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[0:17] Jesse McAnally: Hello, I'm Jesse McAnally.

[0:18] Andrew DeWolf: And I'm Andrew DeWolf.

[0:20] Jesse McAnally: And welcome to Musicals with Cheese, a podcast where I try to get Andrew to like musical theater. And today we have our favorite guest in the world, our honorary third chair.

[0:28] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, like the first guest we've ever had on this podcast.

[0:34] Jesse McAnally: And one of our favorite people. Literally, I've slept in the same house as this man.

[0:37] Andrew DeWolf: And I have not even done that for my co-host.

[0:40] Jesse McAnally: This is. I thought he was going to say something else for a second. Three feet away from me is where Brent Black slept.

[0:47] Andrew DeWolf: And I'm selling tickets.

[0:48] Brent Black: Hey, how's it going?

[0:51] Brent Black: Yes, I did recently crash with Jess. And the way you phrase that, I've slept in the same house. Like, yes, I've slept with this man. Architecturally, I put a roof over his head for one evening and a floor.

[1:10] Jesse McAnally: I was in your basement.

[1:12] Brent Black: Oh, great.

[1:13] Andrew DeWolf: I, Dan, is that where you are right now? Is he sleeping in that chair?

[1:18] Brent Black: You know, it's just behind me. That's that echo you hear is me across the room.

[1:24] Jesse McAnally: He's still there.

[1:26] Andrew DeWolf: Like mold.

[1:27] Brent Black: We can't get rid of that's right. Not enough yet, but it's coming.

[1:33] Jesse McAnally: Speaking of engagements, you know what happens after you get engaged?

[1:38] Andrew DeWolf: Regret.

[1:39] Jesse McAnally: That's right. A wedding. And you know what? I think it's time to hire a wedding singer.

[1:46] Andrew DeWolf: Oh, wow.

[1:49] Jesse McAnally: I mean, really, we pulled that one out, didn't we?

[1:52] Andrew DeWolf: I think it was as smooth as can be.

[1:55] Jesse McAnally: I mean, our wedding singer still things that happen at weddings. And I mean, if you don't have a trillion dollars to just throw away, there are certainly still wedding cover bands.

[2:05] Andrew DeWolf: Absolutely. They're expensive and it's like a full-time job, though. If you're a musician, great business.

[2:11] Jesse McAnally: Yeah, I think it's probably more DJs by volume, like per capita than not just per capita, but like as a percentage of music sources at a wedding than it used to be.

[2:25] Andrew DeWolf: It's just a dad with a Spotify playlist at this point. Wedding DJ has got to be the easiest gig, because I mean, you just load up the white people music and it's like, boom, you're done.

[2:34] Jesse McAnally: Right foot, left stop.

[2:39] Jesse McAnally: And this week, in case you haven't picked up, we're throwing down. We are talking about The Wedding Singer.

[2:44] Brent Black: Who grows old with you.

[2:47] ♪ Musical number: "Grow Old With You" — performed by Brent Black ♪

[3:18] Jesse McAnally: So The Wedding Singer is a musical with music by Matthew Sklar, lyrics by Chad Beguilin, and a book by Chad Beguilin and Tim Hurley. It is based on the 1998 film The Wedding Singer, written by Tim Hurley, starring Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore. It premiered at Seattle's Fifth Avenue Theater on January 21st for out-of-town tryouts. And the Broadway previews began March 30th of 2006, officially opening April 27th at the Al Hirschfeld Theater. It closed on December 31st, 2006, after 30 previews and 284 regular performances. It was nominated for five Tony's: Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical, Best Original Score, Best Actor in a Musical for Stephen Lynch, Best Featured Actress in a Musical, Laura Benanti, Featured Actress.

[4:09] Andrew DeWolf: OK, that's a stretch. I don't believe that.

[4:13] Jesse McAnally: But yeah, it is. Have you not had ABC Family in like the early 2000s? We all know The Wedding Singer. It's about a guy that sings at weddings, gets broken up. Life sucks for him. And then, you know, romance.

[4:27] Jesse McAnally: Now, quick cue for the audience. I'm going to ask Andrew first because I know the answer. What's your relationship with The Wedding Singer as a film?

[4:35] Andrew DeWolf: Oh, man, I've never watched this shit. I don't really like Adam Sandler. I don't seek out his stuff. I've honestly just never seen this.

[4:44] Jesse McAnally: Fair enough. And what do you think of the musical in comparison?

[4:46] Andrew DeWolf: Well, in comparison, it exists because I've seen it. I thought it was OK. Honestly, I really I didn't know what to expect. And I think for the first like hour, I was really enjoying myself. And then after a little while, I was like, OK, we can be done now, I think. But other than that, I mean, it's pretty good.

[5:04] Jesse McAnally: Now, Brent, what is your history with not only The Wedding Singer as a film, but the musical? Because this is something you've been talking about for at least a couple of years.

[5:12] Brent Black: Sure. I actually never watched the movie until I prepped for this podcast.

[5:18] Andrew DeWolf: Really?

[5:20] Brent Black: I was very aware of it. And you said ABC Family. I'm sure I've seen clips. People have sung the songs from it. But I never actually truly saw the whole thing. Weirdly, though, I did listen to the album a few times through back when it came out, because that's when I was in grad school for musical theater writing. So like we listened to every new thing that came out, you know, on iTunes, wherever we could find it. And that was like my first year of grad school. So it was strange that the order of my familiarity started with the album, then moved on to the movie and then moved on to the actual content of the show between the album, which includes, by the way, a lot of songs, many songs that were not on the album.

[6:10] Jesse McAnally: Yeah, I think this show is kind of a paint by numbers thing. And I think like because they've cut some songs for the tour. I think they've cut some songs for good MTI good. It's sad when the songs that have me feeling the most are the ones co-written by Adam Sandler.

[6:29] Brent Black: Yeah. You know, just to like. It's so funny. In both cases, the movie and the musical, I didn't deeply care about the rom-com. Will they won't they like it's so predictable. I didn't feel deeply anything about that plot. But I did cry at the song. I want to grow old with you. Yes. Both times. It's so weird how musical theater is. And I guess film is just sometimes where you're like you, you, you, you aren't fully enjoying yourself. It's fine. You're watching a thing and you're like, this is fine. It's got its good parts. It's got its bad parts. But then it can just be like, oh, by the way, you're crying. And so, you know, but yeah, that was Adam Sandler. And for what it's worth, Adam Sandler co-written with Tim Hurley. He and by the way, Jess earlier, it just occurred to me, if it is, in fact, Chad, beg you lean like it sounds like two names like maybe Matthew Sklar is not quite one of these, but at least Chad and Tim sound like two names.

[7:34] Jesse McAnally: Somebody's phonetically making up in the moment like Chad. Beg you lean.

[7:39] Brent Black: How do you think? I think, OK, he typically I know is right. But I think it's a big deal in a big deal in it.

[7:47] Jesse McAnally: Yeah, I know. I know. They just they're just beggars.

[7:50] Brent Black: Yeah, they're just unusual combinations of syllables, those names.

[7:53] Jesse McAnally: Yes. And while you say these things, because I watched The Wedding Singer a lot because it was just on and in ye olde days, you didn't have much choices in content if it was on. And, you know, everything else was like the 700 Club. You're going to watch the Adam Sandler comedy because you need noise or else you're going to go insane. And I think that it's an above average Adam Sandler film. It did the 80s like nostalgia thing before it became trite. Like, think about it like the 80s were like eight years removed at that point, and they still are hitting the same buttons that everyone else was.

[8:29] Andrew DeWolf: Well, it was it was I looked into this because I freaked myself out with it. The year in which it was set was 13 years before the release year of the movie.

[8:40] Jesse McAnally: Yes. But that would mean if they made a similar movie today, it would be set in 2013. And it's like, in my mind, not to go off on a huge tangent, but I my girlfriend and I went back and forth about like, I don't think things have changed as much between 2013 and now as they had between 85 and 98. But I after talking about it, I realized, whereas the fashion really changed between 85 and 98 and technology really leapt forward, I think what's changed most in the last 13 years in the present is culture and like how we think about things. We've had Trump. We've had me, too. We've had covid. We've had, you know, like Gamergate, like shit has just really changed.

[9:31] Brent Black: Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

[9:33] Jesse McAnally: So it is probably a similar chasm between those last 13 years as it was for the original Wedding Singer, but just not in a way that like it would be as fun to be like, remember the 2013? Remember the clothes? Remember that? I mean, maybe for teenagers, but I mean, they're well-adjusted adults. Remember that there is a stark difference between them.

[9:56] Andrew DeWolf: Like as I look at 2013, I was in high school. That's like the year before I graduated. And I look at the outfits that people were wearing then, and they are easily mocked and like put in and things like I think the biggest difference is people aren't getting into media making young that the way that they were in the 90s and early 2000s because people in their late 20s, early 30s aren't really making the content. It is still the fucking people in the 50s and 60s that are green lighting things that are just about their nostalgia, which remains the 80s and 90s.

[10:30] Brent Black: So you're mostly talking about legacy media and like old and like film and like non-new media, right?

[10:36] Andrew DeWolf: Yes. Non-new media. Because even even then, like because I think traditional media or new media is aping off of what legacy media is doing quite often because I still think legacy media has its place and still has great influence over what we're doing and what we're seeing.

[10:51] Brent Black: Sure. Sure. Twenty three point ninety eight P, baby, I don't want this TV smoothing out my movies. Don't make it look like a tape. Don't make it look like Grand Theft Auto. There's still a place for film film. We can sit for two hours and watch a thing without looking at our phone, except for the Pete, the run P app, which tells me when I can go to the bathroom anyway.

[11:15] Jesse McAnally: I mean, that's kind of why I love theater is because that's a one place where if you pull out your phone, some granny's going to come and yell at you.

[11:22] Brent Black: Yeah, there's much more pressure not to be an asshole in live theater. And it's not enough to stop everybody. But like, I think honestly, just the fact that people paid so much to be there, even if it's like a community theater production, there's community theater productions that are like forty-five bucks nowadays. And it's like people are more likely to be like to shush you. And they should.

[11:45] Jesse McAnally: But anyway, yeah. So The Wedding Singer, that's that's my I, I, I, as I say, to actually answer your question, got into the album somewhat in the mid-aughts, but never knew the whole show until now.

[12:01] Brent Black: I was thinking and maybe this is just me, you know, projecting onto you. I figured you were a Stephen Lynch fan first, considering your history as a musician, comedian.

[12:12] Jesse McAnally: You know, Stephen Lynch has his place. I think he's very talented. He's good at what he does. Just like anyone making comedy at that time in the early 2000s. A lot of it ages poorly. That's just the deal.

[12:23] Brent Black: A song called Special Ed doesn't really do well.

[12:27] Jesse McAnally: Well, that's the funny thing. I don't remember any of this stuff. People kind of assume that if I do sort of parody and comedy song material, that my influences must be from the 90s and the 2000s. And while I was aware of him and went, OK, this guy's good. I didn't get into him because for me, my influences are like Dr. Demento from the 70s and 80s. And I mean, and Weird Al, but even Weird Al, like I never got into a phase where I was just like, like listening to Weird Al all summer, like the same album over and over again. The jokes are kind of, you know, Eat It is really good, but Eat It is really good because Beat It is really good. And the lyrics are pretty funny. And it's kind of like, anyway, not to get off too far on a tangent.

[13:13] Andrew DeWolf: Do you want to tell Brent your your hot Weird Al take?

[13:16] Jesse McAnally: What's my hot Weird Al?

[13:17] Andrew DeWolf: That he's hot Weird Al?

[13:19] Jesse McAnally: No, no, no. Andrew comes to me. He's like, Hey, hot take. Weird Al's a garbage.

[13:24] Brent Black: Oh, you told me this.

[13:26] Andrew DeWolf: And you're like, OK, I think I think Weird Al is really good as like a funny man in like videos and stuff. I think his song lyrics are not that funny. He just tells jokes about eating stuff all the time. Like 90 percent of his jokes are food related.

[13:47] Brent Black: Just like The Simpsons, just like I Love Lucy, like things that seem really fresh and weird and funny. Eventually, if they're popular and iconic enough, they become old hat because everything, like, because the culture absorbs them and is influenced by them and they just don't seem in the rearview as special as they were. And when they keep doing basically the same thing, no shade to Weird Al, but like he has stuck with the shtick and it's the same thing. So you kind of heard it and I feel like those songs. He's very good. No shade truly. But I think that it's a lot of times those songs if you've heard them once, maybe twice you've kind of gotten the juice out of them, you know, and after that, I mean some of the originals are fun dare to be stupid is really fun.

And I don't believe that was I think that was an original. I think it's an original but he's doing like like the evo. Oh, yeah for sure for sure. But like the tune style is original. Yeah, it's not literally a song. Yeah. Yeah, he's just stealing. I mean, I mean, I'm I like Weird Al but I like everything that isn't his music. I think he's I loved his TV show. I think UHF is great. I thought weird was fun. I just never got into his parody stuff. But speaking of folks I didn't really get into Adam Sandler is someone that I've never really found myself compelled to like return to that. I feel like Adam Sandler plays the same character and like every fucking that that's not quite true, but well, okay.

[15:02] Brent Black: So from my perspective Adam Sandler was way more a part of my media consumption growing up both his comedy music and his sketches on his album. Some of which you try to quote and then you realize oh, oh, no. I never as a kid thought about the implications of this. Like the ma I can't even tell you what it is because it'll just like there's just characters and situations where you're like oh, we don't do that anymore and the reasons are very clear, but SNL, you know, he was an iconic, you know tentpole SNL performer. And I think that like what's interesting about the wedding singer is it's not quite a punch drunk love or an uncut gems level of earnestness from him, but it's not Billy Madison or Happy Gilmore, even though the screenwriter wrote at least one of those.

There is some pathos to him and that's gonna come up later in my take. There is you really get in the first 10 minutes and through the rest of the movie with some rare exceptions that he this is like a good guy and he's got he's got feelings. He's a good guy with good intentions and he's he's sensitive and he did that surprisingly well, and I think I'm interested in that because I feel like every Adam Sandler movie I've ever seen he's just every joke is just him demeaning somebody else.

[16:46] Brent Black: Which ones have you sure? I've seen like what the water boy, click. Oh God, what else have I even seen there has been a couple others that an animated one. Oh God eight crazy nights a crazy. Oh my god. That was his that was his like his the vanity project that just shows everybody that you need someone to tell you no sometimes. No, but what I mean is so look, I I think that including the wedding singer most of his movies certainly his first 10 maybe 20 have all kinds of lazy humor and a lot of that lazy humor carried over into the musicalization of the wedding singer, but my point was just that as Robbie Hart specifically, I felt like unlike a happy Gilmore Billy Madison water boy actually, I'll tell you what, even though the water boy is problematic on many levels the guy still when it counts has some pathos he has some level of like earnestness even though it's you know homophobic fat phobic shaming of this shaming of that super lazy gross-out humor.

But when his characters most of the time need an earnest moment, it's not like when Jerry Seinfeld does that and you just never ever believe him. It's like you believe that there's feelings there and I think the wedding singer may be aside from punch-drunk love and uncut gems may be the best example of that. I throw 51st dates because there's some complex shit going on in that movie. And yes, the last like two minutes of that movie is a fucking horror premise, but I think there's some like moments of like earnestness and pathos there that really are effective and I think it does that the best withdrew Barrymore who I think is most of the formula of why that movie kind of works.

[18:45] Brent Black: I found her very uneven in the movie of the wedding singer not a not 51st dates which I never saw but there's this one moment. I think Jess you caught wind that I reacted to it where Drew Barrymore has to laugh at an Adam Sandler joke and actually the joke is funny the kid throws up into the dumpster and Adam Sandler's like something like oh, he threw up a lot. I think I saw a boot come out of there. I love that joke. But Drew Barrymore had to like probably in a totally different take, you know, it's it's a shot reverse shot. So it goes to her and she just does this laugh that's like you're pretending to laugh at a joke you did not just hear just now or but you know, she's I think that she's charming more than she's a great actor and I think Adam Sandler has some of that too.

[19:41] Brent Black: Yes, but I that actually leads into a topic of conversation that I wanted to talk about which is Julianne the musical as played by Laura Benanti who your podcast partner Kate Sloan. I was on her partner's podcast absolutely crushed. I did a whole thing about how much I really like Laura Benanti how she's like my girl on Broadway. She is ridiculously bad and miscast in this musical to a point where I am having secondhand embarrassment.

[20:10] Jess McAnally: Wow, I did not find her to stick out like that.

[20:18] Brent Black: I mean I did. Wow. I mean the thing is that character in the movie and in the show is just a casualty of failing the Bechdel test. It's all about marriage and relationships to her. That's all she wants and then she wants the guy and the thing is so much of storytelling in the last hundred years of film is predicated on that premise. So they fuck yeah, and you know, he's got other thoughts in his head and she kind of doesn't like she just really doesn't. It's the wedding. It's it and and but Laura Benanti, I mean, I don't know that it's just one of those roles that if you got somebody really funny like let's just imagine right like a Betsy Wolfe or a Heidi.

[21:06] Jess McAnally: I was gonna say Annalie Ashford. So we're in the same sure sure but like in a way it's like what a waste like how funny you're gonna make her with that script. The script doesn't give her a whole lot of space to have a personality and she's just kind of this chess piece that gets moved around the rom-com plot and she sings. I mean, I mean look Laura Benanti's vibrato. Sometimes the Prado that's where she's meant to be.

[21:28] Brent Black: Yeah, but you know, I I think she sells it well enough but it's just kind of not much of a character so it's hard to expect her to to really like transcend what has been written for her?

[21:43] Jess McAnally: I agree and I can it's less when I say the secondhand embarrassment is not because she's doing a bad job. It's because I can see her being frustrated that she's doing this character playing this mousy role which is not the energy she brings to anything else and Brent and I were sharing images and things up based on the out-of-town tryouts previews versus the actual Broadway run and before Broadway, she used her natural hair or something closer to it and it just felt different more confident to like a wholly different character then they slap this shit ass mousy wig.

[22:20] Brent Black: Well and the headband. Yeah headband really did a lot of work to it gives miss Rachel vibes. Yeah, she's she's I mean not necessarily like virginal but there's something that is like supposed to be a little naive a little youthful a little like kind and maybe a little bit of a simple person not in an insult way just like truly a straightforward kind human being and I think that was a shorthand for that because yeah her hairstyle in the in the pre-broadway tryout could have been mistaken for a different type, you know, yeah.

[22:58] Jess McAnally: Andrew if you could do me the great honor, what is the plot of the wedding singer?

[23:01] Andrew DeWolf: All right. Have you seen any rom-com?

[23:08] Jess McAnally: I don't think I have.

[23:10] Andrew DeWolf: Okay. Yeah, sure. So having only seen the the musical I'll be giving that version. I assume it's basically the same as the movie in broad strokes anyways, you got a Robbie the the wedding singer who is a aspiring musician who plays weddings with his band? Who the other characters are introduced as if they're gonna matter, but they don't they don't. Then he he's gonna get married to God. What's her name Linda?

[23:43] Andrew DeWolf: Linda? Yes. I knew it was started with an L. I was gonna say Laura. It was not Laura Linda. He's gonna get married to Linda, but he first talks with someone named Julia while he's writing a song for the wedding and Julia is waiting for I think it she wants her boyfriend to pop the question, you know, cuz she wants to get married to and she's like Robbie. Will you play at my wedding when that happens? He's like, yeah, sure whatever.

[24:07] Andrew DeWolf: So then Robbie's wedding happens, but Linda decides that she fell in love with a cool metal guitarist or whatever and now he's a wedding singer and it's super fucking lame and not interested at all. So she just doesn't show the fuck up and Robbie falls into a horrific depression. Meanwhile Julia gets she gets proposed to by her boyfriend who I can't remember the name of either Glenn.

[25:02] Andrew DeWolf: See he's got it you have notes, I will not only do I have pages of notes, but I watched the movie and the musical so now, I'm not I'm not trying to upstage your preparation. I just you know, I've been I think it's funnier. What is left to like? What the fuck am I talking about? It's all good. It's all good. It's giving drunk history. Go on.

[25:27] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah ownership probably and I think the unspoken thing is they've been together long enough he feels a certain obligation to get married to her but also I think he feels like that's a thing you're supposed to do. But he has no particular desire to commit behind the scenes he just thinks it's a thing he should get over get it over with and add to his life.

[25:56] Andrew DeWolf: I've got the name now. Julia is proposed to by Glenn. Glenn is like an asshole like like an asshole like American psycho type but like not no murders, you know that we know give a fuck. He doesn't give a fuck about anything except money and status. He really does not care for Julia like at all outside of just I guess honestly it's not really even clear why he wants to get married to her like he clearly wants to sleep around with other girls and I don't know. I guess he just likes her somewhat. I don't know. It's like a status thing ownership.

[26:05] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah in the in the version that that I saw there's a whole song but I've read on Wikipedia that there was actually a version of this that in the touring one where he just proposes over the phone, which I guess funny as fuck. The reason is they couldn't afford the set on tour. Yeah, they just cut the song but also it's long. It's good that they cut that song the show needs to lose some weight.

[26:09] Jess McAnally: Seriously, the movie's 96 minutes and and barely gets by on on how much you care about the story. The musical is about another hours another half hour 10 minutes.

[26:15] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah that being said I kind of like the goofy shit that they do like a pop is not my song. I'm gonna defend but like, you know the act one closer that one I will defend.

[26:30] Jess McAnally: Okay, fair enough. Are we cutting off Andrews?

[26:37] Andrew DeWolf: No, no. Okay, it's fine. We go wrap it up, buddy.

[26:39] Andrew DeWolf: Okay, whatever Robbie helps Julia get ready for the wedding, but he falls in love with her because I'm calm obviously, there's like another girl Holly sideburns lady. What the fuck? Who is this Holly? What the fuck?

[27:01] Andrew DeWolf: Holly okay. Um, yeah, and she's gonna she's like I'm gonna date him instead but that like doesn't happen then fuck Linda shows up. Yeah, Julie is good. Like I'm gonna actually not get married to Glenn. I'm gonna get married to the other guy instead. I'm gonna I'm gonna confess my love to the other guy. But then Linda shows up when Robbie's like drunk or whatever and it looks like they had sex and oh boy. Wow, okay, so rom-com stuff. Oh miss big misunderstanding and then whatever I mean this fucking it is resolved they get together who cares?

[27:34] Brent Black: I don't remember how they fixed that part, but, you know... He shows up at their wedding in Vegas, sings the one, like, really, really meaningful song in this. Yeah, they're at the wedding in Vegas, but it's not even, like, at a Vegas wedding place. It's just, like... It's, like, at a themed, like, restaurant or some shit. I don't even understand how they work. Well, they wanted to stuff more 80s references, so... into it. So they had the idea of an 80s-themed chapel where Ronald Reagan... Actually, it wouldn't be 80s-themed, would it? Because it was in the 80s, but it was, like... The now-themed chapel. Yeah, yeah. With all, like... It was the White House-themed... Right. The white, like, Oval Office or Press Room or whatever-themed with a fake Ronald Reagan, but then also a bunch of, like, probably, like, I guess, celebrity tribute show performers would be the idea?

Can you fucking imagine getting wed by a Donald Trump impersonator? I mean, if I died and had to atone for my sins, I think that's where that would occur. You may now kiss the bride. You may now kiss the bride. So true. So true. And then you, like, pull up the veil and it looks like Donald Trump, and you're like, No! That's just the first level of hell. No, no, no. It's Charlie Kirk. I forgot to wear my pants! Oh my God, Jess! You're in hell! Where else would he be? That's true. That's true. We're almost at the Kirk-iversary! This is how much of a Trekkie I am. I was like, ooh, what happened with James T. Kirk? Nothing. No, not a damn thing. Counting or not counting, Klingon violence. His grandfather died, sadly.

No, no, no, no. Fuck, we were talking about something. Was it the wedding singer? Yeah, it was. It was the wedding singer. I like this musical a lot more than I like the movie. I feel like I didn't state that up front enough. I think that it, compared to a lot of other adaptations of movies to stage, it doesn't quite be like, hey, you remember this thing? Remember this thing from the movie you like? We're doing the thing! They aren't going to have a big stop because someone said, it'll be fetch, or whatever the fuck else they do in these modern movie-to-stage adaptations. I truly believe this was made because someone had an idea, thought, hey, a wedding singer, it leads itself to singing within it. I think that this lends itself to being a musical much better than, say, The Lost Boys.

[30:12] Brent Black: Sure. My headcanon about where this came about is somebody with money and connections on Broadway was watching The Wedding Singer and saw the Love Stinks scene, which in the movie is the sort of proto-version of what becomes the song Casualty of Love. Not long after Linda jilts Robbie, he performs at a different wedding, and he's just really having a hard time, and he's being a prick, and then he's asked to sing, so he sings a song. In the movie, it becomes a musical. He sings Love Stinks, but the way it's shot and the way he's performing it is a musical number. I imagine somebody watching that and going, shit, you know, this could be a musical. Maybe it was one of these, you know, that movie studios nowadays have entire teams who are looking for the next Legally Blonde, the next Shrek, the next whatever, and developing shows sometimes that go nowhere.

They spent a lot of time on Pleasantville, for instance, but the point is, I think that that was probably the spark, and then the other song, I Want to Grow Old with You at the End, once again, that is a musical number. If you made a movie of the musical, it could be shot, you could use those shots, basically. I think you get what I'm saying. You could mistake it for a musical film if you just saw that scene.

[31:40] Brent Black: I agree, but why didn't this latch on? Why did this not become the next big musical comedy on Broadway? Here's why. I forget who told me this, but somebody's autopsy, somebody involved with the show had the autopsy after it didn't pop off the way they'd hoped, and it had a respectable run, but it didn't recoup. They said, you know, for comparison, Billy Elliot is the story of a poor, working-class boy who longs to be a ballet dancer. The Wedding Singer is the story of a wedding singer who wants to be a wedding singer. It's just a little bit... And of course, he wants to be with Julia, but... he wants to be married. He's a wedding singer that doesn't want... He wants to sing at his own wedding.

That's at least something. I can see that. The wedding singer that doesn't want to sing at weddings, he wants to be at the wedding. Well, and the thing is, in the movie, it's a little more established that he's like... I don't know. Like, love is what I do, I guess, is the opening number of this. That's the ending of each chorus, but somehow I buy that more with the movie version, and maybe that's just because the version I saw was starring Stephen Lynch, who I think was, you know, maybe not the worst choice for marketing to get people to come see the show, but I'm not going to dog the guy. I'm not going to trash him. I just think there was somebody better to capture the heart of the character.

He carried it off well. He's very good at what he does. He sang it, and you know what? That's a lot of singing. A non-pro, or some funny comedy writer guy with funny songs could still have trouble with that score in terms of stamina. But I think that there was, again, a pathos issue that, even though a lot of why the movie worked was just the fact that Adam Sandler was beloved at that time, Drew Barrymore was beloved at that time, and they both had just enough of pathos and chemistry to make it work, I think that Stephen Lynch just didn't quite have that.

[34:00] Brent Black: Is there a more traditional Broadway actor that you think could have brought something to it? I really gave that some thought, and it is difficult. Who did I think of? Because the thing is, they have to combine a lot of different things. It can't just be yet another Andy Karl role, because that's just not quite what he does. I had someone in mind, and now I have misplaced it. I should have written it down. What about you, Jess? What do you think?

[34:30] Jesse McAnally: You see, mine is like, for the time, they would have just put fucking Constantine Maroulis in there. It would have been a fucking charm echo chamber of nothing.

[34:39] Brent Black: Well, but I mean, is that the right kind of charm? I don't know.

[34:44] Jesse McAnally: No, I don't think so. But that's the thing. I'm cynical about it. They would have done that, but what I'm saying is, oh, this is going to drive me nuts. I really did think about this, but it'll come to me right at the end. You'll be like, Brent, where can people find you on the internet? And I'll say, Josh Gad! No, not Josh Gad. But anyway.

[35:04] Brent Black: Reeve Carney was kind of in the world at that point, but I still think like, today, if they revive The Wedding Singer with Reeve Carney and Eva Noblezada, I'm like, hmm, people might turn out for that. They saw him in Gatsby, despite both of them not really working. I mean, and I don't know. Gatsby is perplexing to me, because I don't think Gatsby has a story. I don't know. So much of my whole, you know, issue with most shows starts and ends with, this is a bad property to adapt, so it's hard mode, and you shot for the moon, but you landed among the, eh. You landed among The Wedding Singers.

[36:40] Brent Black: Sure. Which again, you know, not a bad show. My thing with it is, maybe one day I will write a show that will turn me into a hypocrite, but I think economy is really important. And sometimes in a Broadway show, you have a bunch of actors who, whether it's in their contract, or whether the writers feel obligated, they all need to get a little moment. But that ends up with all these moments that are totally cuttable. And I have a question for you guys. Like, do you think that there was a time in Broadway history, particularly the first 10 years of the 21st century, where shows on Broadway were padded just to give the audience their money's worth? And moreover, would you rather, if you paid $300 for seats, would you rather have more show, more dancing, more lights, more flash and trash, or would you rather have a tight 90 minutes that story-wise and pacing-wise really did it for you?

[37:46] Jesse McAnally: The answer is yes across the board.

[37:48] Brent Black: Okay.

[37:49] Jesse McAnally: But as far as-

[37:50] Brent Black: I think it depends what type of show I'm going to see. If I'm just going to see some schlock and it's like, I want to see dancing, I want to see whatever, then probably just more. But if it's got like a story that I'm supposed to care about, you got to pace it well, you know? That's the thing. Andrew, you said that, you know, it started out well and then it got a little long. And it's like, when, you know, the idea of them, the idea of the proposal scene, well, like they had to give a song moment. They had to give another song moment to the villain, Glenn. And with Christine and Sammy's like sort of second couple subplot, well, they had to give them a song. And it's like, I go, listen, I know that it sucks to like be a principal role in a show and not get like your own song, but the show would be better if their little romance was just in the book.

I think the show would be better if Saturday Night in the City just got to the point instead of giving Holly the sort of intro verse. There's a lot of stuff that I go, this show could lose 15 minutes easy. And it sounds like on tour and perhaps in the licensable version, they have done that.

[38:52] Brent Black: Jess, I agree with you, but also part of me is like if the song was better, then I wouldn't care that I was taking up my time.

[39:00] Jesse McAnally: That's interesting. You know, I think this is a show that it starts too strong for its own good. I think that the opening number, while there's not a whole lot of like content to it, whereas like, as opposed to like, let's say, Belle from Beauty and the Beast has shit tons of content, doesn't have that much content, but as a catchy song to get you in the mood for a show, it's one of those numbers that like after I saw it on the Tonys, I was just like, fuck, I'm on board. Let's do this. Let's see the show. And then the next song is Someday, which even though it's kind of bland character-wise and story-wise, really pretty song, I think. And bouncy, like for...

[40:40] Brent Black: Yeah. But it also frames. I love musical theater. It frames Julia as the main character, which she decidedly isn't. She wasn't even nominated for Best Actress. Yeah, that's the thing. Like, what does Robbie want? And I guess like songs like If I Told You and like, you know, there are certain song moments that show what he wants, but you're right that, and I mean, this is a thing that happens in Calm the Musical, a parody tractacular, my off-Broadway Star Trek show that I will shove into the conversation at least a few more times. It's a pretty good show. I like it a lot. Thank you. Thank you. Cast recordings out wherever you listen to music. But the thing is that the movie of The Wrath of Khan makes it look like the role of Savick, the Kirstie Alley Vulcan, is the main character because it starts with a scene where she's the captain and she's the one making decisions.

And then it's like, just kidding. That was all a test. That was a simulation. If you had any emotional involvement, forget it. Here's Captain Kirk. And here, that wasn't how they did The Wedding Singer. You knew Robbie was the main character, but here they've reversed. It makes you wonder what they cut. If they cut a song where Robbie talks about his hopes and dreams and what he wants. But again, this contributes to the story of a wedding singer who wants to be a wedding singer. That's unfairly oversimplified, but it's not clear what he wants in his deep heart of hearts. What if, and here's me rewriting a musical, that doesn't need to be rewritten. It's fairly successful community theaters. What if Robbie sang Someday?

And or it was like a little duet where they both kind of have different points of view on what their someday marriage looks like. That could actually be a comedic beat. Honestly, I think that them singing to each other about their dreams, about their other partners. Yes, would be much better story-wise. Absolutely, Jess. And I hadn't thought of that. That's a great solution. And it also gets them together in singing from the jump because when two romantic love interests are harmonizing, that's like shorthand for like, they're really jiving. They're really literally on the same wavelength. Though, in terms of physics, they're on harmonizing wavelengths. Shut the fuck up, Brent. Anyway, so the point is, love that idea, Jess. And I want to, there were a couple thoughts I had. Oh, like on Stephen Lynch, I just want to circle back around to that. I developed an entire hypothesis.

[41:20] Brent Black: Maybe a theory to explain why I think Stephen Lynch struggled with this. There are like these characters that get adapted from movies into musicals that I would call like cardinal characters. Elle Woods, Shrek, Seymour Krelborn, where the character is strong enough to survive an actor who's maybe not quite right. And as long as they commit and their technique is decent, it'll probably work out fine. Because the character's doing the work. Whereas Robbie Hart has the same problem as like Mrs. Doubtfire or Beetlejuice or the Genie in Aladdin, where I would call those like vessel characters, the ones from the movie. They're like an empty vessel that was special in their movies because they were filled with one actor's special performance. I think that is the case for Babson in Funny Girl, too. No one can fill that void.

[42:17] Jess McAnally: Exactly. Exactly. And even though Stephen Lynch is good at what he does, he carries it vocally, what's special about him does not translate to this character. And it feels like somebody behind the scenes said, we need an Adam Sandler who will actually show up for the show. And instead of finding somebody with Sandler's pathos and charm, they found someone. It's like they ticked the wrong box. They found the wrong thing that someone has in common and went, oh, this guy also writes dirty comedy songs like Adam Sandler. But Legally Blonde and Shrek made it work because those cardinal protagonists can be like co-opted by an actor. But this is a vessel character that needs to be filled. And even though I cannot remember, and I'm really like, no, not Roger Bart. I'm going to think of it and it's going to be it's going to be Leo Butz. I mean, no, but like closer, you know, closer.

[43:16] Brent Black: Well, why don't you think about that? And we're going to go into a mid show. And also, I think this is time for you to announce that you're adapting Tommy Boy for the stage. I'm really excited for your musical adaptation. I think you've got some great ideas.

[43:27] Jess McAnally: My great idea is if someone wants to pay me a million dollars, I will adapt Tommy Boy to the stage. But we have to find the actor first because, you know, Chris Farley, that's a tough one. I don't think any I think it could be me. Listen, honestly, I mean, can I be David Spade?

[43:48] Brent Black: If we well, I think we have something. We're bringing it on the road. If this is an idea that appeals to someone listening, there is an Instagram video of one of those guys that like does a whole piano score for a scene in a movie. And he does it for the Tommy Boy scene where he's like giving the presentation to the guy about if brakes on your car are bad. But it's shockingly good at syncing up with music. It feels like a little musical number. So like truly. If that got adapted to Broadway, that would be a whole fucking number. That would not just be like a cute scene.

[44:21] Jess McAnally: So much. Yes. And probably overdo it the way that they always want to top the number from the movie. And sometimes they overdo it. Holy schnikey would be a whole number with like neon signs behind him like Tommy. That's Broadway. Yes. Let's do our midship bullshit.

[44:56] Brent Black: The number one comedy in America has the critics spinning. The Wedding Singer. Everybody on the dance floor. Rolling Stone calls it a sweetheart of a comic romance. We're living in a material world and I am a material girl or boy. The best time you'll have all year at the movies. Get out of my Van Halen T-shirt before you jinx the band and they break up. The Wedding Singer. Now playing.

[45:29] Jess McAnally: You don't want to settle when you're looking to make a buy. If it's made of metal, you can find it at J&I. We got fences, welders, sprayers that'll make you say oh my. From a truck to a trailer, you can find it at J&I. J&I. You can put a magnet on it, you can find it at J&I. J&I Manufacturing. Leaving some metal in your pocket.

[46:06] Jess McAnally: Hey guys, sorry to interrupt you in the middle of the show, but we've got a show idea. Today's show is brought to you by the extremely kind donations by our donors over at Patreon. Brent Black is a patron on Patreon.

[46:11] Brent Black: I am. He has paid us money. I bet if I pulled up the numbers, I could give an actual, a number account of how much money you've given us over these years.

[46:23] Jess McAnally: $60. Let's see, let's see. Don't really do it, it'll be pathetic. Oh god, no, wait, hold up. It's not as much as you'd think. I've been telling you it's not as much as you think. That's what I'm trying to communicate to you. I mean, it's support. You're doing the thing that I tell our patrons to do, which is to cap it, and sometimes they do and sometimes they don't. Because I don't want to take more money. And also, how do you feel about this whole Patreon, like, getting rid of the percreation thing? Because I think that's stupid as shit.

[46:57] Brent Black: I honestly didn't hear about that. I'm like woefully unaware of a lot of things going on on the internet, because I don't really socialize often with people that are making internet content anymore. So there's a lot of things that I, like, I mean, on Twitter, you know, on socials, interacting, yes. But anyway, this is your mid-show. I think we don't need to do my biography. That's the case with me right now. Whatever. On Patreon, we have a lot of things, a bonus podcast where we're talking about high school musical, the musical, the series. It's a weird show. I don't think Olivia Rodrigo's a good actress. We did a whole bonus episode on Camp Rock 3. I don't think it's a good movie. You're going to have to find out to see if I have more to say, because truly, it's like watching Men in Black Stick, no memory of watching that movie. But I made an episode about it, so I guess I must have.

[47:49] Jess McAnally: Our current patrons are Layton A., Ewan Cassidy, Monica Throw, Brent Black, Jon Finnells, Russ Walker, Musical Hell, Janae C., Nothing is Certain Except Beth in Texas, Thespian, Roof Geese, E.G. Francis, Chris Marcotte, Keejer Marie Anastasio, RJ Noriega, Joe, Toriana Frazier, Sammy, The Adequate at Mount Jacobson, Villainous Miss, The Omega Geek, Maddie Wargell, Lisa Erdman, Rora Moroso, Mara, Puffy Boy, Anna B., Gold Play to Kiki Mora. They broke character recently. It was kind of interesting to see.

[48:16] Brent Black: A what?

[48:17] Jess McAnally: I know. It was wild.

[48:20] Brent Black: Did they break character just to threaten you more?

[48:23] Jess McAnally: No, they broke character because someone like yelled at them to stop it, and then they got real serious. It was weird.

[48:29] Brent Black: Oh, that kind of breaking character, not the kind where the producers have told you every night to pretend one actor is making the other break up.

[48:37] Jess McAnally: Like, that is such a disease of Broadway for the last 20 fucking years. You don't believe Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster really break and giggle for five minutes on stage every night?

[48:44] Brent Black: Every night. How charming. Oh, do you know, when I saw it, they broke character.

[48:51] Jess McAnally: Mm hmm. Is what they want people to say.

[48:54] Brent Black: That's the voice of every Broadway attendee. Hello, I've got a ticket.

[48:59] Jess McAnally: My favorite is when I saw Hell's Kitchen and the piano broke and can't fake that.

[49:03] Brent Black: Oh, shit. Like that.

[49:06] Jess McAnally: Like you could just see a break and then you could see the choreography that was supposed to be on the piano. And they were just kind of like the lead actresses kind of did this. And they just called a stop. And we sat there for 45 minutes.

[49:18] Brent Black: Wow.

[49:19] Jess McAnally: Um, Aria Ardy, Carl Baldasso, JRL Studios, BTF Liberty Jigot, Caleb Bailey, Davin Willis, Sofia Hurtado, Jessica Pants Pants, Casey Denning and Liz Montemurro. And they're brand new and they're doing great in our discord. I really enjoy them. But they all give us a little extra financial support that helps us out here at Musicals with Cheese. If you'd like to join them, get those perks and a whole backlog of bullshit and be just like Brent Black and giving us some money. Come join us over at Patreon.

[49:44] Brent Black: All right, let's get back to it.

[50:00] Stephen Lynch: Hi, I'm Stephen Lynch. Let's make a date for the 16th of August, 1130 on Paramount Comedy, My World Stands Up Special, where you'll hear such hits as There's a hair on the soap and it's short and it's curly, a hair on the soap and I don't think it's mine.

[50:17] Jess McAnally: She Loves Me is the most nominated show of the Broadway season. It's received eight Tony nominations, including Best Musical Revival, starring Tony nominees Laura Benanti, Zachary Levi and Jane Krakowski, directed by Tony nominee Scott Ellis. The New York Times calls it sumptuous, rapturous and transcendent, as exhilarating as a first kiss. You are guaranteed to fall in love. Don't miss Roundabout's She Loves Me, the most nominated show of the season on Broadway through July 10th only.

[50:59] Brent Black: Jess, have you ever read Ben Brantley's review of this?

[51:03] Jess McAnally: Yes, I did in preparation for this. It was a couple of days ago, so I can't quote it word for word. But yes, I did read it.

[51:09] Brent Black: What do you remember his general vibe being?

[51:13] Jess McAnally: It's harmless, but it's kind of there's not much to it. And it relies on a lot of 80s stuff. And like, you know, I would say it was like a mixed review.

[51:25] Brent Black: He's not wrong. I mean, he's often correct in his reviews, I'd say. He's just sometimes a little weird about it.

[51:30] Jess McAnally: Just a bit of a dick.

[51:31] Brent Black: Well, yeah, but you know what? This is a name drop of a kind. He did, in fact, review my 2010 Off-Broadway show, I'll Be Damned, and gave us a very—he knew we were youngins. He knew we were like babies, 25, 26. And he gave us like a very kind, bad review. Like it was bad, but it wasn't mean. And but still, you couldn't cobble together two words that were quotable. But yes, he can certainly be a dick.

[52:01] Jess McAnally: But I think he has a sense of context. Like, hey, y'all had five million dollars and developed this for, you know, eight years. You could do a little better than this, which sometimes I kind of agree with that.

[52:11] Brent Black: Yeah, and I we make jokes, but I just think like sometimes he's just trying to make it a print and he just puts nonsense out there. I think they should have a day. I think it'd be better if they got to see two performances and then sleep on it. But the fact that he has to see the show and write a an erudite, wordy review that gives them exactly the right number of pull quotes he wants to grant in a number of hours, Jesus Christ, that's a talent in itself.

[52:43] Jess McAnally: I do want to sum up his last paragraph, which I think is interesting, which it says, it says everything about the musical's priorities that it brings down its first act curtain, not on a suspenseful or emotional moment between Robbie and Julia, but on the image of a scantily dressed woman in profile in a chair being doused with a bucket of water. If that image doesn't make you think what a feeling, then the wedding singer is probably not your show about right. But also, I like that moment. I was like, that is a moment that would keep me coming back after act two.

[53:13] Brent Black: I just don't understand. Like, there are a lot of male gaze moments in the original Broadway staging, and I'm not mad about that, although it really feels gratuitous through a literally 20 years later lens, like, as a guy who likes butts, like, okay, like, sign me up a little bit. This is for research. But anyway, like, that being said, the like, I guess the idea was it was a wet T-shirt contest that water got like dropped on a woman right at the end of it. But they didn't take advantage of what's fun about a wet T-shirt contest, which, again, I'm not insisting it should have been, but it's like, no, what are we? What's what's the idea with the water? Not from an energy and spectacle perspective, but like, what the fuck is the character doing in that moment?

[54:01] Jess McAnally: Making us all applaud.

[54:03] Brent Black: Well, and that's exactly right, Jess. We weren't going to applaud anyways. It's about energy. No, but it's true. This show. I mean, I think that, like, when I teach musical theater writing, I often talk about you, you have to think just as much about the energy that this moment needs at any given point and the storytelling bit, which and I always use thank you very much from Scrooge, which is a brilliant way to go. Shit, we need positive energy during this total bummer part of of the Scrooge story. Like Scrooge is like with the death guy, the, you know, Christmas yet to come. We need a fun number that we need an 11 o'clock. And so they go, who's joyful right now? Oh, all the people that are happy that he's dead. And they do this big, happy song called Thank You Very Much for everybody. Thanks, Scrooge, for being dead. And but the point I'm getting at is this show seems to think the audience constantly needs an energy boost. Not every song, but like.

[55:33] Brent Black: You know, "Saturday Night in the City," I guess it's like creating a momentum that gets us to the end of Act One. But especially the way the curtain falls is perplexing to me because it's like you kind of want a cliffhanger. And if you can swing it, but here it's like Robbie sings a sad realization that he and Julia aren't going to happen. And then Holly gets a big final moment where they pour water on her. They sing "Saturday Night in the City" one more time and intermission. It is all about energy, as you say, Jess, and not about storytelling. And I mean, again, that's part of writing a musical for you, but it's just like, it's just, it doesn't, it's, it's, I guess, iconic and memorable, but it doesn't really make any sense.

[56:17] Andrew DeWolf: You got to keep the tourists entertained, you know, like they're, they're coming in from.

[56:20] Jesse McAnally: They want cats. Everyone wants a musical to be cats.

[56:23] Brent Black: Yeah. It's like, I want to watch my favorite Adam Sandler movie, but they sing and it's like, can we get a little more action here?

[56:31] Jesse McAnally: You know, the people going to "The Wedding Singer," it's the dad's picking. It's like, what musical can we try to convince dad to go to? And then they go and be like, oh, it's a good time. I saw some butts. I got to see some boobs. I had a great time. You know, Broadway's not as bad as I thought. Cause you know, the stigma and the energy was very different in 2006 than it is today.

[56:52] Brent Black: But you're right though. There is a lane and I feel like that lane is probably still there. But when I think of that lane, it's like "Spamalot," "Book of Wedding Singer" to some extent, "Book of Mormon." But I guess if people were aware of like the South Park element, "Rock of Ages," certainly like there's been this like, okay, mom wants to see this show and the kids want to see "Ride the Cyclone" or "Six" or whatever.

[57:20] Jesse McAnally: But dad gets to pick one too. And dad picks the one that he thinks he won't hate because it's a thing he's heard of. And this is in that lane.

[57:30] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah. And maybe we don't need to start making musicals for dad with respect.

[57:35] Jesse McAnally: I mean, listen, listen.

[57:38] Brent Black: "Todd the Musical" is the only musical for dad I like.

[57:41] Jesse McAnally: Well, gets a musical. I think it's fine. I think the show's fine. I mean, I mean, I don't know. I think that, I think that knowing who your show's for, I hear the principle of what you're saying, Jess, but I think knowing who your show's for is important because so many young rookie writers go, it's for everybody. And you go, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

[58:02] Andrew DeWolf: Nothing is for everybody.

[58:03] Brent Black: Right. And, you know, like I've also made video games. I thought my first video game was for literally anybody. And by the time we made a sequel, I was like, this is for millennials and Gen Xers and boomers who know how to work, you know, a video game console. This is not for everybody. But sometimes when you make something that's for a very specific audience, it actually weirdly is more accessible to a wide audience. But if you try to make something for everyone, it can be serving too many masters. And it just like kind of is, you know, it's too, it's spread too thin.

[58:41] Jesse McAnally: And sometimes you don't know who you're making a thing for until it's out and the audience claims it. Like the thing I've noticed with "Domino" now that it's kind of getting more and more out there, men aren't fans of this movie. Women and young people really dig it.

[58:55] Brent Black: Interesting. Well, and you know, yeah, you don't always know till it comes out. That's true.

[58:59] Jesse McAnally: Like every review from a woman or not gender traditional has been like glowing, like ridiculously glowing even more than I think. And the men are just like, can the women stop talking?

[59:13] Brent Black: You know, as far as we've come as a civilization, there's still, there's still a certain kind of guy.

[59:20] Jesse McAnally: Still. My favorite audience feedback was what was the worst part? Cause they got surveys as what was the worst part anytime a woman was on screen. Jesus Christ, go fuck yourself.

[59:31] Brent Black: How do you write that? And then like, give it to somebody and be like, yeah, this is a thing I want people to see.

[59:36] Jesse McAnally: I mean, I hope that it was like, I hope that it was a little asshole teenager, like showing his friend and they laughed because they knew it was on screen. Got them.

[59:47] Brent Black: Right. Yeah, exactly. As opposed to like an incel who like said it with a, and wrote it with like a fully straight face.

[59:55] Jesse McAnally: And now this was like a teenage, it was a kid audience cause we were doing it for children, not children, but like teenagers. Girls liked it. Girls loved it. Uh, but fellas, not so much.

[1:00:05] Brent Black: I wonder if it was like an Andrew Tate kind of kid. You know what I mean?

[1:00:08] Jesse McAnally: Like wouldn't surprise me. Um, let's talk about the with the killer guy. I thought he was cool.

[1:00:19] Jesse McAnally: Let's talk about "It's Your Wedding Day." The opening number.

[1:00:23] ♪ Musical number: "It's Your Wedding Day" ♪

[1:01:03] Jesse McAnally: I love this song. Like it truly, I revisit the song. I know Brent, you talked about how this kind of sold you on the musical and listening to it originally.

[1:01:11] Brent Black: Yes, for sure. As an opening number too high here. I don't know. That's kind of the problem. Yes. Do they reach the point again? Because I don't know if they do. I think "Grow Old With You" does, but I think like there's connection with from the movie for me for that.

[1:01:26] Jesse McAnally: Yeah. I mean, I think that there's a certain kind of opening number that promises too much. And yet if it promised less than the whole show would be worse for it. Um, I think that like an example of a opener, that's this kind of good that, that like promises something that it can fulfill is, oh my God, you guys, like, I think that, oh my God, you guys is a pretty top shelf. And that's from "Legally Blonde" for listeners that don't know offhand, but like, that's a pretty top shelf opening number. But like, while it's not a perfect show, um, it, it achieves what it's doing. And it, it fulfills the promise of that opening number, this opening number musically. And again, there's not that much content to it, but there's just enough that it's already called "The Wedding Singer."

So we go, oh, this is our guy. I don't really believe he would have written this song. That's the thing throughout the show, actually. Like when he, there's a song that's not on the album where he's trying to write a song for Linda and he's running it by Julia. And he says the phrase to boot as in you're this to boot, like Robbie Hart would never write to boot. There's also like, just while we're at it, probably my favorite, my, my, my not favorite, my, my least favorite lyric in the show is in the, uh, bookend version of this song, the reprise of this song, where they're sort of recapping the story of the show. And the lyric is they called him the wedding singer. He sang at weddings. And so the name was apt.

[1:03:13] Jesse McAnally: Was apt, A P T because they're going to rhyme it with he just snapped.

[1:03:18] Brent Black: But when you're singing at that speed in this melody, it sounds like his name was zapped. And the thing is, even if the person said it, or it was very slow, that character would not say that. That's like a, that's like a clever, I'm the lyricist and I'm making a joke. It was apt. And it's like, I don't believe that character would say this. I don't believe that fits in this musical. And it's also my, to me, the true cardinal sin of a musical theater lyric. You can't understand it when you hear it.

[1:03:49] Jesse McAnally: See, even right now, I'm like trying to think of alternate lyrics. Like even then the name was right. And then something like, um, you know, he, he, something, you start a fight or something like, even that like sounds like the whole line there is, is bad. Like they called him the wedding singer and he sang at weddings. So the name was apt. I mean, I actually like, I actually like what it's going for. Like they call him the wedding singer. He's saying a wedding. So it made sense. Like, like if you could find a way to do that snappily that rhymed with what you're really about to say, which is that he went crazy after, uh, after Linda, um, jilted him. Like I can get, it's almost like to me that the, the potential of that line is ruined by ending with apt, like he's saying at weddings.

[1:04:33] Andrew DeWolf: And so his name was zapped. What, what did you say? His name is right. His name was, I truly thought I really thought his name is not zapped. Um, I really thought that the lyric was, his name was zapped for years. Um, because it just like, you know, Oh, like his name stuck. Like it was zapped. It was zapped to him. It didn't make sense. It wasn't good. It was zapped. It was Brent. You bring this up a lot in like conversation of just like misheard lyrics that you kind of latch onto or just, I hate backwards speak to make a rhyme fit. And give me an example.

[1:05:17] Brent Black: Oh God. Like Yoda speak where you invert it. Oh, there's a lot of it in Les Mis. And I'm trying to chalk that up to like them being French and not quite knowing.

[1:05:26] Jesse McAnally: Well, are we talking about like when somebody will use an inoperative word to rhyme or like they'll reverse the way that it would be phrased by anyone who was talking for real.

[1:05:33] Brent Black: Yes. That's more what I'm talking about, where they will start with the end of the sentence, the point of the sentence, and then they will do the first half. It's weird.

[1:05:45] Jesse McAnally: It was he, for whom the bell was tolling. And it's like, you're a guy from Brooklyn. Like that's, that's always the thing is I can believe just about any character.

[1:05:56] Brent Black: That's how the troll under the Brooklyn bridge talks.

[1:05:59] Jesse McAnally: Do not ask for whom the bridge trolls. It trolls for thee. No, I, I, I think, no, but like I hear you, Jess and I, to me, it's like, there are characters who can speak in weird inverted language, Shakespearean, they're old timey, they're Yoda. But if a character would never say that, this is like my pet peeve. If a character would never say that, and they're also not supposed to be being ironic as a character, it bugs me. And I think there's probably some of that to, to skip ahead a little bit in "Casualty of Love," where it's like, I'm not sure Robbie Hart would write all these lyrics. I believe he would write the "Somebody Kill Me, Please." But it's hard to believe he would personally pen "Casualty of Love," but we'll get there.

[1:06:43] Jesse McAnally: No, let's talk about "Casualty of Love."

[1:06:45] Brent Black: My interpretation is that all the songs where he's singing at the weddings, he's just playing pop songs in the, we're hearing the songs that he's singing, you know?

[1:06:54] Jesse McAnally: Interesting. I mean, I wish they could have licensed "Love Stinks." I think it worked perfectly in the movie.

[1:06:59] Brent Black: I agree, but I kind of like the, I kind of like the challenge of like, you have to get that energy, but with new lyrics, it's just, I don't think these are the right people to do it.

[1:07:11] Jesse McAnally: I mean, you could have written a song, it just, it didn't match any of the other, it didn't match the way that "I Want to Grow Old With You" was written. It didn't match the way "Somebody Kill Me" was written. Like, it could have been called, like, screw everything. It could have been called, I'm done with life. It could have been called, like, don't even, don't even try, you know, something just like, or it could have been off the cuff and like, you know, humorously off the cuff.

[1:07:36] Brent Black: I mean, they changed the way that "Somebody Kill Me, Please" was used. I think if you just put "Somebody Kill Me, Please" in that moment, it hits harder and leads to a much better, like, throw them in the dumpster moment.

[1:07:48] ♪ Musical number ♪

[1:08:34] Jesse McAnally: That's a great point. If he was like, okay, well, this song I think is kind of romantic, but I don't know. I'm working on it. I'm going to see if I can-

[1:08:42] Brent Black: I wrote this for the girl I was going to marry.

[1:08:46] Jesse McAnally: Yeah, that's a great point, Jess. I wonder if that was the original use and it didn't work. And they were like, but we still have to do that song because we-

[1:08:55] Brent Black: And people are expecting it so they just put it as a little thing that he does in bed. They just throw it in there and it just, I mean, that's like the best part of the Wedding Singer moment movie, like truly. And I think giving it that, like imagine like a Broadway band version of that song, it starts acoustic and then it gets bigger. I'm just like the band singing along with him, like that could work as far as like taking a movie moment and expanding it a bit and still having the same effect. Maybe like the band feels obligated to like still kind of save face and make it seem like this is supposed to happen, which by the way, oh quick tangent, George, what a tricky character. I'm going to use the pronouns they because we don't know, but George the movie was like largely a punchline.

They just cut away to people just being kind of disgusted with George, although in a way it was kind of like, okay, this character, like Robbie hangs out with this character, like we're in a, it's like two steps forward kind of thing. But so often, so often just played for laughs in the music by a real trans person though in the movie.

[1:10:05] Jesse McAnally: Yeah, oh that's great. I didn't know that.

[1:10:07] Brent Black: Alexis Arquette, may she rest in peace.

[1:10:09] Jesse McAnally: Really? Yeah, I didn't know that. I don't know if they were out at the moment, but at the time of their death, they were out trans.

[1:10:16] Brent Black: Okay, well, my point being in the musical, you don't want to play, I mean, there's a little bit of playing the queerness for laughs, but you don't want to do that too much for obvious reasons and it's not the forum to do that. Sure, there are a lot of lazy gay jokes in the show, but they're not really like, they're not really denigrating a core character that we're going to spend a lot of time with. It's just an interesting puzzle and they did okay with George, but it just feels like, you know, this, like they had to figure out what to do with this character who was mostly a punchline in the movie at a time where a lot of the culture changed in that specific way between 2000, well, between 1998 and 2006. And Broadway is always more progressive than Hollywood at any given moment.

[1:11:05] Jesse McAnally: Um, so it's an interesting, I don't know, maybe Jesse, you don't agree, but I think that generally speaking in terms of casting, um, sorry this took me into a, uh, a fucking Alexis Arquette rabbit hole here of their last film. Like their last film was playing the same character quote unquote George from The Wedding Singer as Georgina in the Adam Sandler Drew Barrymore film Blended.

[1:11:27] Brent Black: Whoa, like, like same universe, like based, like same, like yes, that's still a keyboard player. It's just like, hmm, one of the very interesting, one of the best gags in the movie, and so much of the movie does not age well, but one of the best gags is when they cut to George and George is playing the trombone or the clarinet and then it's a trombone after that. They tried to capture that in the musical by making it trumpet and it almost is like you should have just cut it the way you staged it, the way it's laid into the song. Like you're never going to recapture so much of what was funny in the movie is the cut, the edit perfectly surprised you with you hear a clarinet and it's George and then you go back to Robbie and then you hear a trombone and it's George and you can do that with lighting is the thing and they don't.

[1:12:27] Jesse McAnally: Yeah, I don't know. Here's the part of the show where I have to be a real dick and say, Brent, we got to wrap this up. What is your overall thoughts on The Wedding Singer? And I wish I could do the speed round, but Brent, I might just ask you to record that on your own and send me your list of the things that they changed adaptationally.

[1:12:47] Brent Black: I am going to take the challenge of doing this succinctly. All right, I think if people had never known the movie, this would just be kind of an okay 80s themed rom-com musical. Um, whereas like Legally Blonde would be a good musical even if there had never been a movie. Um, I think the movie and the musical are totally predictable rom-coms, but the movie, as I said, rode on the audience's love of Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore and the fact that it had the pacing of a 90 minute movie. I will admit, like I said, I did cry at I Want to Grow Old With You, both versions. But you know, at the show, the musical could lose about 15 to 30 minutes.

[1:13:29] Jesse McAnally: Okay, for fun, here are the list, not as exhaustive, but a robust list of adaptational changes because this is what interests me most. Okay, one, in the movie, Glenn had already proposed at the beginning. Two, in the musical, the character of Sammy is basically an amalgamation of three characters in the movie, including Sammy the bass player and Robbie's brother-in-law. Three, in the movie, Robbie lived with his sister and brother-in-law and Rose was just a woman he was giving voice lessons to, not his grandma. Four, in the movie, Robbie sings Somebody Kill Me Please for Julia at an empty event space. In the musical, it's in his bedroom directed toward the little bride statuette that went on his wedding cake.

Five, in the movie, Robbie also did bar mitzvahs along with weddings, whereas in the musical, it's Julia's idea to start the bar mitzvah circuit. Six, in the movie, there was a now cringy moment where Robbie wanted to make this insecure 13-year-old boy feel good, so he kind of pimped out Julia to dance with him at the bar mitzvah, but then the kid puts his hands on her butt and Robbie's like, hey, just go with it. And then everybody on the dance floor starts putting their hands on their partner's butt. It's kind of cute in the context of the time, but does not age well. In the musical, Robbie and Julia just dance platonically to get the people at the bar mitzvah to go ahead and come out to the dance floor.

Uh, I don't remember what number, but next, in the movie, George plays the clarinet and the trombone, just talked about that. It doesn't, it's the trumpet and the musical doesn't quite work. And the next one is in the movie, Robbie goes to a random bank to get a job and gets rejected, whereas in the musical, he goes to Glenn who hires him as a mailroom worker. I think this is one of the best adaptational changes.

[1:15:02] Brent Black: I agree of all. It's so much more interesting. Um, and finally, in the movie, Robbie made it to the plane that Julia was on for the final climax, but they smartly made it happen in a Las Vegas wedding chapel because staging that whole thing on stage in a plane would just kind of suck and be very limited. There you go.

[1:15:13] Jesse McAnally: I agree. And I wanted to bring up one small thing that's a nitpick of mine. I hate the staging of Grow Old With You. For such a song that I like a lot, I hate the fact that he just sits her down on a chair and we, it's just, he, you could have done so many other things with it than that for the duet, the love duet between those two.

[1:15:30] Brent Black: That's interesting. I feel like the sparseness of the movement is what makes it feel real. Like it makes it feel like the show stopped being a musical and they just, he just played a song for her. Like, like as if, you know what I mean? I don't know, part of me almost wishes they both knelt down together because that feels more romantic than sit in this chair while I sing to you.

[1:15:50] Jesse McAnally: Yeah, I guess, I guess I was fine with it and I think it probably either contributed to or did not get in the way of me having an actual emotional reaction to it.

[1:16:05] Brent Black: That's me. It just threw me off. Um, what's your cheese rating, Brent?

[1:16:12] Brent Black: Oh shit, I have got to have one of those. We have one gimmick. We have only one. Damn, damn, and I have forgotten before. All right, just like I say whenever I'm ordering food, do me last.

[1:16:26] Andrew DeWolf: All right. Okay. All right. Um, Wedding Singer, uh, I thought it was fine. I, I again, I enjoyed the first half a lot more and I don't even think it's that the first half is better. It's just that as it goes on, it kind of feels as though it's just getting to be a bit too long and it's like I would just, I feel like this story should have been over already. Um, it's also, it gets very predictable. Like when you get to the part where like they catch him with, uh, with Linda and it's like, oh man, how are they going to resolve that? It's like, man, there's like 10 minutes left in this. I don't care. Yeah, like, like do we have to do this part? Can we just skip that? Can we just think, let's get together? Like I don't, yeah. Um, but anyways, um, as far as the cheese rating goes, um, I tried to do some research, but I could not find shit for, for Adam Sandler. So we got scream cheese from the Hotel Transylvania series.

[1:17:14] Brent Black: Ah, nice. Um, that's fair. Um, I enjoy a lot of this musical. Like I know I came off kind of negative, but the thing is it could have been something, you know, it's frustrating when it's like you could have been a thing. It's the same way I feel about the Addams Family musical where it's like you could have been something really, really impressive here and you're just not. Um, I think that the casting did not work for me at all. Um, and I am giving this a queso fountain at a wedding because you know you see it and you're like, oh that is impressive, but I'm not going over there.

[1:17:54] Andrew DeWolf: Everyone else has touched it and I don't know if it's as good as when it was this morning.

[1:17:59] Brent Black: I didn't want to say I dipped my chips in that.

[1:18:04] Andrew DeWolf: I didn't want to say one thing that I texted Andrew this morning, which is God for The Wedding Singer, they built this gorgeous set and built all these like set pieces and all these things and we can't even get that for most big budget musicals at this point.

[1:18:21] Brent Black: Yeah, and I mean the last one I saw that was like that was the fucking, uh, what's his name? The guy that sang, um, the Huey Lewis, the Huey Lewis musical, the power, which was called The Heart of Rock and Roll. Why they didn't call it The Power of Love, I'll never fucking know, but it was like this future, this show.

[1:18:39] Andrew DeWolf: Yes, well, I mean, I get, I mean like that might have been why, but to me it's like, and I mean I know people that worked on the show, they did good work, but I'm like the Huey Lewis jukebox show got the sets that remind me of 20 years ago before everything had to be minimalist and the orchestras had to be eight people and all that.

[1:19:01] Brent Black: Well, my cheese rating, and I should say it had a number of gags that really worked, some funny jokes, some clever adaptations, some clever ways of getting stuff done and some really catchy songs. Um, but my cheese rating has got to be cheese whiz because it's a lot like what it's trying to be and it's not bad, but it's not the thing it's trying to be and it'll never be the thing it's based on.

[1:19:32] Jesse McAnally: Yeah, I think cheese whiz is kind of 80s too, you know?

[1:19:38] Brent Black: Right, exactly, exactly. I am trying to think about it. You are a lovely guest, a good man, and one of the most talented people who ever graced the internet. Please promote your stuff for where people can find you and ask people to license Khan the musical because I want to see it again.

[1:19:50] Brent Black: Thank you. Okay, so look y'all, I wrote a Star Trek musical that's being licensed all over the country and to some extent all over the world. It's not what you think when you think Star Trek parody musical. It's just as much or more for Broadway fans as it is for Trekkies. And you know, you don't have to go see it, just listen to the album. It's on Spotify, it's on Apple Music, it's on literally wherever you can find and listen to music. Just go to Khan the musical, that's khanthemusical.com/album and you can listen to it on your phone or your desktop. If you are more interested in it than that, the rights are available to rent the show at schools. We just booked our first university production.

We're about to finish the high school edition, community theaters, church groups. We've got language substitutions that make it where you can customize it for any level of, you know, family, adult content, language, whatever. But it's just like a really good show I worked on for 10 years and it was off-Broadway and I think you'll really like it. And as I say, if you're a musical theater fan, you will feel smart and get references that the hardcore Trekkies might not. So I invite you to take a listen to the studio cast album of Khan the musical and we are on all the socials as Khan the musical. Um, and I'm Brent Black, you can Google me, I'm a bald guy, whatever. I'm really wanting you to just like go to Khan the musical and not worry about me. If you like it enough to find me, Google me, but check out Khan the musical, you're going to like it.

[1:21:30] Jesse McAnally: I will back that up. We've done a whole episode about it if you need our opinions as well, but you don't because it's good. Um, all right, I think that's all for us and we will see you next week on Musicals with Cheese. Brent, you're amazing. Thank you again.