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Broadway Breakdown
THE BOOK OF MORMON w/ Kyle Marshall
02:22:44
A relatively clean episode about a relatively dirty musical
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- [00:02]
A
Hello, my name is Elder Price and I would like to share with you the most amazing book. Hello, my name is Elder Grant. It's a book about America a long, long time ago. It has so many awesome parts. You simply won't believe how much this book can change your life. Hello, my name is Elder Green. I would like to share with you.
- [00:31]
B
This of Jesus Christ.
- [00:34]
A
Hello, my name is Elder Young. Hello, hello all you theater lovers both out and proud and on the DL. And welcome back to Broadway Breakdown, a podcast discussing the history and legacy of American theater's most exclusive address, Broadway. This series is called Problematic Question Mark. And it is covering shows that you are angry at and their possible redemption. I am your host, Matt Koplik, the least famous and most opinion all the Broadway podcast hosts. And with me today is a beloved friend of the pod. I like to believe that I'm a beloved friend of his pod, but he's yet to say that out loud. He is a self described Sondheim expert, best known for his podcast, Putting it Together. Please welcome back Daddy, Kyle Marshall. Hi, Kyle.
- [01:22]
B
Hello. I. I was gonna have this keyed up and then totally forgot. I was gonna have a little doorbell thing I was gonna push when I said hello, but pretend that that happened, everyone. That I was actually smart.
- [01:33]
A
Absolutely. Hello. His name is Kyle Marshall. Kyle is joining us once again all the way from Canada, where It is negative 31 degrees over there, y'. All.
- [01:43]
B
So he is truly is.
- [01:45]
A
Yeah, he's being. He's being brave for this one. So please send thoughts and prayers to Kyle as he stays bitterly warm.
- [01:52]
B
You know, it's cold in Canada when the ice actually starts to form inside the windows. Like you can actually start to see. It's trying to desperately come inside.
- [01:59]
A
Oh, I mean, Elsa has made her way to Canada. Yeah.
- [02:04]
B
Probably the only musical wider than this one.
- [02:07]
A
Oh, this isn't that. Right. Of a musical, actually. But. But on that note, Kyle, what musical are we talking about today?
- [02:14]
B
We are talking about the Book of Mormon. Not to be confused with Book of Mormon, which is what the actual book is called in it.
- [02:23]
A
The Book of Mormon. Although, of course, as is the way with theater goers, if there's a the in the title, people tend to take it out. And if there is no the in the title, they tend to put it in. So it becomes, oh, have you seen Sound of Music? Or the Jersey Boys?
- [02:38]
B
And it's no consistency anywhere.
- [02:42]
A
Consistency? I don't know her. Not in this economy. Kyle, how did Book of Mormon come into your life?
- [02:49]
B
Okay, this is going to be. This is going to sound like I'm starting way too far in the past, but I. I swear to you this, there is a point to this. So I am of a certain age. So I was alive during the 1990s, way back in the 1990s. And as an avowed fan of animation primarily, but comedy just generally, I had kind of cool parents and they allowed me to watch South Park. So I was watching south park in its initial run. I think it's still on the air. I know, but still watching the original episodes as they were airing with beeped out swear words, if I remember correctly.
- [03:31]
A
Yeah, they are still bleeped out when they air on Comedy Central. They take them off once they go on Apple or. Yeah, like stream sites.
- [03:41]
B
So we watched that. My parents would watch it with us. So anyways, that was the kind of family I was growing up in. So I was a very big fan at the time of Trey Parker and Matt Stone. And I know this is not a podcast about south park, but I am going to be one of the people. Says some of those early episodes really don't hold up a whole lot, but was still a fan of South Park. I was a fan of these people. And weirdly enough, I was this type of gay. I was a subscriber to Entertainment Weekly magazine. So I was all up on what was happening in the entertainment world. And when they said, like, the south park movie was coming out and then it was going to be a musical, I, of course, was like, over the moon about this. And then I remember vividly there being an article with them being interviewed, and they said, like, yeah, like, Stephen Sondheim reached out to us and said how much he liked the music inside this movie. Like, this, like, blew my mind as, like, the, like, teenage Sondheim lover. I'm like, how could this. What. What happened? And so I became even more of a fan. I think there was rumors at a time that they wanted to convert that into a Broadway show. Regardless, I was following their careers. I knew that they were working on a musical. So I knew about this show, like, years before it actually became a thing on Broadway, that it was coming. Mormons are something that come up again and again in their body of work. This is a very famous south park episode about Mormonism. They did a movie called Orgasmo, which also features a Mormon. And so as soon as I could basically download this, this is actually one of the few albums I bought on itunes so I could actually listen to it and really enjoyed it. I thought it sounded really funny. Saw the performance on the Tony Awards and then eventually did see it in it. I don't know if it was the first time coming here or not. I just don't know. But I saw it in 2015, so I saw it in 2015 when it came to Calgary, I dug through my drawers and this is the actual playbill from that production, which you. You might know who these people are. I'm not the best with Broadway actors I've known sometimes hit me, they are. But Elder Price was played by Billy Harrigan. Ty, I think is how you say Ty.
- [06:01]
A
Billy. Ty. Yeah.
- [06:03]
B
And then. And then elder Cunningham was A.J. holmes.
- [06:07]
A
Yeah, I know.
- [06:08]
B
That's who I saw.
- [06:09]
A
I actually know A.J. holmes personally. So, yeah, A.J. i know through podmother Ali Gordon. Billy, I think I actually met Billy once. But Billy I remember seeing in Sweeney Todd in the pie shop. He was my Anthony.
- [06:26]
B
Oh, yeah, yeah.
- [06:27]
A
Oh, good. He was so funny. And I thought that that was. It was so bonkers to me that someone could be, like, memorable as Anthony. And so I was a big fan of his from that. And yeah, I know that Billy also took over for Gavin Creel in the West End when Gavin left. But, like, that's sort of how Mormon works now, is like, once you've done the show, you can get called on at any moment to, like, oh, do it anywhere in the world.
- [06:52]
B
Yeah, it's. It's kind of an easy step in sort of thing. I. I will just share this small anecdote again. We are probably going to talk about how I think perceptions of the show have changed over time. But I will tell you this. Seeing that show live in our auditorium here is like the loudest I have heard people laugh in an auditorium. Like, people were into it. I was worried because I went with two friends, and in front of us came these two women who I think were probably in their 70s. Like, they were. They were old women. And I knew what the show, like, what I was getting into. I'm like, oh, boy, this could go sideways real quick. They were probably the loudest laughers in that auditorium. They had a ball watching this show. So it was this weird thing where it seemed like any age group was like, just into this, at least back in 2015.
- [07:43]
A
Yeah. So I was similar to you with my journey to this show. I was a young fan of south park when it first came out. I'm a little younger than you, Kyle. So when my parents found out what was going on on episodes of South Park, I was actually banned from seeing it anymore.
- [08:00]
B
I can see that.
- [08:01]
A
Yeah, it wasn't until. And that. I mean, we're talking like, I was 9, 8 or 9 when that happened. And the movie came out when I was 9. Didn't get to see it. I think I finally saw it when I was 12 and was obsessed with it. And I'm still obsessed with it. It's. I can watch it anytime and still find new things to laugh at. And it is an objectively brilliant movie musical. One of the best.
- [08:23]
B
Yes.
- [08:23]
A
In years.
- [08:24]
B
I think it works really well as a musical, actually.
- [08:26]
A
Yeah. And it's important that we mentioned the musical because it's important to the development of this show. But I. I think I started sneaking in episodes of south park again when I was in, like, sixth grade. Sixth or seventh grade. And by that point, my parents, like, you know, you're gonna do stuff on your own, you might as well watch it. Like, just, you know, don't let it go to your head. And for all of the episodes of south park that I still look back on and watch and love, there are episodes that don't age well. And I think that's important to mention as we continue talking about this show. But, yeah, I remember there was some bland news item and, like, Variety that said that Trey Parker and Matt Stone were working on a musical with Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx, who had written Avenue Q.
- [09:14]
B
Yes.
- [09:15]
A
And that was really, like, all it was. And I think eventually the name was released that it was called the Book of Mormon, and no one else. No one really knew anything else about it. And then eventually Marx left the project, as did Jason Moore, who directed the original production of Avenue Q. And it was only Bobby Lopez who stayed on. But I had had a friend who had seen an early workshop of it and told me it was really good. She. The one thing she kept telling me was the opening number with hello and the doorbells. And she said, like, it was. It was just so brilliant. And I thought that was really cool because they. They worked on it for, like, seven years.
- [09:54]
B
And I was gonna say, like, I was reading. Not that this is like the Fountain of Knowledge. I know, but doing the quick glance of the Wikipedia page. Like, they did so many workshops for the show. Like, they workshopped it a lot.
- [10:04]
A
Yeah. Well, part of it is also that Parker and Stone were working on south park at the same time, and that was always their priority. It was more like they would work on Mormon during the off time from South Park. It's also like, for all of the sort of, you know, we're class clowns, and we're poking fun at everyone mentality of South Park. And I do think that is a little bit of how Parker and Stone still approach at least the comedy of the show. They do take the writing of it very seriously. Like, they go on a million writers retreats with their writing staff, and they know they do a whole lot of stuff during the downtime of South Park. So, like, they're always working on it, and they are very meticulous. They really care about the craft and the quality and. And I think that speaks highly of their work ethic as well as of the lasting legacy of South Park. A show that, like, you know, the whole world doesn't necessarily watch, but the whole world knows it. It has a very large reputation.
- [11:00]
B
I'll say this one last thing about south park, too. At least I feel that there was this good. I don't know, I'm gonna say eight to 10 seasons, I think are pretty brilliant. They just work really well just on a writing level. Like, you can look at those and be like, these are perfectly plotted episodes that are based on character, that have jokes that land that the satire is, like, top notch. That they. They really were firing on all cylinders for. For a while. And I. There's videos that you can see on, like, what their actual writing process is, but I think that that is a deep difference between, I think, what they sometimes get lumped in with, which is, like, the Family Guy kind of plot structure, which is, like, we're just gonna have random things happen in this episode for 25 minutes, and that never really is what south park is. It's like, it builds on itself as it goes along.
- [11:53]
A
Oh, and they want you to know that they did a whole trilogy episodes about it. I love it. Love it. Cartman is so anti Family Guy to the point that he goes on this big mission to get it canceled. It's so funny. From what I understand, the writing process for south park mostly has been they come up with the story for the. Because they write it weekly, you know, the episodes tend to be completed within a couple of days of its airtime, which is also why so many episodes are so topical.
- [12:22]
B
Which is what made me a little bit worried initially about this show. Just from a. I don't know, a technical perspective, because they knew how topical they were in their shows. I was like, man, for a thing that does take, like, five years sometimes to gestate, how is that gonna be relevant when the show actually comes on stage? I felt that they might be too beholden to want to, like, talk about things that just were not relevant anymore.
- [12:46]
A
No, absolutely. And I think that's. I mean, that's the issue that all comedy has, right? Comedy ages faster than anything. So when the comedy does hold up, it's pretty miraculous. I mean, I might just have it on the brain because it just came out this weekend and I just saw it on Wednesday, and I would like to do an episode about it as well as the Color Purple and Wonka. But I, you know, Mean Girls, as this. As this movie, musical remake of Mean Girls has come out, which, you know, they want to make sure to say it's not a remake. We're adapting the stage show. No, if you. When you see the movie, it's. Same thing with Color Purple. When you see it, it's like you remade the original and threw in a couple of songs from Broadway, but within a TikTok filter. But what people have been saying about the remake is that it really reminds you how brilliant the original is. And the proof is in the pudding because, like, the original is still relevant. It holds up. It. You know, obviously there are a couple of jokes here and there that have aged. Not great, but it all comes within the world of the movie. And so it's not so much that we let it go so much as, like, we understand where the jokes are coming from. Which brings us back to South Park. You know, they were always kind of Parker and Stone thought of as just like, you know, potty mouths and rude and just antagonistic. And their vibe for a long time was really kind of like what they consider to be punching up at the world and at Hollywood. You know, they're mostly libertarians and they find most religion to be not really helpful. And that's something.
- [14:23]
B
Do you feel like. I mean, do you feel that that's part of the pushback against them? Maybe this is showing my colors. It's a bit too much. But, I mean, I think because their political worldview is not one that can be easily be like they are left or right, like they are only attacking one side or the other. They kind of feel that the entire power structure is ridiculous. So whoever is in power, they're going to make fun of. Do you think that that lends them to be open more to criticism from kind of both sides?
- [14:52]
A
Yeah, it's. I mean, what's so funny is that, like, they were criticized by the right for the first half of their run on south park, and now they're really being criticized by the left. Correct. And what's interesting is that they are far more critical of the left in the first couple of seasons of south park than they are of the right. It's also, and it's not so much that they liked Republicans, but they more so that they made it a point to call out the hypocrisy of Democrats. And now, you know, they're a little more even handed. But now the Democrats are like, or rather I should say, people I know who are Democrats or liberals look at it and go, how dare they? I think where it gets tricky to properly critique their work on south park as we eventually get to Mormon, is, is they are no longer outsiders of the system. They are, they are incredibly rich, they are incredibly successful and revered. They, you know, they have all of south park, which has made them hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions at this point, because I know they reached like a huge deal with hbo. And they also have Mormon, which has been incredibly successful and critically praised. They have the south park movie, which was actually like, decently popular when it came out and has only grown in popularity since then. And then Team America is sort of like a cult favorite as well.
- [16:17]
B
Classic.
- [16:18]
A
Yeah, yeah. And so they, they are no longer the, like, rebels. They are part of the system. And it doesn't feel great when people who are so rich and so successful keep poking fun at the world because you start to go, well, I don't know how objective you really are anymore. I tend to find that your view gets skewed. And the truth is that it probably is skewed a little bit with them as smart and as fair as they are and like to, you know, try to be how you live your life, will always skew who you are as you go down the road. And also, like, as I've said on the podcast, how you view art, whatever happens to you in your own life, whatever things have benefited you or traumatized you, it affects how you then view art. And I think that is something that is interesting to talk about with Book of Mormon. Which brings us back to that. I finally saw Book of Mormon right after the Tony Awards and all I had known of it was Michael Riedel had posted an article from the last workshop they did, because, as you said, they did do many workshops. And again, it was more sort of like, you know, I think they did a workshop like four years after, after four years of work. And then it was sort of like every year they would do another workshop just to sort of see what they had and make refinements. And then Nicola Casey Nicholaw joined as the director, I think in the summer of 2010. And that was, I believe, either the last or the second to last workshop they did. Because I believe, I think they did one last workshop right before they started rehearsals for Broadway or. No, no, that's not what it was. They had an industry private rehearsal. Like, you know how you'll see videos from like the shucked rehearsal or the New York, New York rehearsal. They did that without any press. So it was just like producers and columnists and stuff like that. So there was no footage. But Reedle posted an article about it and he talked about hello. I think they just, they performed like the first 30 minutes of the show, which included Hasadiga, Evo AI and Riedel went on for like five paragraphs about that number. I'm just like, oh my God, this number is bonkers. Like, people were. Jaws were on the floor. Let me tell you what it is. It's about, fuck you, God, all this other stuff. And it sounded like a much angrier song when I read it. So I was like, oh, it's so fascinating that they would write such an angry piece. Like, they're not those kind of guys. They tend to write a little. Like they tried. They, they're a little more like, I'm going to give you the finger between, you know, clouds of glitter. That's sort of how they. That's how. That's kind of how they always tend to write. So like, this sounds so angry. So then when I saw the show right after the Tonys and I was standing room on a Sunday matinee and that number happened, I was like, oh, like, yes, it is an angry song, but it's done with the most like, positive light, which makes it so palatable. I. My audience was relatively into it. What was interesting was, and Julie Andrews talked about this with My Fair Lady. She said like, the first three months of My Fair lady on Broadway were kind of miserable because they had gotten these amazing reviews and they got super sold out. Like, and, you know, sold out for months in advance. And so the first three months were all like theater groups, wealthy people who had paid top dollar to see the show. And they sat there with like their arms crossed being like, okay, you say you're a hit, prove it to me. So they spent like the first act just having to prove to the audience that they were worth it. So by Act 2, the audience is into it. She goes, once they were gone. And it was regular ticket buyers, you, like, it was a joy from start to finish. So my audience, because the show had just won a bunch of Tonys, like two Weeks prior, it was such a huge phenomenon. Tickets were expensive and it was a Sunday matinee. The audience was a little bit like, okay, let's see what this is. Because everyone also knew that it was like a little offensive. So everyone was like, you know, laughing and clapping, but it wasn't raucous. Where it got raucous was Act 2, Joseph Smith, American Moses.
- [20:20]
B
Interesting. Okay.
- [20:21]
A
Which we'll talk about. And that was when the audience absolutely lost their. And I, I watched a thousand upper middle class to upper class white people fall out of their seats. And I was like, okay, this show is objectively well done. Because if, if they could get on board with this, which is honestly one of the most like obscene things in the show.
- [20:41]
B
Sure.
- [20:42]
A
And the show, the show has laid the groundwork very well. And then I never really, I never saw it again. I auditioned for it a couple of times. I got called back every now and then for ensemble. They do these like Mormon boot camps because the vocal arrangements for this show are so insane. So they are in desperate need of high tenors, a lot of. And. But also they need people who can dance and tap dance. And so they learned pretty quickly that there weren't enough men out there of a certain age. And look, especially. Cause like they had the Broadway company, they were then putting out two national tours, West End was about to happen and they needed vacation swings and people to fill in whenever. So they, they were in need of a lot of white boys of a certain type. And so they started to do like a Billy Elliot Matilda thing, Jersey Boys thing, where it's like, okay, you're an amazing tapper, but like, you need like two more notes in your register. Going to go to Book of Mormon boot camp and like we're going to get those notes in you. Or you're an amazing singer, but you don't know how to tap dance. We're going to teach you. So that I never got to, I never got into the boot camps, but I would get called in like every six months to re audition for McKinley or one of the ensemble members. And then ultimately it was just decided, like I didn't look Mormon enough. And that's my journey with the show. But I got to say I forgot now that I'm.
- [21:59]
B
Is that homophobic or racist? I don't know which one it should be.
- [22:03]
A
I think it's iconist.
- [22:06]
B
Oh, I see.
- [22:07]
A
They're like, you're simply too iconic to be a Mormon. You gotta, you gotta go off and be in your own show. And I was like, you Know what? Respect. So I let them, you know, be rude to me and then I went off and did my own thing and now I have a podcast where I'm now gonna rip it to shreds.
- [22:25]
B
Now who's had the last laugh?
- [22:26]
A
Yeah, yeah, no. Am I gonna rip it to shreds? I don't know. You will find out after this break. Billy, I beg to differ with you. How do you mean? You're the top. Yeah. You're an arrow collar. You're the top. You're a coolidge dollar. You're the nimble tread of the feet. And we're back. So, Kyle, for anyone who doesn't know.
- [22:53]
B
Yeah.
- [22:53]
A
What is the Book of Mormon about?
- [22:58]
B
Well, the Book of Mormon is about two Mormon men, boys, Elder Price and Elder Cunningham. So Elder Price is essentially our golden boy. He's like the perfect Mormon who is paired with Elder Cunningham, who is kind of a screw up, makes up stories a whole lot of the time. Hasn't even read the Book of Mormon. We find out later in the show, and Elder Price thinks that they're going to have this, like, cushy gig because he's so well looked upon that they're going to be sent to, like, France or somewhere cool. That. That's very elitist of me. He thinks they're going to be going off to some, like, swanky job.
- [23:38]
A
He really wants to go to Orlando.
- [23:40]
B
He really wants to go to Orlando. Yes. And so what it ultimately ends up happening is that they are stationed in Uganda. So him and Elder Cunningham go to Uganda. They find out that the Mormon missionaries there have converted literally zero people. And throughout the show, I'm trying to see how much I can compress this. So Price finally, eventually says, like, no, I really want to go to Orlando. So he splits up from Elder Cunningham. Elder Cunningham finds that, oh, he can just kind of like make up stories. And that makes the people of Uganda, like, really attracted to the stories of, like, Joseph Smith and Mormons. And he starts to get conversions, but telling them the wrong stories. They're like, not actual. The stories from the book, they are reunited, the two, the two Mormons. And, well, I'll just, I guess say it this way. Elder Price is. Takes upon himself, like, I'm going to convert this local warlord. And that leads to him being violently sodomized. I don't know how a nice way of saying that is. And it's supposed to be funny because he's a guy.
- [24:51]
A
Well, well, well, well, well. Has no one ever heard the phrase, you know, take your attitude and shove it up your ass.
- [24:59]
B
That's true.
- [24:59]
A
He. He goes to the Warlord, whose name is. Well, this is.
- [25:04]
B
But Naked, right? Is.
- [25:05]
A
Yes, that's his name, which they changed in previews. I think it was, like, a legitimate name at first, and then they changed it to Buff Naked. Anyone who hasn't seen the show who's hearing this, like, Jesus Christ, this is a comedy.
- [25:17]
B
Yeah.
- [25:17]
A
Get ready. It's important to also remember Nabulungi, the character of Nabulungi, who is a villager and in the Ugandan region. And she is the reason why Cunningham, like, goes about.
- [25:32]
B
That's right. Yeah. She really pushes forward. She wants there to be a. She's longing for a better place than the place she's currently in.
- [25:40]
A
Yes. She hears about Salt Lake City and sings a song called Salta Lake City. And she. She wants something better than what they have. And she thinks that if they. If they go. If they can become Mormon, they can get to Salt Lake City and things will be better. So she convinces the villagers to listen to Cunningham so they can become Mormons and then eventually leave. And so, in regards to the sodomization of Price, he goes to the Warlord because he sees that Cunningham is doing such a good job. And part of him is, like, annoyed because he thought that it was going to be him, but part of him was also inspired because he goes, oh, I'm supposed to do something incredible. I thought it was convert the villagers. No, I have to do something even better. I'm going to convert this warlord. And he sings this big song, I believe, with his Book of Mormon. And the general shoves that up his butt. So he literally takes the phrase, take that and shove it up your ass, and he does it literally.
- [26:35]
B
Things hit the fan here when the. I was going to say the head of Mormons, but that's not what they call it. Whatever.
- [26:44]
A
Like the president of their church.
- [26:45]
B
Thank you. The president of the church is like, oh, my go. They've done so many conversions when there's been zero since then. So they fly there to congratulate them. And then the villagers want to put on this show for them about all the stuff that they learned, thus revealing all the lies that Elder Cunningham has told them in quite dramatic fashion. The president orders them all to return home. And then ultimately, what the show turns into is like, listen, why don't we actually take the teachings of the book to heart and be like, why can't we make this our own paradise planet instead of the means? The actual information may have been wrong, but the Intentions were good. So let's take those intentions and just make a better life for everyone here while we're here. And that's kind of how the show wraps up.
- [27:31]
A
And they eventually create their own version of the Book of Mormon. The Book of Arnold.
- [27:36]
B
Arnold.
- [27:37]
A
Yes.
- [27:37]
B
And Arnold Cunningham is who it's named after.
- [27:40]
A
Exactly. Yes. All the. All the Mormon missionaries end up staying in Uganda for the rest of their prescribed time. They were supposed to leave, and they end up sticking it out to be with the villagers and help them and. And. And, you know, spread the word, the new word. Yeah, it's. It's a show that. When it.
- [27:59]
B
And it's funny and it's funny.
- [28:00]
A
And I gotta say, as I listened to the score again, I forgot how good this score is. Yeah, it's. It slaps hard.
- [28:08]
B
I think there's. Yeah. I just want to call this out before I get into some of my criticisms, is that the. Yes, this. This show, like, just melodically has some really great stuff inside of it. And I think there are some lyrics in here that I would put up against, like, some of the best that have ever been written. I just think they're very clever and funny.
- [28:25]
A
Yeah. Parker and Stone are very good lyricists. If there's one thing that people need to just objectively give them credit for is that they are good, smart writers. And you can tell because of the lyrics they write are so well crafted. I mean, again, the south park movie. So the south park movie is important for the journey of Book of Mormon, because when Parker and Stone were in the middle of Team America, World Police, now exiled producer Scott Rudin was producing that movie with them. I think he also produced the south park movie, but don't quote me on that. And they were New York working on it, and he said to them, like, oh, go see this puppet musical that just opened Avenue Q. And they go. And like, Trey Parker loves musicals. He's a huge, huge fan. Matt Stone, a little less so. I think the way they sort of described it is, you know, if. If a musical really hits with Matt Stone, he's super into it, and he's like a convert for life, but he's not an overall fan the way that Trey Parker is. He doesn't.
- [29:22]
B
Yeah. The sense that I get is that, like, Trey Parker is essentially like a theater kid that didn't do theater. Like, he really does love musicals. Like, you can tell that he gets so enthusiastic talking about it. Which, by the way, just, again, is an aside. There's a fun south park episode where they get A bunch of Broadway composers that fight each other, which I think is. There's some deep cuts they put into.
- [29:44]
A
Those that I think are Broadway bro Down. Absolutely. It's. And then there's also, by the way, an episode, I think it's season four, where they're doing the Miracle Worker, and they end up just making it the miracle worker of the musical. And they. They hire a guy who had done Les Mis, like, on a national tour or something like that, and he's basically just Colm Wilkinson. And Trey Parker has said in commentary, like, that's basically just for, like, me and the kids. Like, no one else gets why this is funny, but it's just, you know, it's so good.
- [30:10]
B
It's so good. And. But, like, yeah, Matt Stone to me is like, I'll tolerate them. And, yeah, if I like them, then I really like them, but otherwise, I don't, like, seek them out.
- [30:18]
A
Yes. And then that's sort of what made Avenue Q so special was they went to go see it, and, you know, Trey was loving it, but they got to intermission, and Matt Stone's like, oh, I. Absolutely. I want to stay for act two. I'm loving this. And they said, oh, that's so rare for Matt to, like, not only, like the musical, but want to stay. But they look in the program and they saw their names listed under the special thanks, and they're like, that's weird. We've never met anyone involved with this show.
- [30:42]
B
So funny.
- [30:43]
A
And Robert Lopez and I think Jeff Marks was also there. I don't know, but Robert Lopez definitely was there. It's hard to tell exactly who is where, when, because it's. Once Jeff Marks left the show, the settlement of, like, what he got and what anyone was allowed to say about his involvement got cut off. So, like, it's. It. It. There's no talk anymore, like, where he was at at any point. But let's just say for the sake of argument that both of them were there. They. They came to sort of sit in, and they saw Parker and Stone there and went to go get drinks with them afterwards, and they said, well, why is our name in the playbill? And Bobby Lopez was like, oh, the south park movie was hugely instrumental to my writing career. He's like, I. I didn't know how to describe the kind of material I wanted to make. And then I saw the south park movie. I was like, that. That is what I want to do. And he goes, it kind of started the trajectory for Avenue Q. So, like, for that we say thank You. And they go, oh, great. And then they were sort of talking about ideas they had for different shows. And Robert Lopez was like, oh, I've always wanted to do a show about Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism. And Parker and Stone said, oh, my God, us too. And Robert Lopez was like, oh, well, you know, I guess you guys should do it. You know, you're far more successful than we are. And Parker and son were like, absolutely not. Let's. Let's do it together. And so they did. But, yeah, Parker is like, the theater enthusiast, and you can see it in the show in the way that it's written, in the way it's structured. You know, Book of Mormon, I think there was this idea that because it was Parker and Stone writing it with Robert Lopez, who had done Avenue Q, that was going to kind of be unconventional, and it was going to sort of buck all the trends in musical theater. And the truth is that it adheres to the traditional structure of a musical. It's just 100%. Yeah. It's just the. The nuances of it that are antagonistic a bit, but it's ultimately a very optimistic show. And I would even say it's kind to religion. They admit in the show, like, all religions are kind of stupid when you think about it. Like, the Bible makes no sense, and, like, the things you're told to do make no sense, but they're supposed to be. Everything in. In the Bible and in the Book of Mormon is supposed to be a metaphor. You're not. You're not supposed to take it literally. It's supposed to, you know, be an allegory to apply to your everyday life to thus give you hope to live another day, to get you out of bed.
- [33:18]
B
Well, I think some of, like, the non, say, confrontational atheists will say this a lot, too, which is like, the actual tenets of religion are not bad. It's like, be kind to each other. Like, that's basically like, what it all boils down to. You know what I mean?
- [33:33]
A
Don't murder.
- [33:34]
B
Yeah. Where it gets a little sticky is when it's like when you, yeah. Have to believe, like, these stories as 100% truth. And especially when it comes to Mormonism, it's like, yeah, you know, like these golden plates existed that were buried in this guy's backyard, and he was the only one who could read them, and they mysteriously van. Like, it gets. It's like. And wait, people believe that story. Like, you get into the weeds a little bit too much. But I think ultimately what this show Is. Yeah, like you said, it's quite optimistic about, like, hey, take these. These, you know, maxims of. Of religion and use them in your own life. That's not the bad thing. We get caught up in the stories.
- [34:14]
A
It's. John Cameron Mitchell was on some podcast because he came from a very religious background. And I think a lot of gay men who grew up very religious and still have sort of ties to their past that way have a very complicated current relationship with religion. But he. There was a. There was a nun who was always very kind to him, who he was still in communication with up to, you know, his adulthood. And he had said on the podcast that this nun had said to him, you know, something had come out of the news about, like, you know, religious advocates wanting to, you know, lay down the law about something or other. And she had said to him, sort of, you know, very tired, like, John, when are these people going to realize, like, all these stories in the Bible, they're just poems. Like, they're not.
- [34:59]
B
Yeah.
- [35:00]
A
She goes, these are not articles. These are poems. That is sort of something that the Mormons don't really get, but the Ugandans do, which is, yes, wonderful and something. So. Okay. We also have to talk about how. Because part of the reason why this show is being covered is, you know, the show has always had controversy following it. At first it was Mormons who were anti the show, and then kind of came around to it when they finally saw the show. I spoke with a former Mormon yesterday who said he actually really loves this show because it's incredibly accurate to the practices of the Mormon Church.
- [35:38]
B
And by the way, I just want to say, like. And I think this is true on Broadway, too. The. The More mature actually advertises in the playbill, which I think is hilarious to me.
- [35:49]
A
Well, they. They changed their tune on the show pretty quickly when it became very clear that the show was not going anywhere and in fact, was sort of flourishing everywhere it went. Like, oh, let's. Let's get in on this, because we'll seem cooler to be a part of it. And then I'm also sure, like, people from the Mormon Church came to see the show and we're like, it's actually, you know, they got a lot of stuff right. They're. And they're not openly saying anything negative about us. So it's.
- [36:15]
B
I will say the same. I've had the same experience, too. I don't know how many Mormons or ex Mormons, you know, I really know a lot. And the people who have engaged with this show, at the very least, yes, all say the same things. Like, it's wild how accurate a lot of the stuff is for their experience.
- [36:33]
A
Which I think is an ultimate way to disarm someone who's coming in, like, guns blazing. Of, like, oh, you did the research. Like, you. Oh, you did the work. Okay, great. Like, I was ready to come and be like, wrong, wrong, wrong. Disrespectful, disrespectful. So when you come in and you're like, oh, they got a lot right. In fact, they got most of it right. Like, it's. It immediately warms people to you. Where the show's controversy picked back up again was during COVID During lockdown. There was a. Well, you know, we'll call like it is. When George Floyd was murdered In May of 2020, there was a rightful racial reckoning all around the world. And how we discussed race, how we, you know, the. The. How we discussed microaggressions and the systemic. Systemic inequality in our country and in other countries. And then it started making its way to art and into theater and Broadway specifically. And with Book of Mormon, there were certain bipoc artists who made it a point to attack the show and calling it racist for how it depicts the Ugandans, for how it. About the racial balance of the show in general. And there were calls to have the show not reopen when Broadway reopened. And ultimately, that wasn't gonna happen. What Parker and Stone and Bobby Lopez and Casey Nicholaw and the rest of the production team did do was they sat down with members, current members and former members of Book of Mormon who had played Ugandans and asked to, you know, talk about their experiences playing the show and, you know, what brought them joy, what brought them confusion, anger, and said, okay, like, let's go through the material because here's the truth. Like, we, you know, we always meant to. This is what they said. We always meant for the Ugandans to have agency. We never wanted it to seem like they were dumb, that they were weak or desperate, or they were being. They needed to be saved. That's sort of the whole point of the show, whether you find it successful or not, was like, these Mormons come in with a white savior mentality, and their ignorance gets obliterated within minutes when a whole other world that they've never known, you know, shows up right up to their face and. And that. It's that Odd Coupleness, but, like, to the ultimate extreme, it's. It is Oscar Felix of the Odd Couple, but, like, literally, to the furthest Realms of the earth. And. And yeah, so they were like, okay, let's go through the script. Like, talk to us about where things are upsetting to you. We'll tell you what we were trying to do, and let's see how we can make that still work. Because, you know, as we said, these are the changes.
- [39:32]
B
I'm not. Like, I knew there was changes made because I was following that story during lockdowns, but I don't actually know what it is like, specifically that has been changed since then.
- [39:43]
A
So I got. I got some intel on this, and I asked a friend who was in the room during these sessions to tell me the changes and why, and he did. We talked on the phone for, like, 20 minutes. I wrote it all down, and then I left my notebook at work. So I. I know I am just the most unprofessional, Kyle. This is why I am the least well known of all the Raw Way podcast hosts.
- [40:07]
B
Unprepared. You don't. You know.
- [40:09]
A
Yeah. Anyone who listens to Putting It Together knows that Kyle is incredibly prepared. He lets me go on tangents for a minute, and then he's like, great, now back to the subject.
- [40:17]
B
So anyway, exactly.
- [40:19]
A
I was actually listening to one of our old episodes, and I talked about something like, for five minutes. And I hear healers go, right. So anyway, back to the song.
- [40:30]
B
Yeah, that's kind of my MO.
- [40:32]
A
Yeah, that's the audio that Kyle kept, by the way. Like, there's. There's audio that he cut. Yeah, but what. So what he told me was that pretty much like, everything leading up to Uganda is the same. You know, they. The. One of the running jokes of the show is how all the Mormon boys think, oh, it's in Africa. It's going to be like the Lion King. And so we laugh at them for their ignorance and their obtuseness. He. They. One of the things they changed was the running joke of nabulungi and texting. She, you know, she talks about how she has a texting device and it's a typewriter, so she's typing things up and sending out. She's basically like, you know, doing flyers to all of the villagers. They changed it now that she has an iPad. And. Which then for me begs the question of, like, okay, is there WI fi here? Because Uganda is a third world country. But, like, there are parts of Uganda that, you know, have WI fi, like, our actual towns and cities and.
- [41:32]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [41:32]
A
And if you read up on the. On the country, while the government remains very strictly conservative, the country as A whole is kind of rebelling against their governments and similar to America. As the government sees that, the majority starts to lean more and more progressive. The government starts to, like, dig in its heels as more conservative because they are trying to appeal to the minority, the vociferous minority. But they are in the northern part of Uganda. The town that they. The village. The village that they name, I don't think is an actual village. They. Yeah, I think they say it's like Hilamari or something like that. And that's not. And that's not an actual village. It's. I think they're trying to do a play on the village of Kitkam, which is in northern Uganda. But they don't want to say an actual name. It's one of those things where it's like the moment you say an actual name, it becomes a little too real, and then you fall into trouble. But, yeah, so they cut the texting, and now it's an iPad. But she still makes the texting joke. Everyone agrees, like, it's not as funny, but they didn't want her to seem super naive. They also. They have Nabulugi have the final say at the end of the show that scares off the warlord. Because it used to be that Cunningham sort of makes pulls out of his ass that, you know, like, oh, the Mormon spaceships are going to come down and turn you into a lesbian warlord naked. And that sends him running. And now Nabulungi is the one who says something similar. But it's not about turning him into a lesbian. It's like turning him into some Marvel character. There's a. From what I understand, there are a lot of Marvel jokes in the show now to replace. Yeah, to replace some of the racial jokes. There's another joke they have about Chinese people, which. The point of the joke was more that every. To quote Avenue Q, everyone's a little bit racist, and everyone likes to point the finger at someone else. There are other jokes that they had that they just cut all together. For example, when Nabulungi brings them to. Brings Elder Price and Elder Cunningham to the missionary center in their village, and, you know, she says to them, like, oh, make sure you close your windows. It's the only thing that. To keep away the mosquitoes and the rodents and the animals and the ants that can lay legs in your skin and break out. And also, like, the Warlords and all that stuff. And she walks away. And Price goes, oh, my God, Cunningham, did you. Did you clock all that? And Cunningham goes, I know she's so hot. Right? And in the original script, he's. It's a joke of him saying she's such a hot shade of black, he calls her like a latte. And so they. They cut that and made it just him being like, I know, she's so hot. Which is fine, because the joke is ultimately that Cunningham didn't hear any of the terrible stuff. He was just focused on how hot Nabulungi was. I think they kept all of the running jokes that he doesn't know how to pronounce her name and calls her Jon Bon Jovi, Neosporin, things like that. Which is not a. Which is not a joke on her name being hard to pronounce because Elder Price puts in the effort to pronounce it correctly every time. The joke is that Cunningham is so. Is such a space cadet that he can never say it until. Until the end of the show when he finally makes the effort to say it correctly. They cut all references to Elder Cunningham's weight. And so now it's just that he's weird. Which is something they had done before because they. They tried to cast it in the Josh Gad mold for a while, and then they ended up just going with, you know, talented weirdos in the role like Ben Platt and A.J. holmes.
- [45:11]
B
Yeah, I was gonna say yeah, which is great.
- [45:13]
A
Like, I. I've mentioned on the podcast before, I am all for talented aliens. So, like, if they're. If they're talented and they're weird, get them on that stage. I want to see them, you know, hop Footloose. And so now that is just this norm. No matter who's playing Elder Cunningham, it's not that he's fat, it's that he's weird. They redid some of the staging for I Am Africa, where the Mormons, when they get the letter from their president, being like, you are now one with the African people and Elder McKinley and all the Mormons saying, I am African, which is funny. It's. It's a. It's. It's an indictment of not only white saviorism, but, like, white allyship of.
- [45:54]
B
Because it goes to.
- [45:55]
A
Going to the extreme.
- [45:56]
B
It's the same for me. Like, this is my example I always give, which is, you know, a white person going on vacation to Jamaica, and they come back with cornrows in their hair, and it's like, yeah, I'm just like, I'm living on the island time. Like, you're not, but okay.
- [46:11]
A
Yeah. Or when people go to another country and come back and they're like, Let me tell you all the things I've learned. Like, oh, there's a saying in Jamaica, and it's like, go yourself. You live on the Upper east side.
- [46:23]
B
Yeah, well, because for three days, yeah, you can.
- [46:27]
A
And I think the whole point of traveling and being exposed to other cultures is to absorb other ways of life and. And, you know, grow and expand from that. But when people just, like, fully take it on as their identity, that's when it becomes, like, appropriation. And that's the joke of I Am Africa is that these Mormon boys are appropriating the. The actual African people. They didn't change the song. They changed the staging a bit to make that a little more obvious. They have. It used to be that the Ugandans played along with them to just up the, like, silliness of the number, but now what they do is they have the Ugandans, like, sort of be into the number at first, and then, like, they come in to take over the next verse, and the Mormons basically, like, cut them off and continue.
- [47:16]
B
Gotcha. That actually kind of works better for me.
- [47:19]
A
Yeah, it's. It's. I think it helps the number age better because I think the point is still absolutely apropos. But as we said, you know, comedy ages. And especially, I think one of the things that has hurt the Book of Mormon with its comedy is, like, after the 2016 election, a lot of things that were funny because we're like, well, how ridiculous is that? It's like, oh, no. There are actual people who think that. And so when you see that on stage, it's hard to clock it as satire, and it becomes just, like, an honest expression of it. And especially with musicals, like, what I have found is because one of the things that people really had issues with over the years is the portrayal of the Ugandans. And we can talk about that as well, of people thinking that it's. That it's. The show is racist because it only portrays them, you know, in poverty and. And they are not wise to the ways of the world, and. And in so many ways, they're just so backwards and how racist. But it's not played downtrodden. It's played for comedy. And what I've noticed is when it comes to big topics, whether it's race, sexuality, gender, mental agility, with plays, we want it to be downtrodden and, like, a hard sit. And for musicals, you want it to be uplifting. At least that's what I have seen from a lot of online discourse, like, oh, it's 100.
- [48:56]
B
Like, you're actually. I'm seeing that quite a bit, at least in my small friend group, for the Color Purple musical. For the people who didn't know that there was a Broadway show based on the Color Purple. And they're like, they're taking that story and making it a musical because in their head, they're thinking, like, kick lines and, like, that kind of thing within the purview of, like, that pretty sad story. It's like, well, you know, musical's gonna be more than just that one thing. That one happy thing.
- [49:24]
A
Yeah. And I mean, what's so funny is, like, ultimately, the Color Purple ends on a note of hope. But as we've been sort of discovering with this series is with a musical, the moment you give a character a moment to sing, a lot of audiences take it as a sign of the writers being like, we signed off on this character. Everything they sing is what we think. Because a lot of musicals now are writing these, like, Billboard Hanging There kitty songs of, like, thrown in glitter like the Greatest Showman, and like, be Yourself, Be Yourself. And they're not specific to characters. They're not specific to story. And just because we're getting the insight of a character doesn't mean that we have to agree with them. We can even. We can, like a character not agree with them, or we can agree with a character and not like them. I think that's sort of the beauty of. Of drama. But, yeah, with. You see it with, like. You know, one thing that people really are liking about how to Dance in Ohio is that it's showing characters on the spectrum, and it's not necessarily showing the plight of them. It's showing, like, the success of them. It's showing the joy of them. And I think that's wonderful. And at least in theory, we're not making this episode about how to dance in Ohio. But, you know, if it were a play about that, I think everyone would be like, well, no, it's got to be a hard sit. You gotta show us why it's difficult. And I think for something like Book of Mormon, people get mad at the subject matter and then see, like, oh, and you're making it a musical and a comedy to boot. How dare you? So with I Am Africa, that was the Hulk created him being like, how do we make it even more clear that it's not the Ugandans that are the joke, it's the white Mormons that are the joke? Because that is hunching up far more. And so they, from what I understand, they have made that a Lot more clear and it's a lot more successful. I'm trying to think of anything else that they do from the notes that I don't have in front of me, because I am. What am I, Kyle? Unprofessional. Unprofessional.
- [51:29]
B
Well, I was going to say too, like, it's a little bit like the. The network problem. The movie network, which I'm a big fan of, but, like, what that movie from the late 70s considers to be, like, can you believe TV ever doing this? It's so weird and wild. Like, yeah, like, that's on every night of the week now. This weird, stupid shit that's on the. On the TV and dumbing people down. So with satire, specifically, as we keep being proven over, like, the last, like, you know, few years, is like, no. Like, literally everything you thought was ridiculous and over the top, that could actually be something that actually happens in real life. And it just becomes more. It becomes harder, I think, for someone to either find that funny or be like, no, no, that.
- [52:14]
A
That.
- [52:15]
B
That is actually real. That's not a comedy beat anymore. It's just like, that's what I lived through.
- [52:19]
A
Yeah, absolutely. It's when something becomes a lot of comedy, I feel like comedy succeeds in one of two ways. Either it's like the. It's funny because it's true and you laugh at, like, the silliness of. Of what's close to home, or you laugh at, like, the absurdity of what could never happen, but when something could happen, does happen, and it's not silly, it's actually quite real. You don't like when people make light of it because you're like, no, don't. Don't undercut the severity of, like, this way of thinking. And I don't think that the show does that. Or at least that's not what it's trying to do.
- [52:56]
B
Yeah. I have to say, like, having rewatched it, I watched the. Rewatched the bootleg on online here just last night, actually. Where did you find it? I had to do some deep searching through old Reddit threads I knew I was a part of.
- [53:12]
A
You're gonna have to send that my way because I had to text a lot of friends to find a copy for me.
- [53:18]
B
Oh, interesting. Yeah, it is. Yeah. I'll send you the link because I was able to find one, although I don't know when in the run it's from. That's. That's my big question. Because there's certain lines. I know this happens to everything, but, like, there's certain lines from the cast album that are different in the stage version. So I wasn't sure exactly when about this was in the run. Anyways, that's beside the point, I think. For me. I think that the show, at least in its original form, really tried to make it very clear that we are supposed to be laughing at the two Mormons throughout this entire thing. That they have this really weird idea of what their mission is. And part of the. The comedy comes from them just being told, fishes out of the water. I will say that, yeah, there are specific moments and it sounds like they've, they've changed it with all those changes that you just mentioned, like kind of my little things that, oh, I don't know if that sits right with me anymore. Moments where it does feel like, okay, we're making fun of either their names specifically or the way that they speak or the, or their mental faculties, that sort of thing. Like, that's the stuff that doesn't really age well for me specifically, where it's like, oh, we're just making fun of them as a person rather than them as a character, if that makes sense. There's certain things that we can't change. And anyways, that's all to say is like, I still think for the most of it, for me as a viewer, it does hold up within what it's trying to make fun of. But I also want to recognize that that is not true for everyone because I can't tell you how many times I have come across those threads where it's like, people get really angry with this show. I went and I watched it and I thought it was awful the entire way through. And I couldn't believe people were laughing at the things that were being mean spirited throughout this show. So, I mean, there, there are those people that just cannot handle this.
- [55:18]
A
On my Instagram, every time I, you know, record an episode for this podcast, I put in the question box, I say, is there anything you want us to cover? And like, I had some people who were writing and stuff being like, girl, like, can you just rip that show to shreds? Use your platform to, to get it canceled. First of all, it's hilarious that people think that I have that wide of a platform.
- [55:41]
B
Second of all, Cameron McIntosh actually is like number one listener. I don't know if you know this, but he is like, on the pulse.
- [55:47]
A
Oh, no, I hope he isn't a listener because I've said some things about him.
- [55:52]
B
A single tear fell down his cheek as he listened.
- [55:55]
A
When I, I think I Called him, like, toxic asshole, but he's not the nicest of guys. But, I mean, listen, neither was Scott.
- [56:04]
B
Rudin, but say, like, if anyone should be canceled or, like, things have not held up, well, it's Scott Rudin's involvement.
- [56:11]
A
Yeah, yeah. The difference between Rooted and Macintosh is I'd argue Rudin had better taste in theater. But, you know, as far as I know, Macintosh never threw a laptop on a person's hand or threw them out of a moving car. But, yeah, no, the when. So, okay, how would you, like, define racism, Kyle? Like, just in general or, like, homophobia or sexism? What makes something an indictment and then what makes it just the thing?
- [56:41]
B
Well, okay, I guess for me, it's like the old Supreme Court ruling on pornography. It's like, I know it when I see it. Like, I don't know how else to say it other than that, where it's like, you can take something as written, but perform it in two vastly different ways. And it will just hit me differently. I think where it ultimately comes down with is the point of the joke or the comment or this. Whatever is the point. Like, yes, this woman, this gay person, this person of color are stupid or they're dumb or, I don't know, even though they're weird or something like that. And that is something to be mocked because of that thing. The weird, like, balancing act you have to get is, like, when you have a character that is obviously dumb, like a Cartman, we might say, who is given lines. They're like, this is obviously the wrong point of view and is shown to have the wrong point of view throughout the show. I guess I understand the idea of, like, having your cake and eating it too, because you're still saying the racist, homophobic, sexist things. But the point of it is, like, yeah, because this guy is stupid. Like, he's just does not have the right worldview. And we prove that by the end of the show by showing that this was the wrong point of view to have the. The entire time. So there's a long way to say that. I think it's. For me, it hits wrong when the point of the joke is. It just ends there. It's like you're just saying stupid shit to get a rise other people without there being a further point to that of, like, let's dig into that further why this character might have that point of view and is that ultimately a good worldview to have?
- [58:19]
A
Yeah. Which, ironically, I think is something that Family Guy is incredibly guilty of for every. For every joke that Family Guy does. It's actually aged quite well or is, you know, been terribly prescient. There are a bunch of jokes that are just like, insanely mean spirited and racist, homophobic, sexist. You know, you could count on 10 hands the number of misogynistic jokes in one episode of Family Guy. And they usually, they think that they're punching up because it's usually about, like, a female celebrity, right? And ultimately it's like. But these are still people who live lives and, like, have to get up in the morning. And especially now with the age of social media, you make a joke about a specific person, about their looks or how they speak or whatever, and they're gonna wake up to hear about it from, like, 10 different people. It's gonna live all over the Internet. And again, for south park, there are a lot of episodes they have that are wonderful and, and, and aged quite well and a lot that don't. One episode they have that I think is so frustrating because half of the episode is brilliant and half the episode I think is so beneath them. And it pisses me off that Parker and Stone did this because not only that, it's something that they, like, rift off of from Seth McFarland, Farland and family Guy, which is. Brace yourself, guys. The episode is called the tale of scrotty McBooger balls. Do you remember this episode?
- [59:53]
B
I know that title. I have to jog my memory, though.
- [59:56]
A
The boys are given the classes, given Catcher in the Ride to read, and they're very excited because they've been told that the book has been banned in a lot of places, right? Like, oh, my God, this book must.
- [60:06]
B
Be so insane, so boring to them.
- [60:09]
A
Yeah, they hate it. Which, to be fair, I don't know anyone who's ever read Catcher in the Rye in school as an assignment and liked it. It's always been after the fact. Like, I reread Catcher in the Rye when I graduated college just on my own. I went, oh, shit, this is an amazing book and one of the best cases of an unreliable narrator of all time. And then I read it probably every two years, Matt.
- [60:29]
B
I had the exact same experience. And it frustrates me to no end when I see people, oh, it's that book with the whiny kid. And, like, that's part of the point. It's all the subtraction you're missing out on. Anyway.
- [60:38]
A
No, he's supposed to suck. You have to be a smart reader and, like, read between the lines. It's the same thing with Lolita, you.
- [60:44]
B
Know, yeah, another book that's misinterpreted a lot too, but.
- [60:48]
A
Oh, absolutely. Humbert Humbert is, he's sort of the opposite of Holden, which, like, he's a beautiful writer. He writes these amazing prose and you have to go like, wait, you are so. You are so full of shit.
- [60:59]
B
You're talking about a 12 year old girl.
- [61:01]
A
Exactly. And you're trying to justify your, your, your life.
- [61:06]
B
But I also think it's, it's part of the issue is that everyone keeps trying to pitch that as a romance. I'm like, that's not a romance book. It just frustrates me too.
- [61:15]
A
What it is is that Lolita is actually terribly funny. But that's, that's another book that kind of has its cake and eats it too. But anywho, the point is. So they, they recapture their eye. They go, oh, this is stupid. Some lame kid. They go, we could write a much more scandalous book than this. So they do, and it's called the Tale of Scrotum mcbugger Balls. And it's just them like putting in all of the craziest stuff they can think of, like the nastiest stuff. And then Stan's mom finds it in his room. She reads it and like she can't stop vomiting when she's reading it, but she also can't put it down. And then it's her. And the boys blame Butters for it. And then it turns out that all the adults think that the book is incredible. But obviously there's one running joke of no one can get through the whole thing without vomiting at least once. But also everyone thinks it's an incredible work. So already it's, it's this spoof of people reading into things that aren't there with literature. Sometimes, like, sometimes the sentence is just the sentence. Sometimes it's shock value is just shock value. But then on the other end there is a running joke that the book has like 110 mentions of Sarah Jessica Parker and.
- [62:26]
B
Right.
- [62:27]
A
It's them. And the boys constantly are saying like, it's because we think she's ugly. That's, it's not that she's a representation of anything. And, and then they make all these more running jokes about Sarah Jessica Parker and her looks. And I'm like, you have half of a brilliant episode and half of an episode that not only is it dumb, it's beneath you and it's nasty and.
- [62:49]
B
Well, that, yeah, to keep myself honest, the, the stuff that. And they actually still do it, I think in fairly recent episodes is certain Asian characters that they bring in, which the joke really is that they can't understand what they're saying sort of thing.
- [63:04]
A
Yeah.
- [63:05]
B
And again, that's the thing. It's like, ah, this is. That's not even terribly interesting joke to me. Like, it's such a banal thing and.
- [63:14]
A
Then it gets tired, it turns into.
- [63:16]
B
Racism because it's just like now we're just making fun of how someone speaks.
- [63:19]
A
Yeah, there's, there's. They have that episode where it's a sushi place opens up in south park right next to the CityWalk and the owners are, are shouting at each other. And the running joke is both of them are, I can't understand you. And it's, it's meant to be ridiculous, but it, that is a recurring joke. And it. To the point where it's like, okay, you haven't even mined anything from this anymore. You're just. You keep coming back to this. Well, and I think the writer, they as writers are smarter than that joke. But also like, again, it's where you kind of come back to and you go, you are now so successful and you're so rich and, and you've been so critically praised. Like, at what point do you realize, like, you have a responsibility with this power and you're just. And, and you, and now you're. You're not. There's nothing to punch up at anymore. You are at the top. You're. Everything you do is just punching down. Which brings us back to Book of Mormon, which again, I don't. As I've been really kind of analyzing it. There's nothing in it for me that has. Feels like it's punching down. There are things that I think are maybe dumb. You know, the running joke of, of not being able to pronounce Nabulunki's name. And it's. Again, it's just Cunningham. It's not like all the missionaries, they make it a point that Price. Sorry, they don't make it a point. There's never a moment where Price turns to Cunningham and says, be respectful, learn her name. But they make it a choice to have Price know her name, say her name correctly, all and everyone else but Cunningham. But then as you said, you run the risk of like, okay, well then is the joke just how her name is. Is odd to him and like, he can't figure it out. Because then, I mean, and I even felt this in 2011 when I saw Josh Gad do it. I was like when they. When she said nabulungi and like, 10 minutes later, he tries to say her name and he says Jon Bon Jovi. And Gad said it so confidently that for me, the humor was like, oh, you know, he's so obtuse. But then they kept coming back to it, Neosporin and all this stuff. And I was like, okay, we've. We've run that try.
- [65:19]
B
Yeah, we've exhausted that. Yeah. I'm trying to think. I have, weirdly, some pacing things I noticed this time where I think. I honestly think this affects a lot of musicals, where I think it is basically an unimpeachable first act and then the second act is. We are zooming through stuff. We are just trying to hit plot points to get to the end of the show because we can't go longer than two hours.
- [65:45]
A
Yeah.
- [65:46]
B
Sort of thing. So I really felt that. Although, like, I really think I was looking at trying approach it analytically. I'm like, I don't know if there is anything I would cut. There's just, like, there's. There's a lot of stuff that works for me. The one thing I keep coming back to, and I just don't know if there is a solve necessarily for it, because there does have to be a distinct difference between where they're entering in. But I guess, like, does the. Does the village that they're coming to have to be in such squalor as it is shown to be? Like, obviously they're coming to a poor region. And I think that that plays into, like, the point of the show. But is this, like, how. How bad does it have to look and how much does that feed into, again, the West's perception of what Africa is? Because as you pointed out, Africa is not what we see on, like, the, like, Save the Children telethons. Like, there is cities, there is industry, there is a lot of stuff that's going on there that sometimes is not projected about Africa. So it is feeding a bit into, I think, those tropes, but also trying to comment on White Savior ism at the same time. So, again, there's this juggling act that I just don't know what the correct solve is necessarily.
- [66:59]
A
Yeah, I hear you. I think the. It's. It's hard to say because I think by making it so extreme, that's where a lot more comedy can sure be found. And then I think the best musicals 10 go to extremes, or at least most impactful musicals, I should say, because the ultimate thing that Cunningham gives the Ugandans, it's not that, like, he has taught them Western Civilization that has then made them go, oh, we see, like, how backwards they are. It's nothing like that. Because ultimately, you know, what we learn is that it's not that. That the. These villagers are the ones mutilating women's private parts. They. They are threatened with that from the warlord. And, you know, there's this outside threat, and there is famine and disease. You know, they make a constant joke about how many people in the village have aids. And they sing hasadiga iboi, which translates ultimately to fuck you, God. Because to them, it's like, well, you know, the world sucks. And the only way to get through it is to find the thing to blame. It's him. He does. He does all of it. And Cunningham gives them the tools to fight back at the injustices surrounding them and ultimately, you know, make their lives livable or more. Because they are living. They are surviving. But when you're so focused on surviving, you can't find the joy in anything, and you can't find the meaning of anything. And it's so easy to say, well, you know, what. What do these people have to be thankful for? Think of all the things around them. That's terrible. And the show addresses that immediately. But you have to, at some point, make the choice to have hope. And I talked about this in the Miss Saigon episode. You know, like, for me, the ultimate thing that makes Kim badass and something that is so hard for the rest of us to do is to go through so many traumatic things and still wake up in the morning, go, today. I choose hope because there's so much that can bring you down, and it. And it is ultimately a choice. It's not something that just, like, lives in you. Sunlight does not live in you every day. I don't care what anybody he says. I don't care what. What Elder Price says. You know, optimism is something you have to fight for, and that is ultimately what Cunningham gives them, and that is what the show ultimately says of religion. And I think in order to have that message have power, we do kind of have to be in a. We have to start at a state that is pretty dire. Where it gets tracky is, again, we don't have a lot of stories about this part of the world, and it would be nice to have more and have it not be of this ilk. So this can be just one of many shows that, you know, cover this part of the world. It's something I actually really appreciate about sex education is the character of Eric goes to his home country for a time and It's. And it's in Africa. I don't remember which country in Africa. But, you know, you see, they have Uber and they have nightclubs and they have all this stuff. They even have, like, they have a gay nightlife, but it's a little underground. And it. I love that they do that because it shows a Netflix viewing Western audience. Like, Africa is not all you think it is from, like, the Lion King and those two seconds of Mean Girls where you see, like, the photos of Katie with a lion. There's a lot more than that, and I think that's important, but I think.
- [70:54]
B
Yeah, I think that's the other thing, too, is the. Oh, no, I'm going to be the one. How do you say her name? Nurangi?
- [71:03]
A
Nabulungi.
- [71:05]
B
Nabulungi. The. I wish that she was centered a little bit more. I feel like she gets a little bit forgotten sometimes within the. Within the plot of the show. Like, she does get a couple of numbers to herself, which are great. And ultimately, like, she is shown to be kind of a leader within her community, which I love. And at least in that original cast, I think that that actress is pretty great. She wins a Tony Award, actually, for this. For this role.
- [71:34]
A
She sure did. And you can look at Laura Benanti's reaction to that on YouTube anytime you want.
- [71:39]
B
That is free for you. Well, actually, I. Yeah. So through all this, because I want to know actually what some of the other listeners wanted us to call out. But one, I don't think we can really overstate. I think the importance of the casting of that original cast, of why it was so popular, the way it was kind of a beautiful thing where it's like. Like, oh, my gosh, I'm gonna totally blank on people's names. Who plays the two. The two Mormons?
- [72:13]
A
The original. The original duo. It was Josh Gavin, Andrew Rannels, and Nikki M. James was the original Nabulungi who won the Tony.
- [72:20]
B
Right. So Andrew Reynolds was, like, not an unknown to Broadway, but, like, this is kind of his big break, I would say. For sure. I would say he was pretty and stuff.
- [72:33]
A
Yeah, he was a working actor. He was in Hairspray for a minute and then kind of went back to temp work. And then he was in Jersey Boys for a long time. That was like. Yeah, but Jersey Boys was one of those things where it was like, if you were. Jersey Boys has its devoted fan base.
- [72:46]
B
Yeah.
- [72:47]
A
So when anyone.
- [72:48]
B
Jersey Boys. Not because of.
- [72:50]
A
Yeah, there was. So any replacements from Jersey Boys when they want to. Went on to originate in new musicals, Jersey Boys fans would be like, oh, just wait. Like, we. We love this person. So with Andrew, that was definitely something that a lot of Jersey Boys fans are like, oh, he's so talented. You'll love him. So this was definitely working out. Josh Gad, I think, was best known. He had a recurring bit on the Cold Daily Show. Oh, Daily Show. Daily Show. Yeah, he was definitely.
- [73:13]
B
That's how I knew him.
- [73:14]
A
Yeah, he was definitely the most known in the cast, but it was mostly a cast of unknowns. I know Cheyenne Jackson did Price in a lot of workshops, and then Rannels came in towards the end. And he has said this many times that all the keys for Elder Price and I'm sure they got raised. Yeah, they changed them back and forth now based on who does the show because the keys are very hard for people. He said that he had them raise the keys in workshops because he wanted to get to a point where they had to keep him because. Because he wasn't a name and he could have been replaced at any moment. He was like, I wanted it to be so difficult and something that only I could do that they had to keep me. He goes, what I didn't take into account was, you know, a year and a half of the show singing like that.
- [73:57]
B
So, yeah, sure.
- [73:58]
A
Yeah. So there's. There are. There are. Yes, there are key adjustments that they do sometimes throughout the run. Also, the casting of. Of Gad and Rannels, as well as everyone else in the company. You know, these missionaries are supposed to be about like 19, 18 to 20 is their age range. And all of those actors in the original company looked 30. I mean, they. I think most of them were over 30 in general.
- [74:21]
B
But like original Grease movie, it's like you. You say you are. You're 19 years, but you're balding.
- [74:27]
A
Yeah. And that was sort of the. That was a laugh that has now sort of gotten lost because they are casting it younger or at least and making sure everyone looks younger. You know, Rannel's. He wasn't, I think, in his early to mid-30s by that point, and definitely looked older. And it was. That was on purpose. They. To make it seem more like a satire. Everyone looks so much older than they were when Reynolds first sang. Now that I'm 19 and you and me. It got a laugh when I saw it because he so clearly wasn't. But that's. That kind of gets lost now because we cast it so much more youthful. And I wish that we had the bravery to cast daddies again. In the show. But.
- [75:08]
B
Yeah, but that's like the, The Ugandans. I think there's some beautiful singers in that company.
- [75:15]
A
Remo Webb is one of the original Ugandans, and that woman is one of the most amazing singers. Broadway hats. She's the. She's the church lady who sings all the high notes on the Color Purple revival. She's. She's fucking incredible. I. I want to meet her one day, so she knows that I think she's amazing.
- [75:34]
B
But, but, but the other criticisms I see a lot are, again, I. The portrayal of. Of the Ugandan people, specifically to call it that a lot of them have AIDS and that raping babies, like, those are kind of the two big call outs that I see all the time. Which, again, fair. Not every African person has aids. The. The raping babies does come from an actual story, which is a very sad thing to, like, go on a deep dive of. So I can see why people get a little, I don't know, turned off by that. But it's. Yeah, it's one of those things where, like, this. This really happens. I guess there's that argument to say, like, there's something that shouldn't be joked about, but it's.
- [76:22]
A
But it's something that exists.
- [76:23]
B
Something that exists. It's so ridiculous. It feels like we've now gone into like a. A Urinetown, like, alternate reality. It was like, well, this is the, the sad reality of, of. Of some people.
- [76:33]
A
Yeah. Oh, that was another change they made. Not, not that that character wasn't attempting to sexually assault an infant, but that the, the punchline was he was attempting to because his brother had told him that it would cure his aids. And they go, what? They. And so now what they say is, where did you hear that? And he goes, facebook.
- [76:59]
B
And so see, that's a better joke.
- [77:01]
A
It's a. Yeah, it's a. It's a longer joke, but it is a. But it definitely is more palatable and, and adds a whole new layer to that story. Someone else had an issue with the maggots in my scrotum. They said, oh, that actor's parents must be so proud of him. I was like, what. What do you want? What do you want? Like, it's. That's something that happens. And, and again, it's. The joke is not that this guy is, you know, to be discussed or like, he's the. But he's. It's again, the joke is always that Elder Price is trying to bring Disney optimism and then constantly is getting that thrown back in his face by these Harsh realities.
- [77:44]
B
Right.
- [77:44]
A
So, you know, in the. In the. Have you heard about the All American profit number? He's going on and on and on. And then the doc. And we find out this character with the maggots is. Is the village doctor. He cuts him off by singing, I have maggots in my scrotum. And rather than absorb that information again, Elder Price is like, I'm gonna continue. And so it just constantly. And it comes back up, you know, at the end of Act 1, I think it comes back up at the finale of the show. Yeah. And it's not like, oh, isn't this guy ridiculous? So much as, you know, despite all of the optimism, there are still these hardships. And, like, it's also just. It's a sentence that is so specific to make it kind of wild. I don't know. That's how it's always felt for me.
- [78:28]
B
I can understand why people wouldn't like it. I think this. This show does veer into absurdism occasionally. And what I have come to learn is that absurdism just does not work for some people. And that, again, fine, everyone has their own personal tastes. But I'm. This is a weird example, but on Reddit, I occasionally get suggested this, like, explain the joke to me. People just are confused by a webcomic or whatever. And occasionally I will say I'm like, oh, I'm glad that someone explained this, because I didn't understand what was going on. But like, nine times out of 10, it's old far side cartoons, and it's like the joke is that it's a cow talking. Like, that's just what it is. That's. It's just dumb to say something dumb. And that's what that line to me is. It's so outlandish and weird and over the top.
- [79:12]
A
Yeah.
- [79:12]
B
And like, the. The Elder Price specifics does not want to deal with it. That it's like it just keeps returning back into. Into the chorus.
- [79:21]
A
Yeah. Humor is such an odd bird, don't you think?
- [79:24]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [79:25]
A
What people find funny, what people refuse to find funny, where people will bend over backwards to explain why some jokes work and then why some people will just not listen to why other people think jokes work. It's.
- [79:39]
B
Well, I think as we're recording this, I think there is no better example because they happen within days of each other, which is if his name is. Is it Joel Coy, who was the host of the Golden Globes and then you had John Mulaney, who did, like, the Governor. Governor's awards for The Academy Awards precursor sort of thing.
- [80:01]
A
Yeah.
- [80:02]
B
One is getting rave reviews, and one person is, like, getting, like, trashed on the Internet. And I think it's because of just how they handled actually very similar jokes where the Golden Globes was. Isn't it weird that this movie with, like, plastic boobs is like a movie and, like, that's the whole joke. And it's like, okay. Whereas on the flip side, we have people like, let me tell you about how wild it is that, like, Angela Bassett gets nominated for a Marvel movie. Isn't that wild? Let me tell you why? And they expand on the joke a little bit more. Not trashing the movie, per se, but just like, how good is this performer? And they're actually pushing up the actual performance piece rather than just like, isn't this whole movie stupid?
- [80:42]
A
Yeah, it's, again, it's sort of like the. The doing the homework bit of, you know, making sure you know what it is you're talking about. Making sure you know what you're making fun of. But then also, yeah, I feel like, especially nowadays, people want respect. They want dignity. I think that's sort of the thing that a lot of people have issues with this show, especially with how it treats the Ugandan characters. When people. And I asked you the question about racism, sexism, all this stuff, because it's the number one word people sent into me about Book of Mormon. Like, talk about the racism. Is it racist? Like, you know, are these just deploying stereotypes that people think about Africans? And people ask the same thing about Miss Saigon and Miss Saigon, I don't think necessarily deploys stereotypes because there's so much violence and the sexuality in Miss Saigon is portrayed very negatively. Or rather just say, I don't think it's deploying all the stereotypes that people claim that it is, but Book of Mormon, I think everyone in it is a bit of a stereotype. And that's because that's just sort of how comedies work. It's a matter of how far you're willing to go. And if you think that the show is doing enough work for you that you can, like, let go. Like, I can't get on board with a lot of gay jokes on Family Guy because I find them to just be very surface level and dumb.
- [82:13]
B
Right.
- [82:13]
A
And it's mostly. It's mostly about, like, oh, gay men who are effeminate, gay men who only like sex. Gay men who, you know, watch Sex in the City. And I'm like, yes, I am all of those things. I am. I. I very effeminately. Have sex while I watch Sex in the City. What of it? But I think that there's also just.
- [82:30]
B
Like so much during brunch, actually. It's. It's really.
- [82:34]
A
That's. That's what real brunch is. Real brunch is gay men while Sex and City plays on in the background. But only the episodes that people have problems with.
- [82:43]
B
That's right. The. The other thing I guess I will say is the. I think the criticisms that I have the most sympathy with and I think what we're kind of circling around is because they spent so much time getting all the Mormon stuff right, it is a little bit too bad.
- [83:02]
A
Yeah.
- [83:03]
B
Unfortunate that they didn't spend the same time with Ugandans. Like, just like, what is it about Uganda that makes it special? What is something. The music that we could have brought into this. What is some of like the actual cultural touchstones that we could have brought into this show to make it feel like a little bit more lived in rather than reading Mormons 100. Right. And they're going to this weird, weird quote, quote unquote place of Africa. And it's just whatever. It's just kind of tropes from Africa that we're using rather than it being actually of Uganda.
- [83:31]
A
Yeah, I think that's actually quite fair because I don't think that the writer's attitude was to talk down to those characters. They wanted them to sort of be the slap in the face that the Mormon characters needed. But because they are so in love with that element of the story, as you said, like, there's lack of specificity on their part. And for everything that is incredibly true, there's a lot of stuff that is incredibly vague and it's pos. I again, having not seen the updated version, but only having notes on it, I don't know how many of the notes came from. Well, let's actually get this more accurate. Let's. Let's be more specific about this and how much of it came from like. Well, let's find a middle ground so no one gets offended. Which is why there's a bunch of Marvel in there now. I mean, there's also other stuff in it that's quite shocking. On the Mormon side, you know, we have Elder McKinley, who is a closeted Mormon guy, singing this big tap dancing spectacle. Turn it Off. Which is just about compartmentalization and like shutting down elements of your psyche that are troubling you, which is perhaps it's an extension of sort of the point of the show where you can't just block out the bad stuff, you have to incorporate it, otherwise you are going to explode. Yeah, it's toxic positivity.
- [85:05]
B
The thing about that number always kills too. I just have to call out. It's one of my favorite moments of the show.
- [85:12]
A
It's also the most. Yeah, it's the most show. Busy number in probably the whole show. I would say there are three numbers in the show that are like pure Broadway razzmatazz. Which is the opening. Hello, Two by two and then Turn it off. There are the two numbers that like. Oh, I was also gonna say Spooky Mormon Hell Dream is a number that is just like absurdly ridiculous and goes for the jugular just in terms of its imagery. It's, you know, Elder Price abandons Cunningham at the end of Act 1 and then he is in Spooky Mormon Hell and. And. Or has a dream about Spooky Mormon Hell with Jeffrey Dahmer and Genghis Khan and Hitler and all these people and Johnny Cochrane, Johnny Cochran. And there are. And there are floating Starbucks cups everywhere because they can't have caffeine. And everyone's having sodomy and all this stuff. And it's. And Jesus calls him a dick. And I. For me, that is like the show at its most where I feel like it all sort of clicks into place in just a really very beautiful way. I truly think the songs are what make the show click into place more than the book scenes. And I was.
- [86:15]
B
I agree.
- [86:16]
A
Yeah, yeah. And it was interesting is I was reading the reviews when it came out because the show, like, it had buzz from the community, from people who had seen workshops of it. It had been in development for so long. The fact that it was the south park guys and it was the follow up for Robert Lopez and Casey Nicholaw was. Wasn't like the go to director yet. He had done Drowsy, which was a hit, but then he had done Elf and like To Be or Not To Be at Manhattan Theater Club, which did not do super great. And so like the first two weeks of previews, it was doing fine, but not amazing. But it's like every week it just did better and better. And so when the reviews came out, everyone was like, oh, we'll see how this goes. And there were like two or three that just did not like the show at all, thought it was offensive, thought it was dumb. But everyone else just like, this is so special. It's so Broadway, but it's so new. But what Brantley said in his review was like, I Love this show. I think it's incredible. He goes, if there's one thing, it's like the score is a 10 out of 10, no skips, and it does everything you expect. He goes, the book is like a gentleman's eight, which is to say it's well structured, a lot of amazing jokes. He goes, it's not as impenetrable as the score. And I think that's fair, especially now is you know, that the book is what's gotten the most updates post Covid.
- [87:36]
B
Yeah, I think that's the part that's the creakiest, I think, on this rewatch for me is like as soon as any of those songs is like, yeah, this is working. This is working really, really well, basically because of the performers, because of the talent behind the making of those songs. Does it. I remember, I know it won a lot, but did it win best book?
- [87:56]
A
It did.
- [87:57]
B
It did win.
- [87:57]
A
Okay. Yeah, I, I can probably name you off the top of my head.
- [88:00]
B
The two leads. Don't they both lose to.
- [88:02]
A
They lost in over Leo Butts.
- [88:04]
B
Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Which, which is a. I don't know. I like that show quite a bit, I always say, but of Dirty Rotten.
- [88:13]
A
Scandals, Catch Me if you can or.
- [88:16]
B
Sorry, that's right. It was Catch me if you can. Never mind. I, I.
- [88:19]
A
You take that out.
- [88:20]
B
Catch me if you can.
- [88:21]
A
Yeah, catch. So with Catch me if you can, the, the headline with that category was that Aaron Tveit was not nominated and Norbert Leo Butz was. No comment. But it was, it was. No one really knew what was going to happen to that category because Norbert had won, I think the Drama Desk and Josh Gad had won the Outer Critics Circle. And then a lot of people thought Andrew Rannells might just sneak in and get it. But I think ultimately what happened is that they sort of split the vote and Norbert won for a role that isn't totally a lead but had the best song in his show. And then Rory o' Malley was considered not a lock, but like a very possible featured actor win. And then that went to John Larroquette for How to Succeed. And then Benanti was kind of considered the front runner of that category because she had won both the Drama Desk and the Outer Critics Circle.
- [89:15]
B
Was that for My Fair lady or was it.
- [89:17]
A
No, it's for women on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
- [89:18]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [89:19]
A
And ultimately it just proved once again that it's really difficult to win a Tony when your show has closed if you're a Musical. It's. It happens, but very rarely, because ultimately she lost to Nikki M. James as Nabulungi, who had not won a single, quote, unquote, precursor. And I don't even think it was nominated for any. But she did win in what was considered. Considered a major surprise. And I think that came from two things. One was that it was an acting win they could give Mormon, and she is the heart of that show and has the most. And has the most earnest song in that show. Like Salta. Like a City isn't a real comedic number. There are moments where you chuckle, but it's mostly just a pure I want song. And I know that they teach the actresses who play Nabulungi to not think of it as a showstopper, but they tell them to think of it as an extension of part of your world. It is that earnest of an I want song.
- [90:12]
B
I remember watching that year. She does seem very surprised that she's winning that award.
- [90:17]
A
Yeah. I mean, the same is true with, like, when Ruthie Ann Miles won a few years later. It's. You know, there was nothing leading up to it that made anyone go, oh, this is gonna happen. It was considered a possibility in the same way that anything's a possibility. But I think of all the acting nominations that Mormon had, she was considered the least likely. So then for the other two categories to not win and for her to win was just like a total. Here's.
- [90:42]
B
Here's my question to you, then. If only one of those performances can win between the two, who do you think is giving the better performance between Reynolds and Gad? Yeah.
- [90:54]
A
My hot take is much as I like Josh Gad, I did not like him very much in the show. I thought he was doing a little much. I think. Yeah. I think what he's doing in Gutenberg with Reynolds right now is great. I think they're an amazing team in that I would have given it to Reynolds, who had a very specific way of performing that role and was so locked into the tone of that show. Because something I've heard from people involved is like a. A mediocre Elder Price will just totally up the performance for the night.
- [91:27]
B
I was gonna say the same thing. It's like, I think, again, I am. I'm a defender of Josh Gad normally, but, like, I think that show would have worked with a different Elder Cunningham. I don't know if it would have worked with a different Elder Price in its original form. I really do think Randall set the tone for what the show became.
- [91:44]
A
Yeah. And from What I understand, a lot of Cunningham since Gad have gone less extreme with the weirdness and just sort of play him uber enthusiastic, optimistic. Because, I mean, he says and does a lot of weird shit already. You don't need to put a hat on a hat. Yeah, Reynolds. I mean, like, just certain line readings are so fantastic. When his. When Price spirals in Act 2 and goes to the coffee bar and is just drinking like 12 cups of coffee. He's so good in that. The way he's at the end when they're like, what the President says when we're is the furthest thing from Latter Day Mormons. And he goes, no, you know what, guys?
- [92:23]
B
Fuck him.
- [92:24]
A
It's just. He says it so well, and it's like a hint of camp, but it's still played very straight. It's like he would do so well in Urinetown, you know, as any of those characters. But yeah, because the thing about Book of Mormon is that, like, Rice is probably the lead, the most lead of the show. But I would argue Cunningham is the hero of the show. So we don't ever really like Price. We follow him and we like watching him. But we. And we're supposed to, like, be a little annoyed by Cunningham, but eventually we are to like Cunningham because he's the one that steps up and does the most work, and he's the one who leads purely because even Price, while he tries to be nice and optimistic, he's ultimately coming from a place of ego, not narcissism. Narcissism is a genuine disorder that I don't think Price has because he does listen to people, but which narcissists famously don't do. But he does come straight from ego, which is what the song you and Me, but Mostly Me is all about.
- [93:29]
B
Right?
- [93:30]
A
It's. Yeah.
- [93:31]
B
And I think, again, this ties back into the earnestness and possibly the surprising earnestness of this show by the end is that there is that reprisal of. Of that you and Me, but mostly me with him not saying but mostly me. It's. It gives it to Cunningham to actually say that as the laugh line.
- [93:48]
A
Yeah.
- [93:48]
B
And it comes across as so sweet.
- [93:50]
A
It is very sweet. So what you. You said Turn it off is your favorite song in the show? Yes.
- [93:58]
B
Well, no, I'm. I'm a basic. When it comes to this, I think I believe is actually my favorite song. So when I listen to the most. But I was looking through the score. I like the kind of jostle for second position like we have. Hello? Yeah. Turn it off, man. Up and Baptize Me. I like those ones quite a bit.
- [94:24]
A
Yeah, Baptize Me is a song that I like, but I. When I'm in a time crunch, I tend to skip it. But, yeah, there are other ones that I like more. My favorite song, actually, before I go into my favorite song, we gotta take one more break. I beg to differ with you.
- [94:40]
B
How do you mean?
- [94:40]
A
You're the top. Yeah, you're an Arrow caller. You're the top. You're a Coolidge dollar. And we're back. So my personal favorite. Well, so I have a favorite song, but then I also have the moment I'll never forget when I saw the show in Standing Room, having only heard I Believe on the Tony words, not knowing anything else about the score. And I don't know if it's still this way, but at the time, there was no song list in the playbill because I think they wanted everything to be a surprise. The song I probably would consider my favorite would be, honestly, Joseph Smith, American Moses, if only for. I think that it's so musically versatile and fun. And I have deep, distinct memories of that number when I first saw it, and the staging of it, which pays a lot of homage to Small House of Uncle Thomas. And it just took me by surprise. I think of like, you know, standalone, someone singing it outside. You and Me. But mostly Me is a great song. The thing that I want to say, because this happens very rarely where a musical surprises me with what it's doing, musically speaking, every now and then it catches me off guard and I get very excited. So. So the Act 1 finale, Man up is happening and I'm watching and I'm enjoying it and the choreography's happening, the backup dancers and all that. And I'll never forget after maybe two minutes of Josh Gad singing Man up and he gets to the end of his line and Nicky M. James's Nabulinki comes out and starts singing Salt Lake City. And the piano's going. And I realized they were doing a One Day More esque mashup of songs. And I fully let out and like I was, because I wasn't expecting Full Body shutter. Yeah, I had a full body gay musical theater shutter. Because just on a musical theater level of writing, I was just so pleased to have that happen.
- [96:55]
B
And, well, it's the little resistance moment that happens in the south park doing the Les Mis thing.
- [97:01]
A
Yes, they're doing the Les Mis One Day More Mashup Up. But I wasn't. And I would actually argue man up is a Better version of that than La Resistance Lives on, which is an amazing song in general, but they do it so spectacularly in Book of Mormon, which I don't. I. As we talk more about issues people have and we have and things we like that people don't like or whatever. I do want to say, objectively say, I think the score is just so very well written. And this moment is an example where, like, I. I don't care who you are. They spend enough time on the song man up that you don't expect them to do this. You think that this is going to be the finale because it's Cunningham with once Price has left. And Nabulungi says to Cunningham, like, I've convinced the village to listen to you guys. And Cunningham's like, well, Price has left and he's the leader. And she goes, well, what about you? And you can do it. Everyone's waiting. And he has that, like, you know, fork in the road situation, and he chooses. I'm gonna man up. And so you think the whole number is just gonna be great. It's Cunningham taking the reins. And then she comes back on to sing Salt Lake City. And y' all go, oh, shit. Oh, shit. It's gonna. It's gonna pile up now. Because then Bryce comes on and starts singing his Orlando bit. And then they start adding Hasa to EVOI and turn it off. And I'm like, I'm so fucking pumped. I was. I was so happy. I. I was.
- [98:26]
B
I'm so erect right now, sitting in this seat. I don't know what it is.
- [98:30]
A
I. I was. I. I was as my. I was as erect as I was standing in that standing room. It was. It was wonderful. It doesn't happen very often. Even shows that I love. I have.
- [98:42]
B
I. I will. I do have to say I'll be this voice on here where I find both All American Prophet and Joseph Smith American Moses thrilling to watch. But I actually don't really like listening to them on the album. Oh, standalone songs. But I think they work totally visually. When I'm sitting in the theater or when I was watching the bootleg, I'm like, yeah, this is great. And I try and listen to them on the album. Like, yeah, I don't. I don't want to listen to this.
- [99:10]
A
It might be. I'm. I am influenced by my memory of Joseph Smith American Moses. So I'm always picturing it when I'm listening to it, which is why I think I get through it. All American Prophet. I hear you. It's a Long song. And I'm mostly just waiting for the chorus every time because that chorus is so good. Have you heard of the All American Prophet?
- [99:32]
B
Yeah. That's great.
- [99:33]
A
Yeah. And I love the Donny Osmond line at the beginning. Little Donny Osmond flair. And just the button of, like, throwing a set of steak knives. Because the joke is that Price has told Cunningham, like, just let me do the talking. Goes in anytime, you know, you think you might need to say something, just agree with me. Say, oh, wow. And Cunningham's like, oh, right, like those people on the infomercials. So he just keeps doing the infomercial stuff.
- [99:57]
B
Yeah, right, right, right.
- [99:59]
A
Throw. We'll throw in a set of steak knives. And Uganda's like, the Are steak knives.
- [100:03]
B
Yeah. What are those? Was there other stuff that people were bringing up like that?
- [100:11]
A
People are deep issues all the time, Kyle, Again, literally, someone said, like, be bold and call out the blatant racism. Use your platform to make Broadway better. If you haven't seen the show recently, recently, you forget how racist it is. Holy moly. It's racist against Uganda and Africa in general for very little comedic gain. Someone wrote racism. Someone asked about the changes. Does it need to be as raunchy as it is? And FYI, I actually love the Book of Mormon. They said, as well as the African stereotypes. We've talked about the stereotypes and all of that we've talked about.
- [100:49]
B
I think some of it is fair, I guess. Yeah. Just for me. And again, I'm not saying, like, everyone's experience is different. It never tips into racism for me. And I. I might be colored a little bit. So one of my channel. I do challenges for myself every year of, like, certain entertainment properties. And this year I've decided that I wanted to watch every single Looney Tunes slash Merry Melodies short, which is like, over a thousand of them. This is such a dumb thing I decided to do anyways. I'm still in the early 1930s and. Oh, boy, if we're going to talk about racism happening, those shorts are racist.
- [101:27]
A
Oh, yeah.
- [101:28]
B
I cannot believe that this is happening. So again, watching Book of Mormon right after seeing some of those things, it's like, yes, they're like. They're definitely, like, trading in tropes and stuff here. But I don't think anytime the joke is like, aren't these people stupid and aren't they dumb? It's always shown to be the. The two Mormons to be on the short end of that stick.
- [101:51]
A
Yeah, it's. It's hard for me to determine when people say something is racist, sexist, homophobic, like, as we, as we've been saying with this series, you know, we. I've called it problematic with the question mark on purpose because people use that word A incorrectly, but also use it as a blanket term of just anything that makes them uncomfortable. Anything that doesn't prop up a subject of, of the world. You know, if it does anything that isn't purely optimistic, like, that is problematic. To which I'm like, first of all, human beings are messy. Every single person on this earth, I don't care who you are. We all fuck up and we all do things that hurt other people. It's also interesting to me how many people who, you know, send this stuff to me and say things are problematic to me where I'm like, you're kind of a dick yourself. Like, you've been awful to me in the past. But I, I, we're not going into that kind of stuff, but.
- [102:50]
B
Well, yeah, because you, you brought up, like, the raunchiness of it as well. Yeah, I get, yeah, that I can kind of see too. I don't really swear all that much. A lot in my, in my personal life. The occasional peppering I'll do for sure. But this gets close to being like, okay, like, we're almost overdoing it in some of those, yeah, some of those songs, but. Have you seen the movie Dicks yet?
- [103:20]
A
I, I have.
- [103:21]
B
Okay, so that's a movie where I think it does cross the lines. Like, okay, now you're just, like, swearing for the sake of swearing. It doesn't actually feel like you're actually using this for a joke or anything anymore. It's like we're just trying to fit in as many swear words into a sentence. That's how I felt by the halfway or after the halfway point. Like, okay, like, let's get back to, like, the actual communists working.
- [103:42]
A
Yeah.
- [103:43]
B
And so there are points in this show where it's like, okay, we are really, we're going for it. We're being provocative and we're pushing buttons, for sure. But again, this is just a personal taste. I don't think it ever fully crosses that line. For me, it always stays into that kind of, like, funny aspect.
- [104:01]
A
I mean, honestly, for me, curse words themselves are not terribly funny, and I have a decent vocabulary, but I will absolutely speak nastily as often as I can because that's just where my brain goes. I'm a troubled man, Kyle. But for me, like, I find south park at its funniest when it is on Comedy Central or Hulu, and it's being bleeped. I find bleeps funnier than the word itself. Because you know what? They're saying that that's. That's fine. It's just. I don't know, maybe it's because I've been conditioned since a kid, but, like, I hear the bleep and I'm like, for me, that's fun. Like, hearing Carmen say Jesus on the Christian Hard Rock is sure less funny to me than hearing Jesus like that. For me, just. That makes me.
- [104:46]
B
It's kind of the same thing. I have this theory. I just re. Watched a Game Night here recently. I don't know if you've seen Game Night once.
- [104:54]
A
That's. That's the Rachel McAdams, the. Yes. Oh, no, he died.
- [104:59]
B
She's so wonderful in that. She's so funny. Anyways, there in that, halfway through, there's a scene where they both almost vomit, where they're, like, they're dry, but they don't ever actually show them vomiting. And it's my theory that almost vomiting in a movie is actually funnier than actually showing vomit.
- [105:18]
A
Oh, yeah.
- [105:19]
B
I mean, it's kind of the same thing with the beliefs. The beliefs are sometimes funnier than actually hearing the actual curse word.
- [105:24]
A
I mean, lest we forget the dry heave scene in Barbie when she has flat feet. I'm sorry. That is the pinnacle of humor. I think that's funnier than all of the epic hack stuff from Family Guy. Yeah, no, I did see Dicks. Have you seen Bottoms?
- [105:42]
B
I did. Bottoms was great.
- [105:43]
A
Yeah. I saw Bottoms on, like, a Wednesday matinee with maybe 20 other people, and I laughed quite a lot. I think I would have loved it more if it was a fuller, more raucous theater. Dicks I saw on a. On, like, a Sunday night with a friend with, like, 10 people, and we were mostly laughing because we're like, I can't believe they're saying and doing the stuff that they're saying and doing. But, yeah, like, it did get to a point where, like, it just was so much that I became desensitized. So you have to keep. Comedy comes from surprise, and you have to keep surprising your audience. And you can't constantly just up the game. You have to have story development. You have to have characters say or do something that's crazy. Dicks ultimately leads to the point where it's like, it goes so far that it might as well just set itself on fire. And what you're either in or you're Out. I know a lot of people who are very big on dicks. I enjoyed most of it.
- [106:38]
B
I'm big on dicks too. But. But that's.
- [106:40]
A
Kyle, keep this classy. This is a classy podcast. Okay? I make dollars upon dollars every year on this podcast. Kyle. Also, by the way, everybody, if you ever are in doubt, if you listen to Putting It Together and I'm not on it, Kyle is the picture perfect example of a gentleman.
- [107:00]
B
I'm a perfect Mormon. Usually on my. On my show.
- [107:03]
A
It's only when he's with me that Kyle's like, oh, I gotta. I gotta meet Matt at his gutter level here.
- [107:09]
B
Yeah, I think you're either in or out for dicks. And ultimately I was kind of out of it, unfortunately.
- [107:15]
A
But we were, we were in on bottoms, so I guess that's. Listen, dicks and bottoms. There we go. That's all you gotta say.
- [107:22]
B
Bottoms is the tip top. Yep.
- [107:24]
A
Bada aim, bada boom. What was somebody else said? The raunchiness, which we just discussed. Rannells, we mentioned that. Oh, okay. Two things. One was when your show. Someone wrote, if your show runs so long, you either need to update the book or it's time to close. I mean, for something like Mormon, that is kind of true. I was told that Parker and Stone openly said, if we need to rewrite the whole book, we'll rewrite the whole book. We don't care.
- [107:57]
B
Well, yeah, this is, this is actually an interesting conversation because I, I think I'm actually agree a lot with what this person is about. I think there comes a time it's like, I get that it's hard to turn down money and it's still driving sales. I get it. But I also wonder, like, what would this look like as a revival? Like, what would you do differently inside this show? That would be an interesting thing to like, settle it for five years and come back with something new or. I know even though I think Josh Gad and others have said that it probably will never happen, which is like a movie version of Book of Mormon, basically because of this people's views of this subject material has just vastly changed in the, gosh, 13, 14 years since it. Since it premiered. But I think like a reimagining of what this could be would be more interested in doing the same thing with minor changes.
- [108:52]
A
See, I think that's. That's interesting for two reasons. One is I don't think this show will ever get revived. So once it closes on Broadway, I feel like that's it. If they Ever make a movie of it? I think they need to make it a cartoon, just, like, go even further down that road of ridiculous. I feel the same way about Spelling bee. Spelling bee needs to be adapted by the. The Bob's Burgers team and be great. Yeah, I made it to a movie like that. The other thing, though, is, as you said, like, it's hard to walk away from money if a show is still selling. This show is still selling, even with the controversies and coming back from COVID and, like, it took a minute to rile back up. Like, it's still selling well. It's not always doing a million dollars every week. But, like, their overhead has gotten a lot lower over the years, which is not always the case. That usually goes up. But, I mean, like, the. One of the things. When the show opened and was such a huge hit, they got offers from other theaters to transfer. They're like, you are in, you know, a theater that has fewer than 1100 seats, come into, like, the Broadway or the mid or the marquee, and, you know, you have 500, 600 more seats, and you can sell them for a lot of money, and you can make millions and millions and millions. And they're like, we would prefer. Prefer it to be in a smaller theater.
- [110:09]
B
And Eugene o'. Neal. Is that what they're in?
- [110:11]
A
Yeah, that's where they're at. And, like, have it be a hard ticket for as long as it can get. And also, like, that intimacy helps with the show.
- [110:17]
B
I. I think this wouldn't actually. Well, no, I'm gonna. I'm gonna stick to my guns. I don't think this would work as well in a huge Broadway house. I think you do need that slight, like, intimacy to this show to. To fully make it work.
- [110:30]
A
Yeah.
- [110:30]
B
And the other thing I read that was interesting is that they initially were going to do this off Broadway, but decided against it and just jumped into a Broadway theater, mostly because Scott Rudin made it available for them. But I'm actually very curious how the show would have gone had it been an off Broadway and then transferred. Whether it would have worked better or worse, I don't know.
- [110:55]
A
I mean, I'm sure it would have worked fine. I don't know what theater they would have gone into is the thing. Off Broadway just doesn't get a lot of attention unless it's subscriber house, like the Public or Roundabout or something like that. You know, this would have had to have been like a little shop situation where they just went into a sizable off Broadway theater and and put it up there. Yeah, I know. I know. They wanted it to go to Off Broadway. And then ultimately, Rudin was like, no, we're going straight to Broadway with this one. But the question I have, though, is, you know, it's still selling. It's doing well with all the controversies, and it's still selling well.
- [111:31]
B
The.
- [111:31]
A
The question then is, is why? Clearly there's something that's still connecting to people. Because if it truly has aged in such a way where so many people get her so violently angry about it, you would imagine that other people wouldn't be so opposed or so diametrically opposed to the other side of it. You know, I have friends who still work on the show, and they've had people come up to them at the stage door who had never seen the show, and they were like, that was one of the best things I've ever seen it. Still, it converts a lot of straight men who don't like musicals into kind of liking musicals. And, you know, clearly there's something there. And I think to deny that is its own sort of obtuseness. You know, for all the people who say, well, this show is racist and needs to be canceled, it's like, okay, well, you can't then just say the people who like it are racist themselves. There's. There's got to be more to it than that. If you're. And if you were willingly ignoring that, then, honestly, that makes me think more highly of the show than of you. Not you, Kyle, but yes, you, Kyle, as well. I don't think, specifically.
- [112:37]
B
Yeah, I think it's. I think part of it is a success. I think it's one of those weird things that once something hits to be successful, it becomes a bit of a target in and of itself. I'm gonna make another movie analogy here, but it's my feelings towards, like, Green Book, which is not a great movie, but that movie would be so forgotten had it not won Best Picture. Like, no one would talk about that movie. No one. There would be no controversy about it because no one would remember it. But now this is much more successful than. Than that movie. But I. I do think they had this, you know, not won nine Tony Awards had it not done all this other stuff. I just don't think it would be as vindictive, I guess, against. I think it's partly because of the popularity that people kind of come for it, not because they don't feel that way for real, but I just don't think it would open itself up to quite as Much criticism?
- [113:35]
A
Oh, for sure. Well, it's. People love to be the ones who discover things, who are championing the underdogs. When something reaches a level of success that it's considered mainstream, it has. It immediately has a target on its back. Right. We saw this with Barbie, we see this with Hamilton. It happened with Dear Evan Hansen like clockwork. And that's not to say that these things are above criticism or that some of the criticism isn't valid. It's just very fascinating to see how this trend happens time and again. And it could just be that once something reaches a certain number of people, you know, once it, once it expands past like a small pool of supporters and goes to the outreaches of different mind frames, you just naturally get pushback just from exposing yourself to more and more people. Not exposing yourself, but exposing your art. But yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I think the show was always going to be a letdown to people once it became an impossible ticket and won the nine Tonys and became sort of like the saving grace of musical comedy. Because then people will go in and be like, eh, not that great. Like, my own grandmother saw it right after it opened or like a year into the run and she wasn't offended, she just thought it wasn't anything special.
- [114:53]
B
Yeah. Well, then again, weird thing too is like, even though I'm a big fan of like the actual music and stuff of it, I've been speaking very highly of a show that I would probably rate, I don't know, a 7 or an 8 out of 10. Like, it's not like this is one of my all time favorite shows either.
- [115:06]
A
Yeah, I would probably give it a solid 8, maybe a gentleman's 8.5 on a good day. But, you know, I mean, I think this is one of the better best musical winners the last 20 years. I don't know if I would put it in the top five.
- [115:20]
B
Oh, no, I. I definitely wouldn't. But.
- [115:23]
A
Well, the last 20 years are the best musical winners starting, like from Hairspray onwards. I'm trying to think of what I would put in the top five best musical winners the last 20 years. I actually might because there are a lot of best musical winners I'm not obsessed with. But I have fun home. I have Hamilton. Probably would put Kimberly. I'd put up there. Strange loop. I would probably put up there. Although I found the Broadway production weaker than the playwrights version. But the playwrights version was just so great. And then I guess, and then I guess Hairspray Would that be five? Yeah, that'd be five. Jersey Boys would be a contender for that as well. Yeah. Hadestown. Ish. Hadestown Ish. Yeah. So I guess I don't think it would crack my top five, but it would definitely be in the top 10 of the last 20 years.
- [116:13]
B
Sure.
- [116:13]
A
Yeah.
- [116:14]
B
Yeah, I think that's fair.
- [116:15]
A
Yeah. But then you expanded the last 30 years and you're like, well, is it in the top 10? I don't know, last 40 years. But no, it's. It's a. It's a good show and there's a lot of stuff about it that is great. Obviously, it's held up in a lot of ways and some shows just like, have had that magic about them or like have hit or rather say have hit the lottery where it's. They become a tourist destination of New York, like a Wicked or a Phantom, where it's like, it goes beyond.
- [116:41]
B
I honestly have to say that that is the part that fascinates and surprises me a lot because I was like a thousand percent convinced when this was going through, its original Broadway cast, that it was going to be the same thing as the Producers, where the original two people leave and then it like kind of goes for like one or two more years and then shuts down. I just did not see it being the juggernaut that it has actually become.
- [117:08]
A
Yeah, I don't. I. I felt like it was going to do better than the Producers just because the Producers definitely marketed it around Matthew and Nathan, whereas Book of Mormon is more like. It's. It's the show itself and like, we're making stars out of this show. But no, I agree. I did not think that this show was going to run as long as it did. I did not think it was going to continue running all over the world for as long as it has. I thought it was, you know, gonna be minimum five, maximum eight years, which is huge for a lot of shows.
- [117:38]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [117:38]
A
Especially something like this.
- [117:39]
B
What's. It's like the 12th longest running show or something like that.
- [117:42]
A
Yeah, they just. It just surpassed Jersey Boys. And I mean, honestly, they've. I think they've got another couple of years in them. I don't think it's going to run forever, but it's like it's starting to show. It's where a little bit and just in returns of box office, but they are still running at a profit like 95% of the year.
- [118:02]
B
That's. I mean, like, they can. They can go for at least two, three more years. Do you Think Trey Parker, Matt Stone ever make another Broadway show?
- [118:13]
A
Maybe. They seem to really. I think they've gotten into a point of their lives because they're in their 50s now, late 50s, I want to say.
- [118:21]
B
Yeah, have to be. Yeah, yeah.
- [118:24]
A
They. I think they're at a point where, you know, when they're working, it's together and it's on something that they're either passionate about or comfortable with. And it seems that they have gotten very comfortable again with south park or like, they. They understand how it works. They're happy to do it. It's every week. It's part of a, you know, a long legacy. Once, you know, a musical is always its own thing. You know, people don't view a musical as part of a tapestry or part of a legacy until many years later when you can take a sort of a step back. And it's the same of, you know, any story of a minority.
- [119:02]
B
It's.
- [119:02]
A
I've said this a lot about queer stories. You know, the queer community used to champion any queer story that came out ever. And then, you know, wouldn't maybe criticize it until later, after. It's hopefully been a success. Now it's sort of like every queer story that comes out immediately gets scrutinized for not representing every single person in the community. And then it's not until, like five years later, the community sort of comes back and looks at it as part of a whole.
- [119:26]
B
Yeah, the reverse. Yeah, yeah.
- [119:29]
A
And I'm hoping that we've started. Get started to get better about that. But I mean, the same is true of musicals. And it's. It's entirely possible that they just have no desire to deal with that creative process again of like, oh, we need this to not be so heavily scrutinized on a first watch. We want it to be accepted, but that just means, like, more years of work and having to adhere to so many different kinds of critics. We just want to make our thing, and you can't really do that with a show. It's always sort of by a committee. And I think they really like to have control.
- [120:00]
B
Control, yeah. No, I can see that. That's good. That's kind of where I, err on the side of I don't think it's going to happen. I think this will be the one musical that they make, and if they do, if they do another musical, it'll be something that they have full control over. So whether it's a film, a TV special, an episode of south park, whatever it is, like, that's where it's going to happen.
- [120:21]
A
And it's a shame because I think Trey Parker understands the fundamentals of musical theater better than a lot of people and a lot of really amazing writers. Like, I adore Tina Fey and I think that 30 Rock is one of the greatest sitcoms of all time. I love obviously, the original Mean Girls. Watching the new Mean Girls as well as having seen a stage show. I think she has a reverence for musicals. I don't think she totally understands them, at least how to write one. And the songs in Mormon really help elevate the show. I think that the book on its own would be a very pleasant, quite funny, you know, 45 minute South park episode.
- [121:04]
B
Sure.
- [121:04]
A
If not necessarily like in their top 10. It would have been like a really solid one. The songs and how they're used elevate the whole thing, which is what a musical should do, you know? Yeah. Oh, something else that somebody wrote in and I wanted to mention it for a second because I was talking to a friend earlier today about it of just, in my opinion, the hilarity of this hypocrisy. Honestly, someone said, did Book of Mormon deserve to be the Scottsboro Boys at the Tony Awards?
- [121:39]
B
Now you fill me in with the Scottsboro Boys because I have no knowledge of it.
- [121:45]
A
You know of it though?
- [121:46]
B
I know of it, but I've never. I don't think I've listened to a single note from that score.
- [121:50]
A
The Scottsboro Boys is a beautiful musical written by Kander and EBB and what's his name, Mark Thompson, the. The book writer. He did. He co wrote the book to New York. New York, I'm pretty sure. But what's hilarious about the Scottsboro Boys now having this reputation of this underappreciated masterpiece that should have beat Book of Mormon at least for score, possibly even musical, is Scott's Row Boys was met with so much criticism when it opened. It was protested outside the theater and from people who had never seen the show. And David Thompson, that's his name, people who never were going to see the show. They openly said, we haven't seen it, we're never going to see it, but we're going to protest it anyway.
- [122:41]
B
Sorry. They were protesting the Scottsboro Boys.
- [122:43]
A
They were protesting the Scottsboro Boys.
- [122:45]
B
What's the subject matter? Why are they protesting it?
- [122:48]
A
It's based off of a true story of a group of black men who are on a train and were accused by two white women of having raped them and it wasn't true. And they were eventually executed. And the show, the. The structure of the show, the style of the show is that of a minstrel show.
- [123:09]
B
And I have a small recollection now of remembering, yes, the discussion about this.
- [123:15]
A
There's even. And there's a number where all the Scottsboro Boys are in blackface towards the end of this performative blackness for the audience. And it's not done in jest. It's done to make you uncomfortable. The whole show is kind of meant to make you uncomfortable. And it's very stylized and theatrical and people had issues a was just hearing that they were in blackface at one point. Never mind that that's something that George C. Wolfe has done many times with black characters, has, you know, put them in blackface for a purpose. There's even a Spike Lee movie called Bamboozled about black performers putting on blackface. And so there's. So, you know, it's. Obviously, it's a political messaging point for. For that. But then they also had objections that the story was being told in a minstrel style. They had objections that it was an all white creative team. And everyone feels differently about this. My viewpoint with any story, movie show, TV show book, is, you know, I want it to be good and I want it to be able to reach across the aisle to people who it's not necessarily about. So I've been very transparent about the place. Significant other. I do think it's a good play, but, like, I'm not gonna actually go out and argue its merits because it hits so close to home. I really have no objectivity about it.
- [124:39]
B
Sure.
- [124:41]
A
But also, like, I want queer stories that don't have to be written by queer people. I just want them to reach more than just my niche. That's how you make change and that's how you start discussions. And it's actually ironic to me that in the last 15 years, the stories of queer people. Actually, I'm going to save that for the Inheritance episode. That's the point I want to make about the Inheritance episode for that. For that problematicness. But with Scott's For Boys, that was. That was the controversy. And Book of Mormon comes out and gets all this praise for not only being transgressive, but also being funny and entertaining and having a message and. And getting conversations going and sweeps the Tonys. Scottsboro Boys win nothing. They'd already closed by that point. They lasted like a month. And then years later, the Scottsboro Boys gets this reputation of being this harrowing musical and heartbreaking and like, oh, my God, the, The places it goes and, like, if you're gonna be a white writer doing a show that's not about white people, like, this is the way to do it. Like, really, you know, use your. Use your privilege for good. And I'm like, where was this discussion when it came out? Yeah, it took. But it took that time. But in the same way, it took that time for people to sort of step back and have issues with Book of Mormon. It's just very fascinating to me that that narrative now trails the Book of Mormon with its Tony Award wins, where people go, well, did it really deserve to beat Scott's Row Boys? I was like, no one thought Scott's Row Boys was worth mentioning at the time.
- [126:11]
B
Right.
- [126:12]
A
I saw it. I loved it. I thought it was so wonderful. And I thought they at least deserved choreography, if not, you know, staging, direction. But there was no beating Mormon for direction, and there was no beating anything goes for choreography that year. But whatever. But no, it's. It's. It's just so fascinating to me how time works that way, you know?
- [126:36]
B
Yeah, it's. Yeah. I mean, we're in a world here where Merrily We Roll along is making over a million dollars a week, and I never thought that would ever happen in my life.
- [126:45]
A
Consist. Yeah. Consistently over a million and sometimes over two.
- [126:48]
B
Yeah, it's.
- [126:49]
A
And people saying that, like, well, now Merrily works. Still haven't seen this production. I hate to see it, so we can talk about it, but I just want to shout from the rooftops, merrily doesn't work, and it will never work. I'm sure I'm going to see this production and go, this is the best it has worked.
- [127:06]
B
Yeah. Yes. I mean, I've not actually seen this production either. I've seen the London production that it was a transfer of, basically. And I. That's how I come down on it. It's like, yeah, it works better than any other version I've seen. But the fundamental flaws are still there. Songs rip. They're great. But, I mean, the book is kind of a mess.
- [127:27]
A
Yeah. The songs have always ripped. They will always rip. And it's always unfair to any actress playing Beth to have to come out at the end of Act 1 and sell one of the biggest songs of the show for a character we've never seen.
- [127:38]
B
Never met yet.
- [127:39]
A
Yep. And she has to, like, carry all the weight of act one in that. All that weight of act two in that act one song. And it's an impossible task, and I feel sorry for any actress who has to play Beth. You are given an impossible task, my dear. That's right, yeah. Is there anything else we haven't really covered? I feel like there's so much we could cover and haven't, but also so many things that, you know, people don't want to hear or don't care about. I don't know. I feel like. Is there anything you want?
- [128:06]
B
I think we've hit everything that I wanted to bring up as far as, like, some of the major controversies. The casting. Yeah, just the. I do think that this is such a unique musical in that it continually goes against my expectations because I was like. When I heard this being announced, like, this is probably going to be really funny. I was pretty confident on that. But it's like, I don't think Broadway audiences are going to like this. And then they really loved it. And it's like, okay, it's been nominated for some Tonys, but it's not going to win them. And then it wins them. It's like, okay, well, it's probably going to run for a couple of years and then close, and then it doesn't. And so it's like. I don't know. Like, I just don't know where I'm at with this show anymore, because every time I think it's like, okay, well, this is the end of the road for it, it kind of gets like a second wind or, like, it has way more success than I think it was going to. So I think that means it's not just a flash in the pan. There's something that does bring people back to see this. It encourages people to see it again and again and encourages new people to come in and see it. And I'm wondering if it's just like one of those Halo effects. It's the show that brings people into Broadway and makes them go and see other stuff. I. There's no way for me to quantify that, but I'm wondering if that is true for a lot of people. And I think it's going to continue to be reevaluated. I think that in another five years, it's probably gonna be looked at differently again. But I do think. Here's my last movie reference I'm gonna do. Have you seen the American Fiction? Which.
- [129:33]
A
Oh, yeah.
- [129:34]
B
Which just came out. Did you like it?
- [129:36]
A
Oh, yeah.
- [129:37]
B
Okay. I really liked it, too. But there's a great, great moment that happens in there where these three Wright writers are talking to these two black white writers, and it's like, well, you have to listen to black voices, like, talking down to these two Black writers. It's such a great point. So, I mean, and I bring that up, it's like, if black creatives and actors and actresses are saying, like, hey, I had a great time and it works for me, and I don't find this offensive, how much do they have to say that before people are like, okay, then I guess this isn't as offensive as what I'm trying to make it to be.
- [130:10]
A
Yeah, well, I think that's the thing is people want to listen to the voices that line up with their way of thinking. Because there are black voices who say, no, I see what Book of Mormon is doing, and I think they do it brilliantly. And then there are black voices that go, absolutely not. And then there are white voices who. Who are the same. And it's why it's always a conversation. It's never a verdict. And I think what the scene that Kyle is mentioning in American fiction, which, you know, if you haven't seen, it's. I know it's still kind of limited, but go see it. It is quite fantastic. The basic principle, the gist being that Jeffrey Wright writes this book to mock all of the white publishers who capitalize on books that are just glorifying black trauma and. And what he considers to be denigrating to black people. And it ends up becoming this big, big bestseller, and the book ends up being up for this big prize of which there are five judges, and three of them are white, two of them are black, and they're counting down the top 10, figuring out what the winner is. And the three white judges are like, I think it's this book. And the two black judges are like, I know. I don't. I hate this book. I think it's terrible. And because the. It's three votes to two that the book wins. And as Kyle said, one of the white judges goes, I just think it's important that we listen to black voices. You know, meanwhile, they fully just, like, shut down the two black voices in the room. And I think that that is. I think that's. Without making it a huge thing. That is a major issue with, you know, everywhere but Broadway right now in particular. And it's not just black voices. It's queer voices, disabled voices, female voices, but also just knowing that, like, one person doesn't represent an entire group. If you're looking for an answer, you can find anyone who to give you the answer you want. But if you want to make something better, if you're looking for some more perspectives, that's, you know, you gotta. You Gotta listen, you gotta take it in. And one of the best pieces of advice I ever got from a writer for a work of my own was like, all notes are just someone's perspective on your work. It doesn't mean that it's a better idea. If you can defend something against a note, that's great. But when someone gives you a criticism and you can't think of a defense, that's when you kind of have to take it and, and, and stew on it a bit because then there might be something there.
- [132:44]
B
All of that being said and talking about, like, inclusion and like, different voices and Broadway's issue of still being primarily, like, white creators with white actors and white producers and all that kind of stuff, I would love there to be a show that was like, the response to Book of Mormon, like, center it in the actual. Oh, yeah, village that's in Uganda or something. Like, to have. Have there be the alternate outlook on this sort of thing. Like, I would find that imminently fascinating and I don't know how to answer those people, but do the Jeffrey Wright.
- [133:22]
A
In American fiction and like, and write your counter. I mean, we talked about that in the Miss Saigon episode there. The number of works from Asian artists that came as a response to Miss Saigon, whether positive or negative, you know, those stories are now out there. Those works are forever in the canon. And I would like to see that. Yeah, I mean, I'm just always a champion of more. More is more. More works all the time. More stories all the time. You know, get them out there, make them better, make them amazing. And then just have it be part of the tapestry, part of the legacy of theater. Have there been any shows that have been, like, direct responses to this one? I'm not sure that there have been.
- [134:03]
B
Maybe someone can write in and. And there's an obvious one that I'm not thinking of. I. I'm not aware of one. At least not in the same vein as being like, gosh, like, there being responses to the King and I, for instance. Like, I can point to shows or basically, like, responses to the King and I or even like A Strange Loop is a great example of being a response to like, Tyler Perry and some of those other shows and stuff like that. Or of the difficulty of like, black creators kind of try and break through on Broadway sort of thing in a more generalized way. But yeah, I would love to see something that was more specifically like where the anti Mormon. I don't know.
- [134:42]
A
No, it would be fun. It would be fun to see. I just. Yeah, I don't know, I hear a lot of complaints, and I think some of them are valid, and then some. I'm like, I don't. I think you're blatantly misinterpreting when I say that.
- [134:53]
B
Like, I was going to bring this up before, and then I forgot about, but I'll bring it up now. I think a lot of that is the social media problem, which is like. Like, you have to have the most extreme opinion rather than just an opinion. So instead of saying, like, hey, here's some actual things that we can criticize about this show that we brought up in this episode, it has to be, this is the worst thing of all time, and it's terrible, and it should be shut down tomorrow. Like, there's no nuance in that position.
- [135:18]
A
Yeah. And also because a lot of criticism then comes from the point of view of, here's why I'm right. Here's what I know. Here's what I'm teaching you all. Now get on my level, which is its own form of condescension. I'm like, do you actually want to talk about it? Do you want to bring up, like, a point? Or do you want to just be right? And I. It's. It just bugs me all the time when I state my opinions. I'm always very open that it's like, it's my opinion, and I try to back it up with all the, you know, thinkings, all the time that I spent thinking about it and absorbing and trying to come from as many angles as I could. And I love being challenged because it helps me either strengthen my opinion or maybe tweaks my opinion. But when. When people just come at you with fire and. And just absolutism and superiority, it turns me off, and I'm like, well, now I can't have a conversation with you.
- [136:21]
B
Right, right, right.
- [136:21]
A
Yeah. And I think a lot of online criticism, because there's only so much space you have, everything gets boiled down to, you know, a selling point. And I. I know I said this on an episode. I think I said it on. In the Heights, where I said, like, brevity may be the soul of wit, but it's not the soul of insight.
- [136:41]
B
You sure?
- [136:42]
A
Yeah, There's. There's. There's nuances to everything, and something can have problems in it being problematic while also having a lot of merit. And you have to ask yourself, like, is what makes this thing problematic something that's just in the bones of the writing? Is it just how we've progressed? Because that's, again, what Happens with a lot of comedy. Sometimes the world just starts spinning forward in a way where what was funny 20 years ago isn't funny anymore. Whether it's that it's passe or it's now, like, we've actually gotten worse. And therefore, like, what used to be so extreme and ridiculous is far too realistic. And it's interesting to some for someone to know. Like, you know, at some point you got to say, like, I don't think that there's space in the world for this show anymore. Even if it's still making money. Like, culturally speaking, it's not contributing anymore. It's actually doing harm. But it's so hard to walk away from making money.
- [137:37]
B
Yeah. At the end of the day, we. This is still a capitalistic society. So, I mean, and it's a show that. And it's a show that provides a bunch of people.
- [137:44]
A
Yeah, a bunch of people all the time. And the number of people I know who have been able to make their own art because they lived on Book of Mormon money for years is a lot. It's a lot of people. And ultimately that can make good as well. But, you know, you don't know the impact until you step back sometime later and see it all. It's why so many movies are told from flashback perspectives. Don't you. Don't you agree?
- [138:13]
B
Right. This happened a long time ago. So I'm.
- [138:17]
A
Yeah. That's why half of Oppenheimer is technically flashback with Robert Downey Jr. See, you. You stop the movies. But I'm going to continue with the movies.
- [138:23]
B
That's right. Well, that's all right. I mean. Yeah. I do think that I'll just reiterate my last point here, which is that I think that this is a show that will continue to be reevaluated, so it'll be interesting to see. And then in the next five years where. Where everyone falls on it.
- [138:42]
A
Yeah. You know, it's not going to be reevaluated. Kyle, this podcast, it's.
- [138:46]
B
Okay.
- [138:47]
A
Well, people are gonna get all they want from it in the moment and then forget about it forever. And I will be in the dustbin of theatrical history shortly. Kyle, this has been lovely. Where can people find you if you want them to find you?
- [139:02]
B
Honestly, the. Probably the best way you can find at Sondheim Podcast on Instagram and. Or Twitter. I still call it Twitter. And then I'm at the Kyle Marshall. I'm pretty much every social media platform, and it depends on how depressed I am on whether I'm posting anything. So but that's where you'll find me if you want to find me.
- [139:25]
A
If you want to find me, I'm at Matt Koplik on Instagram. Usual spelling. If you like the podcast, you can give us a nice 5 star rating or review. Haven't gotten any since the Miss Saigon one, but to be fair, I only recorded that about a week or so ago, so there's still time for y' all to write in some reviews. You can also listen to Kyle's podcast, Putting it Together. It's a great podcast, very insightful. You're still heavily in into the woods land, correct?
- [139:51]
B
Yeah, we are finishing up act one here in, like, the next couple weeks.
- [139:55]
A
Yes, yes, yes, yes. Was this the week we're recording? Was this week Stay with Me or was that last week?
- [140:00]
B
Yes, this week was Stay with Me.
- [140:02]
A
Fantastic. If you're wondering where I am in the into the Wit series, y' all, don't fret. I know. I'm coming.
- [140:08]
B
You're coming up. It's just like. Yeah, there's like three, four more episodes I think I have to record before. Yeah, I sent out the invites.
- [140:14]
A
I'm. I'm. I'm very pumped for the song that I'll be doing with Kyle. The problem is this is where I didn't think, because into the woods famously has a million songs.
- [140:24]
B
A million of them.
- [140:25]
A
A million of them.
- [140:26]
B
You asked for this song, like, it's probably four or five months ago. I'm like, well, have fun in eight months when I get to literally, I.
- [140:32]
A
Kyle said, okay, into the Woods. What do you want? I said, I mean, ultimately, if no one's picked it, I would like this one. He goes, you're aware that's like, towards the end of the show when I have a million episodes to do. This is great. I'll see you around your birthday. So, yeah, basically, yes. I didn't realize that at the time. And I remember sort of laughing it off. And then around October, I was like, oh, he was serious. It's like, I really have to wait forever, but it'll be fun. People will eagerly anticipate our reunion.
- [140:58]
B
Yeah, it'll be fun. It'll be great.
- [141:00]
A
He's so excited. All right, so that's it for now. Kyle, what diva do you want us to close out with today for Book of Mormon?
- [141:05]
B
Oh, well. Oh, I'm going to totally blank on her name, too. Who played Cartman's mother on South Park? The actresses who passed away very tragically. But, yeah, well, that was.
- [141:23]
A
Yeah, the first woman who played her because it's someone else now. You want me. Why do you want me to play.
- [141:31]
B
Cartman's mom or something like that?
- [141:34]
A
Well, because she also does all the female voices before she passed. So we could just do Blame Canada.
- [141:40]
B
Oh, yeah, do Blame Canada. Do that one.
- [141:43]
A
Mary Kay Bergman. That's your name.
- [141:45]
B
I was like, it's a three word name. And I couldn't.
- [141:47]
A
Yeah, so I guess we'll do that. We'll do Mary Kay Bergman singing Blame Canada. That'll be. That'll be our close out. Okay, well, thank you so much for listening, guys. After this episode, we will take a brief hiatus. Only two or three weeks, and then we will be back. Don't you worry. And we'll see you then. So have a good rest of your couple of weeks, guys. Take it away, Cartman and Kyle's mom. Bye. Don't blame me for my son Stan he saw the darn cartoon and now he's off to join the clan and my boy Eric once had my picture on his shelf but now when I see him he tells me to fuck myself well, blame Canada, Blame Canada it seems that everything's gone wrong Since Canada came along Blame Canada, Blame Canada they're not even a real country anyway My son could have been a doctor or a lawyer Rich and true.