Why the SpongeBob Musical is Really Good

funding for shaperless is provided by skillshare the sponsor of today's video oh i don't want to review shrek the musical today it's so bad let's review good musical instead tell you what i'll review the musical that aligns the closest to what mario screams when he gets hit in mario kart wii let's listen doesn't it sound like he says spongebob discuss anyway i just do what the mario says spongebob the musical it is this show took theater kids everywhere by storm and even got pretty good reviews from the stuffy broadway elite and as someone who falls somewhere in between excitable theater kid and stuffy broadway elite yeah i like this show it captures the energy of the original series so expertly and translates it into live-action form way better than i expected it to i think now is a great time to talk about what makes it so enjoyable since in five years everyone's gonna be sick of it when it gets performed by every damn high school in the country so let's get it started here's why the spongebob musical is really good and stuff [Music] spongebob is fairly unique as far as musicals go most of the time the songs are written by one person or a small group of people in a musical as a result these composers get to make their unified vision for the show's music a reality whether that be giving certain characters recurring light motifs over the course of the show developing reprises for certain songs and so on and so forth if you want your show's music to feel unified and cohesive it only makes sense to get one person or team to do every song in the show not every show is like this for instance if you want your show to consist of popular music that barely fits the context of each scene you can make a jukebox musical whatever i don't like jukebox musicals but you do you but like these are really the only two sorts of musicals we see original songs all written by one person or a small group of people or pre-existing songs that you plug into your show spongebob defies both of these ideas and goes for the ballsiest possible option it's all original music saved for a few songs lifted from the cartoon however every one of these original songs is written by a different composer if a regular musical is a youtube poop spongebob is a youtube poop collab they got so many artists to contribute their own unique musical styles to one song each then they strung it all together into one show that sounds like a disaster not only do you have a show with no consistent light motifs or musical ideas tied to each character but you also have such distinct and dissonant artists like t.i panic at the disco yolanda adams steven tyler and joe perry sara bareilles and more how are you going to make all these different artists come together and form a cohesive musical out of it i don't know man but they did it a lot of the credit goes to tom kitt who co-wrote one of the best musicals of all time next to normal so he's good he wrote the additional music arrangements and orchestrations for the show and it's in no small part due to his efforts the show flows as well as it does musically on top of that the songs that were written for the show are just flat out bangers the variation in the contributing artist means that each new song feels entirely fresh from the last there's so many great genres and musical styles covered the opening number bikini bottom day is his broadway opening number ask as they come it just puts you in this great mood going into the show and meeting all the characters it was written by jonathan colton you know the guy who wrote still alive and want you gone he's good at making music bff by the plane yt's is just such a happy joyous number when the going gets tough by ti is a fantastic rap number for plankton though i don't really like the version from the pro shot it sounds better on the soundtrack but i digress super sea star savior by yolanda adams might be my favorite in the whole show just this amazing gospel song where patrick gets worshipped by a random cult i guess i miss you by john legend gives off all the feels and oh my god i'm not a loser the big squidward showstopper we waited our entire lives for they might be giants knock this one out of the park there's only really three songs in the show i either don't care for or don't think fit the tone very well no control by david bowie is catchy but a weird addition tonally especially as the second song it makes sense within the plot but it just doesn't fit as is in the show chopped to the top by lady antebellum is okay but mostly just unnecessary filler and then there's poor pirates by sarah bareilles good idea for a song but i just don't care for it it's not particularly good music wise and feels like a waste of time wow james seems like you don't like this or our lady of the underground do you like any of the act 2 openers yes i do idiot letters from natasha pierre in the great common of 1812 the best act 2 opener ever look it up but yeah i like the vast majority of songs in the show they generally range from good to amazing plus it's amazing that they work this well together at all the show is mostly so cohesive and while it's easy to tell that different artists wrote the songs they nonetheless fit within the story and mostly don't feel out of place and their bops can't forget i kind of wish spongebob won the tony award for best score only because they'd have to give out like 20 different awards for this one category and every recipient would get a tony just for writing one song it would have been funny but there's one last song we have to talk about best day ever and when talking about this song we have to address the sea rhinoceros in the room yes this project was being produced during the 2010s and it first released in 2016. long after the golden age of spongebob that ended with the first movie yes best day ever was not a good episode of spongebob even by post-movie spongebob standards hell the song isn't even anything that special but by god they make it work in this musical it actually made me cry a little bit you guys it's just this tremendous burst of positivity and a dark story moment and the way it builds from a spongebob solo to including a couple more people to the entire ensemble it's actually fantastic i think it's worth putting spongebob elitism aside and realizing that this was the best possible song from the show to adapt into the musical obviously the show had a ton of bangers but nothing that quite worked for the context of the musical story well kinda i still think that instead of the song john legend wrote spongebob and patrick could have gotten away with singing a modified version of this kitchen's not the same without you i'm only half joking truth be told i admire how this musical doesn't lean too heavily on nostalgia and only resorts to the show's music with this song which was a perfect choice oh and they sing the theme song during the curtain call which like how could they not it's a perfect little bonus wow i had more to say about the songs than i expected how about those sets though [Applause] the miraculous thing about the spongebob musical is that we can actually watch it nickelodeon aired a special presentation of it in 2019 a year after it closed hey broadway normalize releasing pro shots of musicals especially after their run on broadway is finished and you literally only have money to gain from doing so anyway we can see spongebob in all its hd non-slime tutorial glory and it looks tremendous you wanna see from a cluster of kelp made out of pool noodles to some coral resting on some old blue oil cans to a treacherous mountain made out of cardboard boxes the whole show has this diy theater aesthetic that feels incredibly creative and never comes across as cheap it echoes how bikini bottom in the show is made out of random objects like pineapples and buckets and lobster traps the sets here are just filled with so much imagination there's a lot of cool diorama work in certain scenes some classic title cards and backgrounds stretchy arms this amazing versatile sofa during the bff song oh my god it's so good this show goes all out on the scenic design which it won a tony for should have gotten costumes too because they're wildly creative and they feel like a natural extension of the set from squidward's extra legs then he miraculously manages to tap dance in to mr krabs big meaty claws to plankton doing his best goro majima cosplay to everyone else in the ensemble they seriously did not need to go this hard on the visual presentation of the show but they did it anyway so all the props to david zinn for designing all this and of course to the director tina landau not only for her work in developing the look of the show but also the feel this musical feels like a live action cartoon as it should everyone moves and interacts in an exaggerated way and they never stop to question the kookiness around them the fourth wall is nice and loose so many moments of motion are punctuated with sound effects including the iconic walking noises of spongebob squidward and mr crap all these touches are absolutely endearing and make for such a colorful visually and audibly stimulating experience tragically i never saw this show live but i have friends who have and they told me just how cool and immersive it was thanks in no small parts of the excellent sets and costumes i mean they made a flat version of old man jenkins for when he gets crushed by a boulder now that's a spicy good set piece but all this set decoration is enhanced even more by sick characters and this story and other nautical nonsense [Music] one of my favorite aspects of this musical is the way the characters are interpreted the actors were specifically instructed not to do impressions of the characters as they are in the show but rather to make them their own and i think this technique really paid off particularly with ethan slater as spongebob god what a perfect embodiment of character he feels young overwhelmingly bubbly and positive and a little bit naive honestly it's such a captivating performance that 100 deserve to tony and i will die but you know the band's visit was good too i hear so okay sure but come on though look at this lad he's so good anyway though the rest of the cast is excellent too but i specifically want to highlight the roles each character plays in the story spongebob's arc in the musical is admittedly very similar to that of the first movie he wants to be manager and break away from being called a simple sponge like how he didn't want to be called a kid it's familiar but it works and it's not the primary focus most importantly the main plot is different enough basically in this musical a giant volcano is going to erupt and kill everyone unless spongebob patrick and sandy can stop it using sandy's invention the erupter interrupter do you do you got what she did there she did like a thing the ingenious bubble device don't touch the plot is high stakes and different enough from all the show specials that it works really well and it lets us spend more time with spongebob patrick and sandy as a trio which we don't get often enough most of the time it's always spongebob and patrick on another whirlwind adventure the movie is one big grand journey for spongebob and patrick while sandy gets like two lines i think that's kind of lame sure with the movie adding sandy to the journey doesn't really fit since it's all about spongebob and patrick coming to terms with the fact that they like childish things and that it's okay to do so and this doesn't apply to sandy plus when they get to shell city it's not like sandy is gonna have a near-death experience because land this is where she thrives so whatever due to these circumstances she's sadly not important to spongebob's big first movie the musical takes the opposite approach it does sandy so right in a way that the show rarely does she's pivotal to inventing the solution that will stop the volcano and accompanying spongebob on the journey to save bikini bottom plus the user character is a way to combat bigotry and prejudice which yeah makes perfect sense sandy is a land mammal living among sea creatures and these simple fish folk are probably prone to lash out at an outsider in times of crisis is any of this subtle the mayor said she'll handle it and everyone knows you can always trust the government oh god no it's a pretty pointed and blatant rebuttal of the u.s administration at the time and it does come across as pretty heavy-handed but i don't know man it's a good message regardless about how we should avoid prejudices and accept our differences and in 10 years it'll probably feel less preachy while still being relevant and important the idea that sandy is an outsider to fish society was really only explored once in pre-movie spongebob in the episode squirrel jokes i think that's a solid deconstruction of how edgy or racist comedy can warp people's perceptions over time and how it's not quite as harmless as many people want to believe that episode didn't really feel like it was pushing an agenda in the same way sandy's plot in the musical does but it's not a bad agenda to be pushed i think the musical did sandy well and made her character feel like more of a main character than the show does patrick is a goofy sidekick as always before he breaks up a spongebob to go lead a random cult that worships him that kind of sprung up out of nowhere i don't get it and they don't really go anywhere with this cult but it's kind of fun the song is incredible and above all patrick doesn't feel like a huge selfish jerk which is a pitfall modern spongebob tends to fall into a lot he just feels misguided and gets taken in by this cult appreciating his divine wisdom so it's hard to hate him here mr krabs is another character that can go south real quick if you play up his money obsession too heavily but i think they struck a great balance he does sort of learn to appreciate his daughter pearl over his money and i enjoy their song a lot they totally nailed plankton from his extreme pettiness to this weird yet hilarious sexual tension between him and karen it's not weird that the actor isn't tiny either you understand that the characters see him as tiny while you kind of forget that as you watch big plankton on stage his size doesn't matter the character is still embodied tremendously well squidward standing on the sidelines the entire show waiting for his big break only to get one fantastic showstopping act 2 number perfect absolutely amazing i didn't need him to join spongebob on this epic journey i needed the most likely to love broadway spongebob character to get his big incredible broadway moment even if it was all in his head and bro that moment when everyone stopped singing the best day ever and they all wait on squidward to continue the number and he actually does love that [ __ ] bro i'm so glad they put it in and mrs puff is a heavy drinker which yeah i can totally see that overall the characters are extremely faithful and the story is a pretty good one though i think what holds the show back a bit is the way the story is paced spongebob resolves to prove that he's not a simple sponge and save everyone from the volcano in the middle of act one and then he just doesn't start the journey till act two first we gotta have mr krabs and pearl's number another song about resolving to save the town with patrick and sandy this time the aforementioned patrick star colt song and an act one closer about what's going to happen tomorrow with this volcano threat bro you could have just stopped the volcano today i guess sandy needed time to build her invention but i don't know just write that out get the journey going sooner since the back half of act 1 while fun feels like we're just waiting for the main plot to start this structural issue is my biggest problem with the musical and i don't think it would have been too difficult to fix it all the songs could stay where they are just start to trek up the volcano after hero is my middle name and make plankton more of an active threat also the show could have been funnier especially considering it derives from what was formerly one of the funniest cartoons ever a lot of the jokes feel like season 4 spongebob not bad but not incredible like the first three seasons also also i am immensely disappointed that they never made a we should take bikini bottom and push it somewhere else reference when discussing what to do about the volcano with that said however there's a whole lot of great fan service in this show tasteful not excessive not in your face fan service let us discuss that now [Music] spongebob's very first line in the musical is good morning world and all who inhabit it and as soon as he said that i knew i was in for a great time this musical sprinkles in a ton of great classic lines from the first three seasons of the show in ways that fit in naturally and don't feel overly frequent it knows exactly what kind of fan service we want but also knows how to be restrained when delivering it mr krabs and plankton swear each other using dolphin noises you know the same ones i use when i say stuff like [ __ ] top knocker there's a my leg joke at one point patrick asks if mayonnaise is an instrument plankton admires a lemon-scented plan of his and there's a few other references here and there you can discover for yourself lines like these really give off the sense that the creators cared about us classic fans of spongebob and it's much appreciated now tom kenny pre-recorded lines as the french narrator for the broadway show but in the filmed version that aired on nickelodeon they actually got him to appear as patchy the pirate i just think that's really cool seeing him live on stage performing it warms my heart a little bit i don't know man i got a little emotional watching this show not just because of the show itself but more so cause of what it represents i mean we all love spongebob and when you see a live action adaptation get everything so right in terms of adapting the original animated series it just makes you so happy because this just doesn't happen live action remakes usually suck the joy and life out of everything they turn classic expressive disney movies into drab poorly filmed sometimes horrifying exercises in boredom they turn perfectly plotted epics like avatar the last airbender into embarrassing tonally flat nightmares they turn a brilliant subversion of the disney formula like shrek into a boring basic wannabe disney show that misses the entire [ __ ] point of the original film spongebob the musical is not like that not only does it benefit from a brand new story that only adapts the original show's characters thus allowing for better tailoring to a musical format but it goes all out in establishing a gorgeous colorful wonderland that emulates the original show while remaining its own thing it embodies the energy of cartoons better than any live action musical i've ever seen is it the deepest or the funniest musical out there no but it doesn't need to be it's a more than worthy expansion the spongebob is a franchise i mean it is a lot better than almost everything spongebob related that came out after the first movie and i'm more than thrilled about that if you dismissed this when it came out because live action remake of something nostalgic equals bad give it another chance this is a great show with a brilliant vision and it's easily accessible for you to watch right now hell even if you're not into musicals i think this is still worth a watch because of how cartoony it is it's not hard to suspend your disbelief at all and believe these characters are breaking out in the song maybe the show will even help you get into musicals who knows it's a great introduction to all that the medium has to offer plus it has these iconic characters you know and love basically everyone should watch it and don't watch shrek the musical it will suck your soul out and leave your empty husk behind to be picked at by buzzards i know from experience good night bikini bottom actually before i say good night for realsies i just want to admire how skilled sandy is at karate and building inventions that prevent volcanoes from erupting do you want to become as skilled as sandy of course you do who wouldn't a good way to start getting there is with skillshare skillshare is an online learning community with thousands of inspiring classes for creative and curious people with topics like illustration music production film and video and much more you could explore new skills deepen existing passions and get lost in creativity this is a site that legitimately makes learning new skills fun and easy since the lessons are broken up into short chunks that you can watch at your own pace it's so engaging as a result with skillshare you can find inspiration in the moment and learn how to express your creativity right now i'm really enjoying animating with ease in after effects by jake bartlett as someone who hosted a reanimated collab despite having no knowledge of how to animate i kinda wanted to learn that and this class makes learning after effects fun and easy it's a great course for beginner and pro animators alike on how to use this software efficiently and effectively skillshare is curated specifically for learning meaning there are no ads and they're always launching new premium classes so you can stay focused and follow wherever your creativity takes you and it's less than ten dollars a month with an annual subscription plus the first thousand of my subscribers to click the link in the description will get a free trial of premium membership so you can explore your creativity click that link in the description before all the spots are gone and enjoy this incredible supply of free knowledge [Music] me [Music]

Channel: Schaffrillas Productions

Views: 909,390

Keywords: Schaffrillas Productions, SpongeBob, SpongeBob the Musical

Id: -fdKO1pA8DE

Length: 20min 26sec (1226 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 14 2021