pretty good work-life balance in my life, but you might feel that way, but we all know the truth.

[32:12] Andrew DeWolf: Okay. So the moment when he is making up with his girlfriend, and then she catches him playing piano on his back, trying to turn it into a song. And she's like, You're gonna try to figure out how to turn this into a fucking piece of your musical, aren't you? Um yeah, that that one hit a little close for me.

[32:30] Ethan: You're not supposed to tell people that.

[32:34] Andrew DeWolf: Really crazy is that he actually did turn it into a song, too.

[32:38] Ethan: Yeah, he did.

[32:39] Andrew DeWolf: That's the weird part. That's like that's not how boundaries work, bro.

[32:44] Ethan: Yeah, he learned the wrong lesson from that scene.

[32:47] Andrew DeWolf: I don't think he learned any lesson from that scene. I don't think he learned any lesson in this movie, even though they sure tried to frame it like you did.

[32:54] Jesse McAnally: What was supposed to be the lesson?

[32:56] Ethan: I think he learned to love what he had, sort of.

[32:59] Andrew DeWolf: Well, because in the the why number, right? We're sitting at the piano. First off, I love that scene because it's like, oh, look, you happen to find a piano outside that's not completely destroyed by the weather and happens to be in tune.

[33:09] Ethan: Yeah.

[33:09] Andrew DeWolf: Uh no, don't worry, he's gonna destroy it with the weather though. He's like the cover off of it. Like, like there's there's like a whole part where he's like, he keeps talking about how he vows. Like he vows to like do this and do that, and it's like, what is he vowing? Like, he's gonna live for both of them?

[33:26] Ethan: I think so.

[33:28] Andrew DeWolf: He didn't do that.

[33:29] Ethan: Well, I mean, he tried to. Honestly, the guy that the guy that m you know Michael is based on is still alive, and Jonathan isn't, so...

[33:31] Andrew DeWolf: Wait, really?

[33:39] Ethan: I was waiting for the reveal of that, like what if that person is still alive or not, and they never did.

[33:44] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah.

[33:44] Ethan: How I don't know how to frame this question. How real is the show? Like, how how much of the show is his real life with real people using their reality? How historically accurate is Tick, Tick... Boom?

[33:56] Andrew DeWolf: Do we oh I have a list here? Are we ready?

[33:58] Ethan: Oh, Jesus. Did I just open Pandora's box?

[34:03] Andrew DeWolf: Um, there's an entire section on the Wikipedia here about historical inaccuracy.

[34:08] Ethan: Oh my god.

[34:09] Andrew DeWolf: Okay, see, like I was asking, because it's like, did he actually have a fight with his girlfriend? And did he actually put that in his show that did not make it to off-Broadway? Because that's rough.

[34:17] Ethan: So Tick, Tick... Boom, um, they start with that quote, like, everything here is true except for the parts that Jonathan Larson's made up.

[34:26] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah.

[34:27] Ethan: That is I know we all hate that because Fargo ruined it for everyone, but that is a fairly accurate way to say it.

[34:34] Andrew DeWolf: What about the parts Lynn Manuel Miranda made up?

[34:36] Ethan: I don't think he made up much. That's the thing.

[34:38] Andrew DeWolf: Okay.

[34:39] Ethan: Like, as far as accuracy goes, Lynn Manuel Miranda was holding closer to historical accuracy than Jonathan Larson's did in his own writing.

[34:49] Andrew DeWolf: Interesting.

[34:50] Ethan: So that's the reason why it's like it's not entirely historically accurate, but Lynn Manuel Miranda, like Lynn Manuel Miranda did the aesthetic stuff. Like he recreated Jonathan Larson's's apartment from scratch, and people were like, Yeah, that's it. Because Jonathan Larson made a videotape of him recording every inch of his apartment for insurance reasons.

[35:09] Andrew DeWolf: Whoa.

[35:11] Ethan: That's intense. Why would you do that? But every time I'm seeing the apartment on screen, my brain is like, he's gonna die on the floor of that apartment alone. Like, that is what's in the back of my head.

[35:20] Andrew DeWolf: Like that is the intrusive thought that crawls in.

[35:25] Ethan: That is so brutal, but true.

[35:26] Andrew DeWolf: It's dark.

[35:27] Ethan: Yeah. It's really dark. Um, so he was like those things. He went to the exact swimming pool that Jonathan Larson's had to have swim in when he wrote Swimming. So those kind of things. Like Roger, Bart and all that. The changes he made, and the only changes to Jonathan's lyrics seems to be referring to the race of Susan, where Jonathan Larson's wrote white skin and wet hair. Um, but the he decided to cast Alexandria Shipp, who has brown skin. So those types of changes.

[35:58] Andrew DeWolf: So those the changes are pretty pretty minor to the Jonathan's original work. But let me read the historical accuracy. Are we ready for that?

[36:06] Ethan: Sure.

[36:06] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah.

[36:07] Ethan: I'm curious.

[36:08] Andrew DeWolf: Read the funny ones. Alright, so Stephen Sondheim was actually Larson's mentor for some time prior to the Superbia presentation. Their correspondence began when Larson sent Sondheim a letter in college, and Sondheim responded. Sondheim even had invited Larson to observe rehearsals for the original Broadway production of Into the Woods in 1987.

[36:29] Ethan: Holy sh shit, dude.

[36:32] Andrew DeWolf: That is insane. So okay, so no no. See that that no, we gotta like expand on that. Because it's like, okay, Steven Sondheim, one of like the greatest musical theater writers who's ever lived. Right? We're on the same page there.

[36:42] Ethan: Okay.

[36:44] Andrew DeWolf: He you wrote him a letter, he writes you back, you're now friends, and you you're like, you're in. You're like, you're showing up to rehearsals, you can ask him questions, you can have him look over your work.

[36:53] Ethan: Mm-hmm.

[36:54] Andrew DeWolf: I mean, that was fairly in the middle. This is all just who you know and not what you know.

[36:59] Ethan: Well, either way. I'm trying to say that that's the case because that would be shocking.

[37:04] Andrew DeWolf: No, because they bleed into one another, right? Like, if you know Steven Sondheim and you have a really specific problem, you can ask him for help. And then and then you get to learn stuff that isn't in the textbooks. You get to get to learn the tricks of the trade, the flick of the wrist kind of stuff, you know. And if you don't know Steven Sondheim, you'll never have to write a musical because you'll never get a job doing it.

[37:21] Ethan: You become a YouTuber, yeah.

[37:23] Andrew DeWolf: Let me frame it like this. Uh-huh. I don't Steve think Steven Sondheim would have wasted time on someone he didn't think was talented.

[37:30] Ethan: True, true, very true.

[37:32] Andrew DeWolf: Okay, so that raises like a shit ton more questions for uh Superbia. That's the one that didn't make it off-Broadway. So he's working under Sondheim's supervision effectively.

[37:41] Ethan: Yes.

[37:41] Andrew DeWolf: Writing this thing, and it didn't work.

[37:44] Ethan: Well, that's not the first time this happened. Like Sondheim has mentored a lot of people, including Adam Gattell, Jason Robert Brown, and Lynn Manuel Miranda. Like it's not like Sondheim was very quick to mentor young people that he thought was talented and wanted to learn. Sondheim was not on an island. Like I know we all hold him up to this god tier, but he didn't do that to himself.

[38:04] Andrew DeWolf: Like, if in the most recent book by James Lapine about putting it together, literally he just kind of invited Sondheim invite was going to one of his plays, and he's like, Oh, let's have drinks. And while he was he go went to Sondheim's house, he's like, Here, smoke a joint with me. And then someone just knocked on the door, Sondheim leaves, and he comes back and he's like, What was that? He's like, Ah, just a fan figured out my address, send him away.

[38:26] Ethan: Oh my god.

[38:27] Andrew DeWolf: So that was the kind of attitude that Sondheim had.

[38:32] Ethan: Right, but like you're like you're saying, he's not gonna he's not gonna invest time on somebody who doesn't think is talented.

[38:35] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, which I think is the big thing. I wish I knew him too. I I I should have written to him before he died. I th I thought thought about it a lot, but I didn't, because you know, the one ten one chance to ruin your relationship with Sondheim right there.

[38:49] Ethan: There you go.

[38:50] Andrew DeWolf: So, fun fact, Sondheim really likes Superbia. Um, and we'll go into Superbia a little bit more in the second episode. So much more intriguing. He did not like Tick, Tick... Boom. He thought it was a step backward from his other work.

[39:03] Ethan: Really?

[39:04] Andrew DeWolf: Yes. And Sondheim was very quick to give harsh criticism, and that's often a good thing from mentors. But we still got more fun facts. So Matt O'Grady, the inspiration for Michael, was never actually Larson's roommate and was never involved in the performing arts as they were growing up, but he is still alive, and the show was dedicated to him when he originally put it on.

[39:24] Ethan: And they were still like childhood friends.

[39:25] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, they were childhood friends. Um, I think that Jonathan was the first person Matt told was gay. Like, they were very close. If you watched the No Day But Today documentary, Matt is a very big part of that. Um, alright. So there's that. And Matt is still alive. Um, despite the fact that the movie kind of frames it like he wouldn't be.

[39:45] Ethan: Yeah, they really frame it like he's got a year left.

[39:47] Andrew DeWolf: But that's how Jonathan felt at the time, because that is one of the few stories that is one-to-one from the monologue is the story of um what is the character's name in the show? Um Michael.

[39:58] Ethan: Michael?

[39:58] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah. So all that. He that is like a one-to-one screen. It was a terrifying time, right?

[40:03] Ethan: Yes, and he lost a lot of lot of real friends, and their name dropped in both Rent and in Tick, Tick... Boom, Pam Gordon, Alley, all them.

[40:11] Andrew DeWolf: Mm-hmm.

[40:12] Ethan: Real human beings. Alright, we got you ready for another big one? This is this is a big one. So are we ready?

[40:17] Andrew DeWolf: Oh no.

[40:18] Ethan: The musical theater workshop scenes are based on Larson's presentations of material from Superbia from about 1985 to 1986 at the ASCAP Foundation Musical Theater Workshop in November and December 1985 and at the Dramatist Guild in April 1986. Sondheim was a panelist for the ASCAP workshop alongside Peter Stone, Tony Tanner, Nancy Ford, and Charles Strouse. The panel at the Dramatist Guild performance included Sondheim, Stone, Kander, Martin, Sharon, and Stephen Schwartz, whose cameos as aspiring composers in the scene from the film are based on these panels. According to the 2018 Oral History Boho Days from Jay Collis, who you might remember from our original Tick, Tick... Boom episode, um was one of the few panelists across the presentations to consistently praise Superbia.

[41:05] Ethan: Walter Bloom, who played ri tri played by Richard Kind in the movie, um, is a stand-in for the negative feedback that Larson received during this period, which was basically everyone else.

[41:14] Andrew DeWolf: Huh.

[41:15] Jesse McAnally: That's what?

[41:16] Ethan: Oh my god, now I gotta know.

[41:18] Andrew DeWolf: So wait, because like I remember reading somewhere that they won an ASCAP award, right?

[41:22] Ethan: Um, I believe so.

[41:23] Andrew DeWolf: Right.

[41:24] Ethan: So that would make sense.

[41:25] Andrew DeWolf: Okay, so he's going to uh panels, conferences, yeah.

[41:29] Ethan: Readings where Sondheim's on the pan or uh the is a panelist, is uh is in charge of it.

[41:34] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah.

[41:34] Ethan: Sondheim supervising him doing it.

[41:36] Andrew DeWolf: And Sondheim is the only one who likes it.

[41:39] Ethan: He's the only one that is positive in his notes, so to say.

[41:42] Andrew DeWolf: I'm sure there was other people that did, but Sondheim was the big one because he's Sondheim.

[41:46] Jesse McAnally: Do you know what it was that Sondheim liked about it or like what he saw in it?

[41:49] Ethan: I think it's just that it was so different. He likes bold, bold steps.

[41:53] Jesse McAnally: Sure.

[41:54] Ethan: Um let's talk more about Superbia. Uh Superbia like 1984 or 80 Superbia was supposed to be 1984, but then the Orwell estate would not give Jonathan the rights, so he did something original.

[42:05] Andrew DeWolf: Right.

[42:05] Ethan: And it's like MTV sort of like predicting TikTok kind of stuff.

[42:09] Andrew DeWolf: Exactly that.

[42:10] Ethan: Um, so as we say stated earlier, Sondheim did come to the presentation of Superbia. He did leave after Act One, though.

[42:19] Andrew DeWolf: That's so brutal, dude.

[42:20] Ethan: He loved it so much.

[42:22] Andrew DeWolf: Um, yeah, so it there was some difficulty with the energy of the cast and all that. It was not as re as successful as the movie portrays it.

[42:29] Ethan: Um the film also implies that Larson stopped developing Superbia after the failed Playwrights Horizon presentation. He actually continued to work on it for some years afterwards, including a screenplay adaptation in 1990 and a reading at the public theater in 1991.

[42:43] Andrew DeWolf: He ceased further development in 92 after the New York Theater workshop staging of Tic Tic Boom because he was focusing on rent.

[42:50] Ethan: So he was literally working up working on Superbia until he got rent.

[42:54] Andrew DeWolf: Wait, so he was working on Superbia while he was working on Tic Tic Boom, released Tic Tic Boom, continued to work on Superbia, and was working on rent.

[43:01] Ethan: Yeah, he basically gave up Superbia when he focused entirely on rent, because I think rent was paying the bills.

[43:06] Andrew DeWolf: Huh.

[43:06] Jesse McAnally: Okay, I have I have a question. So in the movie, a big portion is uh of it is that he's working on this one number and he ends up finishing it like the night before, literally the night before. Is that true? Is that true? Did that happen?

[43:18] Ethan: No way that happened.

[43:21] Jesse McAnally: Okay, because I was watching it and I'm like, if you actually wrote something the night before, you're using like hand manuscript, you hand us hand it to someone, you expect them to sight sing it at the premiere. I mean, that's why it didn't work.

[43:30] Ethan: I was like, oh wow, that's why it didn't get six like see any success.

[43:36] Jesse McAnally: I mean, well, Ethan, it is fairly common in most Broadway shows that they'll write into a song and give it to you, and you're expected to know it by the end of the day.

[43:43] Ethan: And perform it.

[43:46] Jesse McAnally: It'll be like four hours before, yeah.

[43:48] Ethan: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[43:48] Jesse McAnally: Like run it through a couple times.

[43:50] Ethan: Yeah.

[43:50] Jesse McAnally: Imagine doing that and still having to memorize the rest of the show and not get mixed up with yesterday's script changes.

[43:56] Ethan: Yeah, right.

[43:57] Jesse McAnally: Uh doing it. Last one. Last one. So Janet Charleston, the inspiration for Susan did not fully break up with Larson. Rather, the character's actions and motivations over the course of the original monologue's development were based on changes in the pair's on again on again off again relationship.

[44:12] Ethan: Um they were still together at the time of Larson's death.

[44:15] Andrew DeWolf: So her leaving for the dancing job.

[44:18] Ethan: Yeah, it didn't happen.

[44:18] Andrew DeWolf: Not real.

[44:19] Ethan: Never happened.

[44:20] Andrew DeWolf: I don't even think that was a part of the stage show.

[44:22] Ethan: Huh. They wanted to add drama because that's what makes movies.

[44:26] Jesse McAnally: Movies.

[44:26] Ethan: It makes a narrative and makes uh you know emotional payoffs and all that.

[44:32] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, there's a lot there's a lot of things. And I feel like Jonathan Larson's kind of got off a little scot-free in the original play.

[44:38] Ethan: Oh, because he was just like a huge dick, but he just like Yeah.

[44:41] Andrew DeWolf: Um, so Dick is in like he was like ignoring his girlfriend.

[44:45] Ethan: Where does that not happen?

[44:46] Andrew DeWolf: That's it. It's comp it's different their relationship in the stage show. Remember.

[44:49] Ethan: Well, yeah, I'm like, if if she's not leaving, then she doesn't need an answer to what he wants to do.

[44:55] Andrew DeWolf: Which means that he wouldn't be blowing her off, right?

[44:57] Ethan: Yeah, so she's just kind of an annoying shrew in the sitcom kind of way.

[45:01] Jesse McAnally: Is it supposed to be played for laughs, or is it just like yeah, like the therapy scene is literally just them as characters singing that song in the stage show.

[45:11] Ethan: The codependency song.

[45:12] Jesse McAnally: Yeah. I fucking love that number.

[45:13] Ethan: Yeah, it's so good.

[45:15] Jesse McAnally: It is very good. I like it better when it's commenting on a real scene as opposed to being actual characters performing it.

[45:21] Ethan: So let's who cares what we have to say. It's time to compare our opinions to those of the insane people on letterbox.com.

[45:28] Jesse McAnally: It's time for previews.

[45:30] Ethan: It's time for previews.

[45:35] Jesse McAnally: Who's going first?

[45:37] Andrew DeWolf: Nathan is.

[45:38] Jesse McAnally: Guests.

[45:40] Andrew DeWolf: Guests first.

[45:41] Jesse McAnally: Okay. Congrats to TikTok Boom for being a James Corden free musical.

[45:48] Ethan: No lie.

[45:49] Andrew DeWolf: No lie detected.

[45:50] Jesse McAnally: Is it a one star or a five star?

[45:53] Ethan: Five.

[45:54] Jesse McAnally: That's correct.

[45:54] Ethan: Yes.

[45:58] Jesse McAnally: Try to see through the irony.

[45:59] Andrew DeWolf: Okay. Who's next?

[46:00] Jesse McAnally: Jess, you're next.

[46:01] Jesse McAnally: Okay. Now I don't know how this song goes, so you'll have to sing it after me. This is the life.

[46:06] Ethan: Bo bohemia.

[46:10] Jesse McAnally: This gave me a stroke.

[46:12] Ethan: Fuffa fa fuck off.

[46:17] Jesse McAnally: Why is everyone jerking off to this? Please, I need answers. I don't get it.

[46:21] Ethan: Jesus Christ.

[46:23] Jesse McAnally: I am never fucking watching Rent.

[46:28] Ethan: You found a review.

[46:31] Jesse McAnally: Oh shit. This is the life of fuck ba fuck off.

[46:36] Ethan: Okay. Now I know how that song goes.

[46:38] Jesse McAnally: That's a one star, I think.

[46:40] Ethan: Yes, that is a one star.

[46:42] Jesse McAnally: Man, I'm never gonna fucking watch Rent.

[46:44] Andrew DeWolf: See, now I have to watch Rent.

[46:46] Jesse McAnally: I'd be I am so please tweet your thoughts when you watch Rent.

[46:50] Andrew DeWolf: Alright, Andrew.

[46:51] Andrew DeWolf: Okay. And another one.

[46:54] Ethan: Um one star.

[46:56] Andrew DeWolf: That's a five-star.

[46:57] Ethan: Oh.

[46:58] Andrew DeWolf: Okay. Alright, Ethan, ready?

[47:00] Ethan: Yep.

[47:00] Andrew DeWolf: This movie is why it's our moral responsibility to bully theater kids. It's also a testament to the worst pockets of American culture. This movie jerks off to jerking off to the lifestyle of a starving artist.

[47:13] Ethan: There are two layers of masturbation here. The character is such a reprehensible, insufferable dickhead that you find yourself hoping he fails. Just so he can finally pull his head off out of his ass and get in touch with reality.

[47:28] Jesse McAnally: But he doesn't.

[47:29] Ethan: He makes it or whatever. And he gets to keep on bathing in a cocoon constructed of his own ejaculate.

[47:39] Andrew DeWolf: Do they know what happens to Jonathan Larson's?

[47:42] Ethan: I was expecting probes.

[47:44] Andrew DeWolf: Okay. Did they do they read what happened to him?

[47:48] Ethan: He makes it one star?

[47:51] Jesse McAnally: Oh, I'm still going.

[47:52] Ethan: Oh do other countries glorify their entertainment industry as richly as we do. I would like to know.

[48:01] Andrew DeWolf: John, I spelled his name wrong, by the way.

[48:04] Ethan: Um, chanting bums bums bums, as if he himself contributes to anything to society is one of the best parts of this. Believe it or not, though, I really enjoyed watching this.

[48:19] Jesse McAnally: I was waiting for it.

[48:20] Ethan: I knew it was gonna swing back around.

[48:22] Jesse McAnally: Shit!

[48:23] Ethan: Okay, um five.

[48:25] Jesse McAnally: That is a one!

[48:26] Ethan: Oh but I could understand why you might think it's a five.

[48:29] Jesse McAnally: No, yeah.

[48:30] Ethan: Okay.

[48:31] Jesse McAnally: That was a ride.

[48:32] Andrew DeWolf: That was a ride.

[48:33] Jesse McAnally: What the fuck was that?

[48:34] Ethan: That was your review, Andrew.

[48:36] Andrew DeWolf: That was everyone's that was all the opinions at the same time.

[48:39] Jesse McAnally: Every thought you could have in this movie.

[48:41] Andrew DeWolf: Okay, Jess.

[48:43] Jesse McAnally: Andrew Garfield is brilliant in this horrible movie. Poor man, deserves better movie.

[48:52] Ethan: They said he's brilliant.

[48:53] Jesse McAnally: Oh, that sounds like a Spider-Man fan.

[48:55] Ethan: Yeah.

[48:56] Jesse McAnally: No way home. Um, I'm gonna give that a one.

[48:58] Ethan: That's a one.

[48:59] Andrew DeWolf: Alright, and okay. Andrew.

[49:01] Andrew DeWolf: Insufferable. A cringe fest. Dot dot dot.

[49:06] Jesse McAnally: If that's not one, I'm mad.

[49:08] Andrew DeWolf: It's a one.

[49:10] Ethan: Um, let's see. Alright, Ethan.

[49:12] Ethan: I think one more time around, and then I think we're done.

[49:14] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, I think I actually have just enough. Point.

[49:17] Ethan: Um, you see how much good Lynn Manuel Miranda can do when he's not in front of the camera.

[49:22] Jesse McAnally: Question mark.

[49:22] Ethan: He is, though.

[49:24] Andrew DeWolf: Well, they were wrong.

[49:26] Ethan: Is that the review?

[49:27] Jesse McAnally: Yep.

[49:27] Ethan: Oh my god.

[49:28] Jesse McAnally: One.

[49:29] Ethan: That's a five, strangely enough.

[49:31] Jesse McAnally: I'm so bad at this.

[49:32] Ethan: I don't know. Maybe they didn't notice him.

[49:34] Jesse McAnally: Yeah, he's definitely in front of the camera. He's like, hey, goddamn eggs.

[49:39] Ethan: Shut up.

[49:39] Jesse McAnally: Hey, I'm here. I'm the baker. I'm the cook.

[49:41] Andrew DeWolf: Alright. Jess.

[49:43] Jesse McAnally: Yes, ma'am. The cut to when they're having sexy time, and Andrew aggressively slammed off his suspenders. All caps, by the way. That's a five-star review, right?

[49:55] Ethan: Ooh.

[49:56] Jesse McAnally: Letterboxes not as horny as I thought they'd be. What are they even talking about when they aggressively took off their suspenders?

[50:04] Ethan: When it cuts to the like, hey, that's a nice dress, and then they're making out, and you have the song Green Green Dress. He's like rips off his fucking suspenders.

[50:13] Jesse McAnally: Yeah.

[50:13] Ethan: Oh my god. And then cuts to Michael put on headphones.

[50:16] Jesse McAnally: Yeah, he's like, you're fucking so hard.

[50:20] Andrew DeWolf: Alright, last one, Andrew.

[50:22] Andrew DeWolf: Okay. Andrew Garfield killed it. So did Gabrielle from high school musical. Hated this though.

[50:29] Ethan: That is her full name.

[50:30] Andrew DeWolf: Gabrielle from High School Musical. Yep. Hated this though. I mean, I feel like with that ending, it has to be a one star.

[50:36] Jesse McAnally: It is a one star.

[50:38] Ethan: We did it.

[50:39] Andrew DeWolf: You could do that though. You can write a review that's only two positive things and then just be like one star.

[50:45] Jesse McAnally: And that's lettered box or lettered letter boxed.

[50:48] Ethan: Yes.

[50:49] Jesse McAnally: We did it, guys. Who won?

[50:51] Andrew DeWolf: I got one point.

[50:52] Jesse McAnally: You got one point, Ethan. And then Andrew and Jessie, you both got two.

[50:56] Ethan: Alright, Andrew.

[50:57] Andrew DeWolf: I win.

[50:58] Jesse McAnally: Victory kiss, Andrew. Get over here.

[51:00] Andrew DeWolf: Victory kiss. Come on, get over here.

[51:01] Jesse McAnally: I'm pretty far away. I'd have to fly over now.

[51:05] Andrew DeWolf: Okay. How about we go into a mid-show and then we talk about some of these songs?

[51:10] Jesse McAnally: I suppose we should hey guys, sorry to interrupt you in the middle of the show, but we've got a shill at you. Today's show is brought to you by the extremely kind donations by our donors over at Patreon.

[51:29] Andrew DeWolf: Andrew, tell us a little bit about Patreon.

[51:31] Ethan: Oh man, Patreon's where you can go if you want to help support us and also get some extra content and things in the process. Um we do uh we have the Patreon podcast. We have commentaries that we're released. Uh piece, uh, if you donated enough, you can request episodes. I mean, we got all sorts of stuff.

[51:49] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah. Heck yeah. And you can even see our beautiful faces with weekly video episodes. So you can see how Andrew is slowly sunk of de lower and lower in his chair over the course of this recording.

[52:00] Ethan: I'm feeling good. I'm feeling nice. It's also really fucking hot in here, is the problem.

[52:05] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, yeah.

[52:05] Ethan: I I I I look at look at my face. I I am a very sweaty man right now.

[52:10] Andrew DeWolf: I am not. I am not doing good, to quote Bo Burnham.

[52:14] Ethan: True.

[52:15] Andrew DeWolf: But our current patrons are Melissa Goldman, Late Knackles, Danielle Rennox, Justice Stampede, Ewan Cassidy, Monica Thoreau, Mina Maniri, Brent Black, Lithanial Stacey Coombe, Joseph Evans Green, Carrie Hart, Mary Lou Show Ket, John Van Alves, Russ Walker, Musical Health, Emily Gracie, Kyle Summers, Jen A C, Scoot and the Cat Technical, or Dreamcoat, Liz Lim, Alice and Stellard.

[52:33] Ethan: Nothing is certain except Beth and Taxes. Thesbian, Ren Cullen, Rafael, Martina Salaz, Jessica T, Mitchell Young, Chai Teacup, Katie McDonough, Timothy Keys, Chris Marcote, Mimu, Kiji Marie Anastasio, Layla, RJ Narija, Charlie B, Patrick Deering, Avery Brinson, Bjorn Herman, Joanna Oakley, Erica S.

[52:50] Andrew DeWolf: Toriana Frazier, Sammy the Most Lopez, Diana Morton, Angela, Kaylee Blazier, Birdman69, LOL, Cinema Geddon Reviews, Villainous Miss, Sofina Ali, the Omega Geek, Katrin Evans, Paige Pearson, Maddie Wargle, Jonathan Dragon Eye, and Elena Resnick.

[53:09] Ethan: I I bet you can tell when the new people came in. They gave us a little extra financial support that helps us keep the lights on here at Musicals with Cheese. If you'd like to join them in supporting us again, tons of fun perks, come join them over at Patreon.

[53:20] Andrew DeWolf: Also, buy our merch. We have a nice little merch store now. And and uh yeah, we we we're getting we're gonna do some cool stuff over there.

[53:28] Jesse McAnally: Alright, guys, let's get back to the show.

[53:43] ♪ Musical number: "30/90" — performed by Jesse McAnally ♪

[54:15] Ethan: Very good. Um, 10 out of 10 works as an opening, works as an eye once.

[54:19] Jesse McAnally: You mean 30 out of 90?

[54:20] Ethan: No, I don't. This isn't a fucking Kingdom Hearts game.

[54:25] Jesse McAnally: That's like a very specific joke.

[54:25] Ethan: Specific joke.

[54:32] Jesse McAnally: I was doing it literally for Ethan. I knew he would probably get that joke.

[54:35] Ethan: There you go.

[54:36] Jesse McAnally: Yeah, yeah. But what do you think of this song, Ethan?

[54:40] Ethan: Uh, it's like like I was saying, it's weirdly cosmic. I was born in 1990, I just turned 30.

[54:46] Ethan: You know, and so is it it, I mean, it hit me really, really hard in that weird sort of way.

[54:51] Andrew DeWolf: Um yeah, as as far as again, you know, as far as the establishing number and opening number, I want song, it it it does the job well, yeah.

[54:58] Jesse McAnally: Um, how does Andrew Garfield perform it? Do you think, Andrew?

[55:00] Andrew DeWolf: Uh I think Andrew Garfield's actually pretty solid all the way through. Um I I don't know if anyone has any uh disagreements on that.

[55:08] Ethan: No.

[55:08] Andrew DeWolf: Um I mean yeah, as far as actors going singing, as far as actors singing goes, he he did a pretty good job, yeah.

[55:13] Jesse McAnally: Yeah, I mean better than his performance in Spider-Man, that's for sure.

[55:16] Ethan: Which one?

[55:17] Andrew DeWolf: All of them. He's not a good Spider-Man. I don't care.

[55:19] Jesse McAnally: I don't care what people say.

[55:20] Andrew DeWolf: He wasn't even good in No Way Home, or what was it?

[55:22] Ethan: It wasn't it one No Way Home.

[55:23] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, no home. Daylight come, I don't want to go home.

[55:25] Jesse McAnally: True, true, true. Um how often do you think he's actually playing the piano?

[55:30] Ethan: Actually playing it?

[55:31] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah. Honestly, I was curious as to if he ever actually played it.

[55:35] Ethan: Yeah.

[55:36] Andrew DeWolf: It didn't seem like something he was doing very frequently.

[55:39] Ethan: No, yeah. Are we wrong?

[55:39] Andrew DeWolf: I think it's showing very often.

[55:41] Ethan: They didn't show him playing piano very often. Whenever they did show him, they made a tactical decision to not show his hands very much.

[55:48] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, I noticed that too.

[55:50] Ethan: And I I I didn't want to be the one guy yucking everyone's yums, but I did notice that on first watch as well.

[55:56] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah.

[55:57] Ethan: There there's one part in the opening number, especially where you could see his forearms not moving.

[56:01] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah.

[56:02] Ethan: I don't think he actually played piano.

[56:04] Andrew DeWolf: And that's fine.

[56:05] Ethan: Yeah, he may have like known some basic stuff so that he could like pretend in certain parts, but I don't think he uh learned piano for this.

[56:13] Jesse McAnally: This is in Whiplash.

[56:14] Ethan: Yeah, it's um what do you think about no more though, Andrew?

[56:21] Andrew DeWolf: No more fumes from gas cheaters that are illegal or will blow up while you are sleeping.

[56:31] Ethan: No more ring sealants. No more taking a shower in the station while you're eating breakfast and you're getting water on his car place.

[56:47] Jesse McAnally: I I have some thoughts here. Well, I want to hear your thoughts first, if I'm honest.

[56:51] Andrew DeWolf: Like, no more is the most rent-like song in the entire album.

[56:55] Ethan: I I feel like a lot of it is pretty rent-like though.

[56:58] Andrew DeWolf: I mean, it's got a very similar music style.

[57:01] Ethan: This is the apartment number, right?

[57:02] Andrew DeWolf: Yes, this is the one where they're jumping between like comparisons about that and his apartment.

[57:08] Ethan: Um it does scream a little bit of classism.

[57:11] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah. I mean, I I like the song because I do think it's it sounds good, and I like the like uh way they distinguish between when they're at the in in at the new apartment versus when they're talking about but yeah, there's some classism stuff.

[57:27] Ethan: Uh I think I I noticed one in particular, which I'm pretty sure the original lyrics were referencing a homeless person, and they decided to not do that. They just made it a roommate.

[57:35] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, they're like talking about having to walk over sleeping people to get out of their building, and it shows them like in their apartment walking over a sleeping person in the hallway.

[57:46] Ethan: Yeah. It's like. Hey, uh, hey Lynn, uh that I don't think that's what they were talking about.

[57:52] Andrew DeWolf: I was confused by that line.

[57:54] Ethan: Okay.

[57:54] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, so I'm pretty sure they're talking about homeless people sleeping in the street outside of their building.

[57:59] Ethan: But what are you talking about? Jonathan Larson's loves homeless people. Remember how well he showed them as represented in Rent?

[58:04] Andrew DeWolf: He loves uh No, I've never seen it.

[58:07] Ethan: Andrew's face set it all.

[58:09] Andrew DeWolf: It's that bad. See, I gotta go watch Rent.

[58:12] Ethan: The one thing about this number was this was the moment where I was like, oh, dude, Miranda knows how to shoot a movie.

[58:18] Jesse McAnally: Yes.

[58:19] Ethan: Like this this was this is the moment where I was like, okay, he knows how to do a musical number. Like the cut at the end where it's Jonathan Larson's and he's in like a tux and he's jumping into the elevator and he just smash cuts to him in the subway. I'm like, that's that's how you fucking do it. You know?

[58:33] Andrew DeWolf: Um there are moments in this film that do scream to me like, oh, COVID probably fucked up the original plans. Um and this this is not one of them.

[58:43] Ethan: However, I I do have that feeling when I watch scenes like the Sunday scene, which is the big, you know, the big gangbang of cameos.

[58:52] Andrew DeWolf: It's a lot of isolated shots.

[58:54] Ethan: Yep. Yep. I'm sure this was gonna be so much bigger, so much more intense. It looks very CGI heavy. Um, I know we are all like, oh, it's COVID, and I am giving points that I would have loved to have seen what this would have been like pre-COVID. Like what the plans were.

[59:09] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, like I could see that.

[59:11] Ethan: Because they wanted Chip Z Zen from and Joanna Gleason as the cooks as the baker and their wife from Into the Woods. Like there were so many other things they wanted to do.

[59:20] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, that would have been great. Um, but this scene makes me feel emotional.

[59:25] Ethan: Like, have you seen Sunday with the par Sunday in the park with George Ethan?

[59:28] Ethan: I've listened to all the numbers, I haven't seen it.

[59:30] Andrew DeWolf: It's this song is was a pastiche of Sondheim and a love letter to him.

[59:35] Ethan: Is it a pastiche though, or is it literally just a direct cover?

[59:38] Andrew DeWolf: It isn't a direct cover, because the song the the notes are different. It is its own pastiche.

[59:43] Ethan: Yeah, it it's they sound very similar, but yeah, they're they're different, I think.

[59:47] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, they're different. Sunday in the blue silver chromium diner.

[59:58] Ethan: On the green purple, yellow, red stools. Sit the fools who should eat at home. Instead, they pay on Sunday.

[1:00:18] Andrew DeWolf: But there is changes um to this this song. Because in the Jonathan Larson's piece, as well as the stage musical, it is very just it's just kind of like a cute pastiche about a diner, and there's no cameos and there's no like the past commenting on the future and the future commenting on the past, where Jonathan Larson's looks at the people that he was inspired by and the people he will inspire.

[1:00:40] Ethan: Like that is what this scene becomes in the movie.

[1:00:50] Andrew DeWolf: In the stage show, it's just like, hey, buns.

[1:00:53] Ethan: So there is the line brunch sure is busy. It literally is just that in the stage show.

[1:00:53] Andrew DeWolf: But there is the line the line where he's like buns buns buns buns buns buns buns buns, which he's talking about sticky buns, because you know, diner. In in the state in the movie, Lynn Manuel changes those words to bums bums bums, and then shows homeless people played by the three leads of Rent.

[1:01:11] Ethan: Okay, that's what I thought.

[1:01:12] Andrew DeWolf: Right. Which I'm like, uh See, the the thing is oh, sorry, go ahead.

[1:01:17] Ethan: Yeah, Lynn Manuel Miranda is just he's classist. Like just straight up. He doesn't like poor people.

[1:01:23] Andrew DeWolf: I think he is very careful about what he says all the time. Because he's worried that he's gonna say something like, I hate poor people.

[1:01:31] Ethan: I know he came from a rich family and was able to take advantage of a lot of opportunities from that.

[1:01:37] Andrew DeWolf: Did he really?

[1:01:37] Ethan: Yes.

[1:01:38] Andrew DeWolf: Oh, okay. I feel like this isn't the first time that we've watched something from him that is like very uh openly not like does not like uh poor people.

[1:01:47] Andrew DeWolf: What was that in In the Heights, I feel like was also kind of like uh nothing.

[1:01:52] Ethan: Explain what you mean by that.

[1:01:53] Andrew DeWolf: Um remember in In the Heights was that plot line where the employee like gets is getting laid off and is upset about it, and the lesson that he's had that he's supposed to learn is that he shouldn't be upset about getting laid off from his job.

[1:02:06] Ethan: I do not remember this.

[1:02:07] Andrew DeWolf: You don't remember that? Uh like all of the all of the heroic characters in In the Heights are uh capital owners.

[1:02:13] Ethan: Oh yeah, you brought that up.

[1:02:14] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, now I remember what you're like. And there's one there's one there's one character who is an employee, and they're upset about getting laid off, and their arc is to learn to not be upset about getting laid off.

[1:02:25] Ethan: I mean, that's only in the movie in the stage show he was fired because of racism and dating my daughter kind of pro hijinks.

[1:02:33] Andrew DeWolf: Yes, that's true. That's true. But the movie's better, so I'm gonna go with that.

[1:02:38] Ethan: See, that's see, like this is really interesting because that's like that's like not at all what I got from this number. Because they show they show the whole um him, like the the sugar reference now that I know it's an actual number. How he's like constantly writing musical numbers. To me, it was sort of like a disassociation moment where instead of sitting there in the chaos of brunch, he's just thinking about musical theater all the time.

[1:02:58] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, no, I agree. That is the correct reading.

[1:03:01] Ethan: Oh, I I agree. Yes.

[1:03:03] Andrew DeWolf: Well, I think it's more not even that. I think that this is an out-of-body, out-of-universe experience where the past a musical theater where you have the Joel Grays and you have the Cheetah Rivera's the Bebe New Worth are commenting on Jonathan, and then the people that Jonathan would inspire the the the Lynn Manuel Mirandas, the Beth Malone from Fun Home, and all of those taking flight from Jonathan Larson's and both of them commenting on him as some as he comments on Sondheim, who is his big inspiration.

[1:03:32] Ethan: I'm gonna have to listen to it again, because that's that's a that's a great point.

[1:03:35] Andrew DeWolf: It's also probably just the best scene in the in the whole thing, because I it's it's almost separate from everything else. It's like a it's like a music video.

[1:03:43] Ethan: It is like a music video.

[1:03:43] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah. No, I like it. But uh speaking of an effective song that comments on a scene therapy, this is not how that song was in the stage show, and it is better in the movie.

[1:03:55] Ethan: I fucking love this number. Like I have no concerns.

[1:03:58] Andrew DeWolf: This is the one that reminds you of Chicago.

[1:04:00] Ethan: Yes.

[1:04:02] Andrew DeWolf: I was afraid that you'd be afraid if I told you that I was afraid of intimacy.

[1:04:12] Ethan: You don't have a problem with my problem, maybe the problem simply codependency.

[1:04:21] Andrew DeWolf: Yes, I know that now you know that I didn't know that you didn't know that when I said no, I meant yes, I know, and then now I know that you knew that I knew you adored me.

[1:04:33] Ethan: Don't don't they do this like ventriloquist type act in Chicago in one of the songs?

[1:04:38] Andrew DeWolf: Uh yeah, yeah.

[1:04:40] Ethan: It's very good.

[1:04:40] Andrew DeWolf: No, the the the number is so upsettingly good. The counterpoint everything is amusing. The counterpoint is what makes it come to life. Because when I I listened to the ca the soundtrack of the film before seeing the movie, I'm like, how are they gonna make therapy work? How is that gonna work in a movie musical? And then I was shocked at how they made it work in the like never doubt Lynn, as far as narrative goes. He is very good at using song as narrative, and the counterpoint with that is very, very effective. And especially when the song is just written about Jonathan Larson's making fun of how people talk when they're in therapy, which different, different hole to dive into.

[1:05:15] Ethan: Um speaking of which there is audio recordings of Ben Stiller singing this because he was good friends with Jonathan Larson's in the early days.

[1:05:22] Andrew DeWolf: Um really yeah, everybody knows each other.

[1:05:26] Ethan: I don't know anybody.

[1:05:27] Andrew DeWolf: I I will say this is this is the moment I think this like well, I don't know. I don't know if I'm just sort of preaching the choir, but Vanessa Hudgens is just fucking amazing.

[1:05:35] Ethan: She's so good.

[1:05:35] Andrew DeWolf: Um Vanessa Hudgens. She's really really fantastic.

[1:05:38] Ethan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's so good in this number.

[1:05:40] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah.

[1:05:40] Ethan: Vanessa Hudgens, I think her audition for this movie was her performance in Rent Live on Fox a few years ago, and she was a standout performer in there as well.

[1:05:51] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, that makes sense. She took a very loathable character and made her very likable in that. Um, all credit to her.

[1:05:56] Ethan: No, she's great.

[1:05:57] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, but still, it's a jungle out here. It's one of the worst deliveries I've ever heard in any film ever.

[1:06:04] Ethan: Well, I mean, high school musical was a long time ago.

[1:06:07] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, she'll never escape that.

[1:06:09] Ethan: Um, let's just talk about one final number, and that is why the penultimate number, the big big like cathartic scene where Jonathan goes into Central Park and just plays a random piano straight out of the monologue, straight out of the stage show. Like, this is perfect.

[1:06:24] Andrew DeWolf: This scene worked. When I was 16, Michael and I got parts in West Side at White Plains High.

[1:06:39] Ethan: Three o'clock went to rehearse in the gym.

[1:06:45] Andrew DeWolf: Mike played Doc who did not sing. Fine with him.

[1:06:51] Ethan: We sang Got a Rocket in your pocket and the Jets are gonna have their day.

[1:06:59] Andrew DeWolf: I did have to think about like that pianos getting ruined because it's raining, but other than that, yeah, it's pretty it's pretty fucking good.

[1:07:06] Ethan: Yeah, it it just works.

[1:07:08] Andrew DeWolf: I'm still I'm still a little muddy on what the show's like moral is like what this song is and what he's supposed to be learning. I get that he's like processing the news about his friend, but I'm still trying to wonder it it like what the numbers trying to accomplish.

[1:07:22] Ethan: I almost feel like the whole show is like it's one of those shows where nobody learns anything and it's just like what real life is like where nobody learns anything.

[1:07:30] Andrew DeWolf: Is it the Simpsons Moral where it's like that's there's no moral, it's just a bunch of stuff that happened. Good night, Lisa.

[1:07:35] Ethan: Right, but this number this number's supposed to be like a big turning point in his life, and he's like, I like he keeps talking about making a vow, and I just I'm ch I try to I try to like the problem you can't have a real moral for this because everybody knows that he's gonna die in like a year after this, after these events.

[1:07:53] Andrew DeWolf: Uh that's a good point. It's like I don't even fully know what you what you do.

[1:07:57] Ethan: So here's the summation. I think he says it in the third, like like the latter half of the song where he's like, with only so much time to spend, don't want to waste the time I'm given, have it all play the game, some recommend. I'm afraid I it just may be time to give in.

[1:08:11] Andrew DeWolf: And then he goes back and say, No, I just kinda wanna go on with my life, and I wanna spend my life this way.

[1:08:18] Ethan: I like the way I spend my life.

[1:08:20] Andrew DeWolf: So it's I mean, I will say I will say this. The whole movie is framed as if it knows that Jonathan Larson's dies very young.

[1:08:26] Ethan: Yes. Yes.

[1:08:27] Jesse McAnally: Because it does, and the audience does. And anyone who really gives a crap about Tick Tick Boom is also a fan of Rent. And they know everything about Jonathan Larson's, because if you're a fan of Rent, that is why you are a fan of Rent, so. Damn. You fucking fucking spit in here. Nobody is a fan of Rent and doesn't know that Jonathan Larson's died young. I'd say there's a couple of you know that before you watch Rent. Like literally you're like, hey, let's watch Rent. It's from that guy that died really young. Yeah, but a lot of people know the wrong information. So many people thought he died of AIDS. Like let's just say that. Yes, because they're mixing up what happens in Rent with the real world.

[1:09:01] Ethan: Yeah. So people are they know at least four percent of the true information about Jonathan Larson's. I am grateful that this movie can at least clear up and make him a character and a human being as opposed to just a figure. I just I'm hoping that we can get Superbia made.

[1:09:19] Jesse McAnally: Well, it can happen. Now I want to see Superbia. That was actually the last thing I wanted to talk about before we ended the show. Um, let's talk about the Superbia quintet so to say so this mean that I'll be on the air you already were last night let us take you working with my laser you thought it was a razor I'm positive that's what caused such a scene we can get on the air my music box on the air where what does this mean?

[1:09:58] Ethan: That is secretly the best song in the entire show. The secretly the best scene in song in the entire movie is a song from a different musical that I'd rather be watching. Um, I Superbia looks awful.

[1:10:11] Jesse McAnally: What?

[1:10:11] Ethan: In the sense that it sounds like it's about weird, like robots that do weird stuff that I don't understand. Um, but I want to see it. Um, I'm just saying I love the scene where like he finally gets everybody he finally sits everybody down, and he's like, You got any questions? And one of them goes, uh yeah, what what what is it? He's like, I I don't is it aliens?

[1:10:31] Jesse McAnally: It feels like aliens.

[1:10:32] Ethan: Yeah.

[1:10:33] Jesse McAnally: He's like, Nope, not aliens. Nope, nope, nope, nope. Um, all right. So an attempt was made in the mid-2000s uh to adapt Superbia into an animated film, but the project was cancelled during pre-production and never had a finished screenplay.

[1:10:45] Ethan: Well, Jonathan had a screenplay, you know. Um, but the big difference with the reason why it's really difficult to adapt Superbia is because there are two versions of it with very different tones.

[1:10:57] Jesse McAnally: Um, we got Superbia version one, which has like uh they're just very different shows. So you'd have to figure out which tone you want to go with before you could even like start adapting it.

[1:11:08] Ethan: Uh, so as Jake Collis has said in many times, a contemporary attempt at finishing Superbia would require coming through all of Larson's revisions and potentially writing new material in order to fix the story. Um, it would have to decide would they lean into the retro 80s aesthetic or the original or lean into more contemporary setting adjusting Jonathan's dated references accordingly.

[1:11:29] Jesse McAnally: So I just say lean into the 80s.

[1:11:32] Ethan: Yeah, do a Stranger Things musical.

[1:11:34] Jesse McAnally: Yeah, hell yeah. Like just or like even contextualize it, like this is a musical written by a guy um in the 80s about the 80s.

[1:11:43] Ethan: Mm-hmm.

[1:11:43] Jesse McAnally: Yeah. Trust Sondheim.

[1:11:45] Ethan: Oh yeah.

[1:11:46] Jesse McAnally: Um, but the entire like sex step where it's like anything that ever was and ever will be anyone will be there.

[1:11:52] Ethan: Like, and how that grows.

[1:11:53] Jesse McAnally: The best scene in the entire movie, a song not even from this musical. We will get Superbia at some point. And you know what? We'll cover it on the show when it does.

[1:12:02] Ethan: It feels like we got it eventually, right?

[1:12:03] Jesse McAnally: Yeah.

[1:12:04] Ethan: Yeah. It's probably gonna be sad though, because we'll probably watch it and be like, that wasn't very good.

[1:12:08] Jesse McAnally: Oh no, he did another bad one.

[1:12:11] Ethan: No.

[1:12:12] Jesse McAnally: Oh Jonathan, Jonathan.

[1:12:15] Jesse McAnally: On that note, everyone, what is our overall thoughts on Tick Tick Boom and Archie's ratings? Ethan, why don't you go first?

[1:12:21] Ethan: Uh, as somebody with basically uh no familiarity with Jonathan Larson's who has never seen Rent, I thought, judging it as just a movie musical, I thought it was really good. I thought it was well shot, I thought it was well executed. I love the way that the musical numbers are framed. Um, I think it's a good musical movie, all in all.

[1:12:40] Ethan: Uh, my cheese rating, I wanted to find something creative, but after all the talk of being broke, it's gotta be a craft single.

[1:12:47] Jesse McAnally: Oh because we're all broke once upon a time, and y we've all had a good five or six of them in the middle of the night without ever letting anybody else know. So yeah, you give it a craft single.

[1:12:57] Jesse McAnally: All right, that's a good one. What about you, Andrew?

[1:12:59] Andrew DeWolf: Um honestly the movie is pretty good, and if you have Netflix, you should watch it. Um there is a lot of good songs, and they really streamlined the narrative to uh into existence. They like added a narrative actually, not just streamlined. Um so yeah, I was I liked it. Probably uh my favorite Jonathan Larson's thing right now.

[1:13:21] Ethan: Until we get Superbia.

[1:13:23] Andrew DeWolf: Until we get Superbia. That's fair. I'm gonna I'm gonna give it one of those uh little like cheese uh dippers that you would get in the nineties. Uh you know if you know what I'm talking about.

[1:13:33] Ethan: 90s kids remember.

[1:13:34] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah. If you weren't a nineties kid, you uh did not exist.

[1:13:40] Ethan: Uh you do not exist.

[1:13:41] Jesse McAnally: Yep.

[1:13:46] Brianna Jones: All right, Bree. What do you what did you think of our discussion in your cheese rating?

[1:13:49] Brianna Jones: Your discussion was fantastic. You know, my dad calls me uh once a week to say, have you watched that movie on Netflix yet? Tick Tick Boom. And every week I have to say, no, Dad. I haven't watched it yet, but I will. I will. Um I would love your opinion. When you do watch, but maybe you and I should do an episode just on us chatting about it.

[1:14:09] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah.

[1:14:10] Brianna Jones: Um, yeah, I will get to it at some point in my life, even if it's 10 years from now. Um, so I don't really I don't know what to give it for a cheese. I'm thinking cheese curds, because if I had a bowl of cheese curds, I would pick the Vanessa Hudgens cheese curd out and just take her out of all of this.

[1:14:28] Ethan: I don't like Vanessa Hudgens for some reason.

[1:14:30] Brianna Jones: Damn, you're coming with the spicy opinion today. Where was this? Where was this spicy fire earlier?

[1:14:37] Ethan: I just I've not enjoyed it.

[1:14:38] Brianna Jones: What do Vanessa Hudgens do to you? Do you want to fight her?

[1:14:40] Ethan: I don't want to fight her.

[1:14:42] Brianna Jones: No, I we're gonna get her on the podcast now.

[1:14:44] Ethan: No, no, she's fine. I you know, I haven't seen a ton with her in it. I've really only seen High School Musical.

[1:14:50] Brianna Jones: You just don't like High School Musical.

[1:14:52] Ethan: I know.

[1:14:52] Brianna Jones: And I know.

[1:14:54] Brianna Jones: She's awful because she's like doing that like smiley thing where she never stops smiling ever.

[1:14:59] Ethan: I'm pretty sure she does that in every movie she's in.

[1:15:01] Brianna Jones: Listen, there's the one where she plays all three princesses or whatever.

[1:15:05] Ethan: The Princess Switch, yeah, I get you.

[1:15:07] Brianna Jones: The Princess Switch. There is, I mean, in this one of her scenes, though, is she does have to unnaturally smile and dance around like a puppet.

[1:15:14] Ethan: Yeah.

[1:15:15] Brianna Jones: And it's like maybe the best she's ever performed.

[1:15:17] Ethan: Is it the song like the Yeah, I thought that was good.

[1:15:22] Brianna Jones: Yeah, it's the Super Mario theme.

[1:15:30] Ethan: Listen, I just remember her saying like stupid shit around COVID, and I'll never forget it.

[1:15:35] Brianna Jones: And you know what she said?

[1:15:37] Ethan: Oh, did she do stupid cool stuff?

[1:15:39] Brianna Jones: Do you want me? I can't I know I know exactly what she said. She's like, I don't understand why we had to cancel Coachella because of COVID.

[1:15:48] Ethan: I mean, yeah, it's sad people are gonna die, but people are gonna die anyway.

[1:15:53] Brianna Jones: So I can't I can't get that out of my mind.

[1:15:57] Ethan: And well, I mean, I think she did that.

[1:16:00] Brianna Jones: Damn it, now I sound like an asshole.

[1:16:02] Ethan: Think about it though. The people who are gonna die are poor.

[1:16:06] Brianna Jones: See, I was talking to Lynn Manuel Miranda about this, and we decided that poor people aren't real people, so yeah, you know, I'm sure she's great in other things, but I just I can't I can't unless it's a big thing.

[1:16:18] Ethan: They won't be able to go to Coachella anyways.

[1:16:20] Brianna Jones: What the fuck do we need to cancel it for?

[1:16:22] Ethan: Oh god.

[1:16:23] Brianna Jones: All right, I'm gonna have to look this up now.

[1:16:24] Ethan: Um, I'm surprised you didn't see that at the beginning of COVID.

[1:16:28] Brianna Jones: I was like a big thing.

[1:16:29] Ethan: It was over the it was over.

[1:16:30] Brianna Jones: I was digging the bunker.

[1:16:32] Ethan: Yeah.

[1:16:32] Brianna Jones: Oh smart.

[1:16:33] Ethan: You're gonna dig the bucket.

[1:16:36] Brianna Jones: The Jim Baker bucket bunker.

[1:16:38] Ethan: Yeah.

[1:16:38] Brianna Jones: Speaking of Andrew Garfield, how many how many buckets did you get?

[1:16:43] Ethan: You can use this to dig the latrine.

[1:16:46] Brianna Jones: Latrine.

[1:16:48] Ethan: That is the best video on the if you guys haven't go go see Vic Burger's video, Jim Baker's buckets. That will make your entire week better.

[1:16:56] Brianna Jones: Fan fantastic video.

[1:16:57] Ethan: That is a ten out of ten video.

[1:16:59] Brianna Jones: What am I getting myself into?

[1:17:02] Ethan: Ethan, you need to now watch the Jim Baker buckets video. He takes it, he takes the shovel and puts it into the food.

[1:17:10] Brianna Jones: And then he takes the food and puts it in like a wheelbarrow or something, and he's like, Burger presents Jim Baker's bucket.

[1:17:17] Ethan: He says you could use the shovel to dig the latrine.

[1:17:20] Brianna Jones: Oh no, what is this?

[1:17:21] Ethan: I like that he takes a full handful of burning hot rice, and you can see the steam on his hand.

[1:17:28] Brianna Jones: Cut this out, Bree. This is useless. But holy shit, that is one of the best videos.

[1:17:34] Jesse McAnally: Today is the 5 millionth anniversary of when Adam opened his eyes in the garden of Eden.

[1:17:42] Ethan: He's just got a heavy food.

[1:17:45] Brianna Jones: Yeah, you gotta watch this. This is a great video.

[1:17:47] Jesse McAnally: I'm hungry. I've been on the show for about five hours.

[1:17:50] Ethan: What?

[1:17:50] Brianna Jones: What is this?

[1:17:51] Ethan: Oh my god!

[1:17:52] Brianna Jones: What it's like it's just is cheese in a bathtub?

[1:17:56] Ethan: Who says you won't eat that on top of a pizza?

[1:17:59] Brianna Jones: Oh my god.

[1:18:01] Jesse McAnally: All right, great. Now I got something like that.

[1:18:03] Ethan: He just sells buckets of food for when you're gonna be able to do it.

[1:18:05] Brianna Jones: Do the same buckets of food.

[1:18:08] Ethan: Oh my god.

[1:18:09] Brianna Jones: You don't want to get you don't want to be have the rapture happen and you don't have a bucket of rice with cheese.

[1:18:17] Ethan: Oh no.

[1:18:21] Jesse McAnally: Oh my god, he's mixing it with the shovel.

[1:18:30] Ethan: Oh my god!

[1:18:32] Brianna Jones: Holy shit.

[1:18:34] Jesse McAnally: All right, we should wrap this up.

[1:18:36] Ethan: I'm sorry, he just ate the rice.

[1:18:41] Andrew DeWolf: So my cheese rating um is smoke cheddar from Garfield Smokehouse. Um, because Andrew Garfield is in this movie.

[1:18:50] Brianna Jones: And you know what? This is like my third favorite like one of Garfield's movies.

[1:18:54] Andrew DeWolf: Um, of course, the first one is Tale of Two Kitties, and the the second one is the original.

[1:18:58] Brianna Jones: Um, but this is a close number three.

[1:19:03] Andrew DeWolf: Tale of Two Kitties is just kind of a little bit too good, honestly.

[1:19:06] Brianna Jones: Honestly, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:19:08] Andrew DeWolf: Um, Tick Tick Boom couldn't compare to that.

[1:19:10] Brianna Jones: Um, takes a classic story and just improves on it in every way by adding Garfield.

[1:19:15] Ethan: Yeah, I mean, Lynn Manuel Miranda knew that was the only way he could really solve the problems of Tick Tick Boom is to add Garfield to it.

[1:19:23] Jesse McAnally: You add Garfield and then uh Andrew Garfield, that is.

[1:19:23] Jesse McAnally: All right, guys. Um, Ethan, why don't you promote your wonderful content for the world to see?

[1:19:32] Ethan: I make videos on YouTube and I tweet a lot of stupid ideas. You could find me just sideways.

[1:19:38] Jesse McAnally: Okay, so when is the Dear Evan Hansen video? I need to see it.

[1:19:40] Ethan: Oh god, I don't I don't know that I want to open up that that can of worms.

[1:19:45] Jesse McAnally: Please.

[1:19:46] Ethan: You should do a video comparing why Dear Evan Hansen works and why or why Dear Evan Hansen doesn't work and why In the Heights works.

[1:19:53] Jesse McAnally: Oh I think that would actually be the most effective video you could ever do uh to talk about Dear Evan Hansen in a way no one else has.

[1:20:02] Ethan: Uh, I didn't think of that.

[1:20:02] Jesse McAnally: All right, that's gonna be my night.

[1:20:07] Brianna Jones: All right, um, I woke up my cat.

[1:20:09] Ethan: Oh, sorry.

[1:20:10] Jesse McAnally: Garfield!

[1:20:12] Brianna Jones: Garfield, what are you doing here?

[1:20:12] Jesse McAnally: All right. Thank you guys for listening. Please follow us on iTunes Spotify Stitcher at Musicals with Cheese. You know what? Leave us a review on fucking Apple Podcasts, please.

[1:20:24] Ethan: We need more of those.

[1:20:25] Jesse McAnally: We'll we'll promote you. We'll literally, if you make a request on Apple Podcast reviews, we are more likely to do it.

[1:20:32] Ethan: We literally moved up a request just because it was on an Apple Podcast.

[1:20:35] Jesse McAnally: So you know what? That's an easier way than paying us $20 a month.

[1:20:39] Jesse McAnally: Um follow us on Twitter at Cheesy Musicals, Patreon Musicals with Cheese, Instagram Musicals with Cheesy. We have a YouTube page called Musicals with Cheese. We have a patron only podcast, and we're currently covering Tangled the Series over on Patreon called Patreon with Cheese.

[1:20:50] Brianna Jones: Email us at musicaltheatrelives@gmail.com to tell us why we're so wrong about Tick Tick Boom, because you know, it's gonna happen.

[1:20:57] Jesse McAnally: Um our keeper of the cheese is Juliet Antonio. This show is produced by the incredible, the wonderful, I'm one of my best friends in the world, Brianna Jones!

[1:21:06] Ethan: Our theme songs were created by Robin Nash of IOU Music UK.

[1:21:09] Jesse McAnally: Thank you for the to the Broadway Podcast Network for not kicking us off the platform for insulting thy lord and savior, Lynn Manuel Miranda.

[1:21:17] Ethan: I know, I know, but he might hate poor people.

[1:21:17] Jesse McAnally: All right, guys. Anything else we gotta say before we wrap this on up?

[1:21:24] Ethan: Um I said I'm afraid it's too late for that.

[1:21:27] Jesse McAnally: She's on her way right now.

[1:21:30] Ethan: It's gonna happen anyways.

[1:21:31] Jesse McAnally: Why are we canceling Coachella?

[1:21:36] Ethan: Got anything to add?

[1:21:38] Ethan: No.

[1:21:39] Jesse McAnally: All right, we'll see you next time on Musicals with Cheese.

[1:21:53] Ethan: I feel bad that you feel bad about me feeling bad about you feeling bad about what I said about what you said about me not being able to say our feelings.

[1:22:02] Brianna Jones: I feel badly about me.