I Could Do This All Day!

July 6, 2023 10:08 AM

If you watched the TV series Hawkeye, you might remember Rogers: The Musical [4m30s]. If this whet your appetite for show tunes and superheroes, then Marvel has done right by you. [That Captain America musical from Hawkeye is becoming a real stage show, AV Club] Here is Rogers: The Musical in full [32m, , quality audience recording, ancillary material before timestamp and after performance]. The power of Disney knows no limits.

The plot, which is admittedly light, might be nearly incomprehensible if you don't know this phase of Marvel, but it's a lot more singing and dancing than any other superhero musical that doesn't involve death-defying wire work.

posted by hippybear (14 comments total)

....And they say theater is dead.

(Actually, maybe....)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:17 AM on July 6, 2023 [2 favorites]

any other superhero musical that doesn't involve death-defying wire work.

ISWYDT

🕷️
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:10 AM on July 6, 2023 [3 favorites]

Yeah. Hard pass.
posted by Billiken at 11:13 AM on July 6, 2023

I feel like they forgot that the whole joke in Hawkeye was that this was a total travesty of the actual events that Clint fought and suffered through as the lone normal human in a team of superhumans, which were also the prelude to him losing his whole family for five years during the Blip. And on top of that it was also kind of a sucky musical?
posted by Strange Interlude at 11:23 AM on July 6, 2023 [6 favorites]

...Yeah, that's the joke, I think.

I thought it was a lot of fun. It almost makes me want to go to Disneyland in the heat and crowds of summer, except I still don't have any desire to actually travel these days. I'm glad people put it online so I don't have to.
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:24 AM on July 6, 2023 [1 favorite]

This such outstandingly executed intentional badness, it ends up being kinda enjoyable.
posted by LooseFilter at 11:42 AM on July 6, 2023 [2 favorites]

Like, this is what happens when people who are really really good at their jobs decide to make all the bad, cheesy, easy choices they've worked so hard to learn to avoid in their best creative and performance work. You have to be pretty great at what you do to be this thoroughly, intentionally terrible and banal.
posted by LooseFilter at 11:48 AM on July 6, 2023 [8 favorites]

This is honestly in the parks’ sweet spot. One of the best “little kid” things for years was the princess theater, which did amazing sped-up tounge in cheek vaudville-style 30 minute plays. Just hope everyone is getting paid well.
posted by q*ben at 11:50 AM on July 6, 2023 [2 favorites]

We watched Hawkeye, which like most post-Endgame Marvel content was competent but uninspiring, but then we all fell off our chairs laughing at "Rogers: the Musical", and watched it over several times to catch all the details. I'd totally pay to see the whole thing.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 11:53 AM on July 6, 2023 [1 favorite]

but "I could do this all day!" is a line from Dorian in Dragon Age: Inquisition. With a delighted laugh, while twirling his necromancy staff and smacking evil from the fade.
posted by seanmpuckett at 12:13 PM on July 6, 2023

but "I could do this all day!" is a line from Dorian in Dragon Age: Inquisition

Sure, it's a line from a 2014 video game, a 2011 Captain America movie, it's not such a staggeringly unique set of words that no one conceived it before.
posted by Superilla at 12:21 PM on July 6, 2023

A lot of the musical is actually good. The Andrews Sisters' group that starts the thing off is really solid, and I think there's a trope where pre-serum Steve is talking to post-serum Steve? which is also a solid thing to have happen on stage. I've watched the thing 3 times and still have no idea what the plot actually is.

But I have to talk about Save The City. This song, it HAS to be, as LooseFilter suggests, really talented people creating absolute schlock on purpose. The chorus has a melody that hovers around the 3rd of the chord. That's a Broadway musical thing that might have started with Rent or maybe even Schwartz musicals earlier, but it's a way that melodies imply that something more is going to happen. It doesn't resolve to the 1, it just hovers there right above.

By contrast, you can think of the songs of Duran Duran, where Simon Le Bon tends to write melodies that hover around the 5th of the chord, which actually has a sensation of urgency in how the line ends.

Anyway, Save The City is like a zillion of these little cliches all rolled up into one awful song. It's terribly catchy, which makes it even worse because it doesn't have a good melody to have caught in your brain.

If you went to an old school Disney musical with music by the Sherman brothers, I mean, THOSE were songs you actually enjoyed having in your brains. Spoonful Of Sugar is a really great example. That's actually a fun brainworm to have.

But Save The City? The melody in the hook is three notes. And they change keys. And the three notes again. But fuck, it's catchy.

Anyway, this is such a strange little cultural artifact. I'm completely fascinated by how bad and brilliant it is.
posted by hippybear at 12:37 PM on July 6, 2023 [5 favorites]

The opening number clearly aims for Andrews Sisters, but actually lands at Christina Aguilera pastiching the Andrews Sisters, i.e., "Candyman." Like, change the words, and it's the same song. The Andrews, presumably "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy"?, sounded less like the opening number than intended, although the signifiers here and in the Aguilera video point to them.
posted by the sobsister at 2:54 PM on July 6, 2023

I dunno about anyone else, but regardless of the quality of the production which I'm not at all qualified to speak on, I have a couple thoughts after watching that:

1) I'm glad they made casting choices that seemed color-agnostic, if not color-blind. The supporting actors/dancers/singers were a good mix. And sure, Rogers was always going to be a white dude, but a black Loki with the cane and top hat was fantastic.

2) The guy playing Nick Fury was having a great time, and I was here for it.

These tiny musicals aren't supposed to be high quality musical theater, they're supposed to be an entertaining side diversion. A way to have a bit of fun and spend a half-hour cooling off after wandering around in the California heat. I think they succeeded very well.
posted by sharp pointy objects at 8:30 AM on July 7, 2023 [1 favorite]