Why Twisted is an Unexpected Masterpiece

funding for shaperless is provided by squarespace the sponsor of today's video from websites and online stores to marketing tools and analytics squarespace is the all-in-one platform to build a beautiful online presence and run your business once upon a time in the far away land of michigan there was a group of university students who made a parody musical of harry potter inventing the character in the process much like how hatsune miku invented minecraft these students would then form starkid productions an organization dedicated to making musicals that delivered the 2ds delightfulness and dick jokes she sure do have a ball hey be careful with that joke it's an antique their hilarious musical parodies spread all across the internet delighting audiences everywhere however it wasn't until their seventh musical when they would create what is widely considered to be their magnum opus this is that story the untold story of a royal vizier so after getting yelled at by many commenters to watch the starkid musicals i finally did so over the course of last year and yeah i love these things many of them are legitimately some of the funniest theatrical productions i've ever watched as hidden funnier than actual musical comedies that have been on broadway team starkid absolutely has a gift for comedy writing their shows are hilariously crass and delightfully absurd even when they're not doing a parody show their comedy writing is still strong enough to carry the musical and that's good because and i feel really bad saying this but i'm usually not the biggest fan of the music in these shows like the songs are never bad but usually i don't find them all that memorable there are plenty of exceptions here and there like going back to hogwarts or kick it up a notch or when the world's at stake but i always feel weird when people gush about star kids songs as much as the comedic bits i'm super happy that people love these songs and find them memorable and i really wish i did too star kick clearly has a lot of talented songwriters i just never really have their songs sticking out of my mind that much another thing with starkid is that it's very rare that i get emotional during one of their shows which is okay because a lot of them are musical parodies and they succeed at their primary goal of making me laugh their more recent shows aren't parodies and they have decent emotional moments but nothing that's ever hit me extremely hard nothing has ever made me cry but what if they could what if starkid productions could make an absolute banger of a show that ties together clever parody countless hysterical moments fantastic and memorable songs and a deceptively strong emotional core well as you can probably tell since you clicked on this video they did it's called twisted the most universally beloved starkid show of them all ask any starkid fan what their top three favorite starkid shows are and there's an incredibly high probability that this is one of them hell it's probably ranked at number one for them twisted is peak starkid everything great about the studio operating at its full capacity not only is this my favorite star kid show but after thinking about it it's probably one of my favorite musicals in general and dare i say it's legitimately a better and more investing piece of art than both wicked and aladdin i'm not memeing you i'm not exaggerating or stretching at all here it really is that good there's no law that says a fake can't surpass the original so let's get into why because i'm sure those of you who haven't seen it before don't believe me before we get into it though i just want to warn you that i'm going to be spoiling the entirety of this musical if you haven't seen it yet it's available for free on youtube and it's well worth your time to check out before watching the rest of this video or if you don't care about spoilers oh well you've been warned anyway let's get into it starting with what i like about twisted story is that there's so many layers to both the story and the parody angle it goes so far beyond the basic premise of wicked but with the aladdin characters it's both interesting and funny to see jafar portrayed as a well-meaning but ineffectual royal vizier while aladdin is portrayed as a sleazeball and the true villain of the story but again claiming that the hero is the villain and the villain is the hero isn't enough on its own to sustain an entire parody show so twisted goes deeper recontextualizing agrabah as the magic kingdom itself and explaining that after two golden ages filled with prosperous art the kingdom lost its way and is no longer dedicated to duty and devotion the 2d the musical takes jabs at the magic kingdom for not having the 2d department make anything of value instead relying on imports from the neighboring kingdom of pixar i'm going to purchase the entirety of pixar in the name of the magic kingdom so yeah this whole premise is a hilarious allegory for disney during the 2000s and the pixar buy out they performed that brought their animation studio on the right track again i love this because it doesn't feel like an obvious parody angle for the writers to take it's easy to make fun of disney and tropes found within the movies which this musical still does but this lampooning of the corporate ends of disney is incredibly fun and unique and that's not the only instance of some great semi-deep cuts there's an entire parody of a whole new world where aladdin really wants the princess to take off her clothes while she remains completely oblivious it's a funny enough song on its own but it's even better when you recognize what it's parodying that being all the subtle phallic messages in disney films a bunch of people think that when aladdin is telling the tiger to get down when he's on the balcony in the original film he subtly whispers take off your clothes that's a quirky fun fact that was adapted into an entire song and twisted the song also references the priest from little mermaid having a boner the sex frame from lion king and more the song is enhanced if you know all these references but it's funny even if you don't know them and that's the mark of a great parody twisted makes a lot of references to the original aladdin and in many cases builds upon the foundation of the original's jokes i'll have your hands for a trophy straight rat all this for a loaf of bread cabal snapped his neck on impact two more choked on [ __ ] all this for a loaf of bread giving you your reward your eternal reward then you can get your nut out your eternal nut out obviously this show is intended for people who've seen aladdin but there's plenty of hysterical jokes as well that aren't reliant on the original film it's a great standalone musical but an absolutely ingenious companion piece to the original aladdin we'll get more into that later though for now let's take a look at the characters the characters in twisted are amazing and in my opinion they are the single greatest improvement over the original film now i've made it clear before that aladdin isn't really one of my all-time favorite disney films i don't find the characters particularly interesting compared to some other disney classics and i feel like the genie really does most of the heavy lifting here mainly in terms of comedy twisted is the exact opposite it doesn't rely on the genie as a crutch at all it doesn't need to because every single character in the show is hysterical everyone is the comic relief and it's truly a sight to behold now it obviously feels very apples and oranges to compare movie jafar with musical jafar and the same goes for aladdin however i'll say this musical jafar is a much more compelling and nuanced protagonist than movie aladdin while musical aladdin is straight up just as fun to watch as movie jafar if not more so we'll dig into the dramatic aspects of these characters later for now i just want to focus on how great they are comedically jafar is mainly a straight man to all the insanity that the other characters revel in but he still has a ton of hilarious lines i think with him a lot of it comes down to dylan saunders great and really unique delivery oh my book it's covered in mud oh no wait is that [ __ ] sleazeball aladdin is a great comedic antagonist as i said before i mean jeff blimp plays a really good man baby sociopath but then there's the princess that's her official name because disney apparently copyrighted jasmine damn damn good thing aladdin and jafar are just regular middle eastern names can't copyright those [ __ ] anyway yeah the princess is so funny in this she's very well-meaning and wanting to make the world a better place but her naivete about how the world actually works always gets in the way did you know they make these things in sweatshops where have you been spinning silk in your private sweatshop mistress you actually work in one of those yes that's supporting a corrupt system you're a part of the problem her interactions with anyone from aladdin to jafar to the entire rest of the cast just knock me dead every time there's also the captain of the guard whose voice is just so good it makes literally every one of his lines hysterical this is all your fault jafar maybe if you threw a parade every once in a while i don't want to hear it and there's one more prominent character from the original aladdin that must be mentioned this of course being prince ahmed remember him anyone the one whose ass got eaten by a tiger [ __ ] yeah there you go now you remember him this was one of the musical's most clever and hilarious ideas lampooning the fact that ahmed was just a throwaway joke in the original film when in actuality seeking a tiger on a visiting prince is kinda sorta a act of war oopsie poopsy so in this show ahmed is the supreme ruler of pixar who breaks off his trade alliance with the magic kingdom and then declares war on them in the second act and do i even need to get into the tiger [ __ ] joe come on they keep this joke going for so long and it never gets old which is such an amazing comedy writing feat in fact none of the running gags ever get old none of the characters and their quirky traits ever get old the jokes keep coming at such a rapid pace and there's honestly not a single bad one in the entire show i'd showcase some of my favorites but i honestly can't narrow it down now with all these hilarious mane and side characters running about you might be asking yourself where does that leave the genie in all this the genie or rather the jinn since i guess genie was also copyrighted even though they say the word genie a couple times but they just call him the gin also so i i i don't get it anyway the gin doesn't show up until the very end of the show on my first viewing i didn't think he was gonna show up in person at all and he would just be mentioned but when he does finally show up it's this and his dialogue is this but you're gonna have to ask yourself one question do i feel lucky honestly this is ingenious in the original aladdin the genie is funny to us because he's making all these references we understand none of which the characters in old timey agrabah would actually get to them this all sounds like exactly what it is an endless string of pop culture references with no rhyme or reason obviously robin williams is the genie is hilarious but on paper a random blue guy saying famous movie quotes is kinda lame and not funny which yeah jafar doesn't find it funny at all and it makes their interactions so good my first wish to become the sultan i wish i had a million dollars hot dog okay calm the [ __ ] down but what makes it even better is that everyone else in the show still inexplicably finds the genie hilarious jeff what's going on here who's this very funny blue man standing next to you it plays up jafar's straight man tendencies to its natural conclusion and makes for an absolute riot of a moment in a show filled with absolute riot moments so yes these characters are indeed hysterical however we must discuss the fact that they are trying to lure you in with their comedy and then when the moment is right they whip it out their songs let's talk about said songs and the fact that a dick is on the way when they sing them well to be fair a song doesn't always mean a dick is on the way sometimes it's just a prelude to a sponsor also by sheer coincidence i think i feel a song coming on you want to make a website you're screwed or so would seem that's why i came up with this brilliant scheme just use squarespace squarespace is a fantastic intuitive online website builder that allows you to create beautiful websites for your business or personal hobby present your work using squarespace's professional portfolio designs display projects and customizable galleries and add password protected pages to share private work with clients you can even present your videos from youtube vimeo and animoto 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your first purchase of a website or domain another hit to add to the squarespace album i'm probably never gonna make anyway what was i saying oh yeah song [Music] as i previously stated twisted is the one starkid show where i connect with the music immensely i think it's catchy genius and above all unforgettable obviously it can't contend with the bangers alan menken and company wrote for the original aladdin film but i'd argue that these songs are better than the ones they added in the broadway version of aladdin and the live action remake that last thing goes without saying obviously but still they come from a clear place of passion and demonstrate an immense grasp on the capabilities of musical theater's storytelling both in the music by aj holmes and especially in the lyrics by kaylee mcmahon this is the only starkid show to date that she's ever been a part of and i think her lyrics are what really enhanced this show beyond its contemporaries they ranged the gambit from hilarious i'll be the one who plunders to wonderfully self-deprecating [Music] to suddenly raw as [ __ ] let them twist my words like depending on the character who's singing some of these lyrics have some real gravitas and weight to them and it really hooks you despite the fact that you'd never expect to be hooked in this way going into the show science says you're dead and gone forever reason says i'm talking to the air it's a tremendously difficult balancing act that i think this show absolutely nails there's this really great video essay by sylvana limited on how strong twisted songs are when you apply sondheim's rules about songwriting and musicals to it i highly recommend checking this video out side note apparently the person who made this video actually lived down the hall for me at university during my senior year which is such a weird coincidence anyway i also want to take a look at some of twisted strengths in the songwriting department so there's this other great video by sideways about a goofy movie which i feel like i recommend sideways videos every time i talk about musicals i really can't help it they're so good but anyway he talks about how beauty and the beast and a goofy movie have the strongest opening numbers out of any of the 90s disney films in terms of how they not only establish the world but also serve as an i want song for the main character they serve more than one role as a song making the musical storytelling much more efficient than the other disney renaissance films including aladdin well guess what it's the same and twisted i mean it makes sense since dream a little harder is basically a parody of belle from beauty and the beast but regardless twisted already gets the ball rolling by setting up jafar as a main character and the world he lives in which as it turns out is extremely hostile to him the contrast between his desire for logic and reason to win out and the town folks antiquated disney notion that happy endings will just come to good and attractive people automatically is illustrated so sharply in this opening number it's legitimately fantastic and yes a more efficient and memorable opening number than arabian nights from the original film twisted continues with a villain song for aladdin i steal everything which takes familiar lyrics and melodies from one jump ahead and absolutely flips them on their heads just a little snack guy just that's completely fair everything and more is also a great i want song for the princess our secondary protagonist it showcases how well-meaning but ultimately insanely naive she is the golden rule and its evil reprise are so musically and lyrically genius that it's nuts first we have a cheerful upbeat tune about jafar's philosophy on treating others fairly only for the evil palace folk to flip the script itself from follow the golden rule to follow the gold and rule like that's so genius and clever and subtle and you might not even notice it unless you looked up the lyrics i can't get over it i won't go into detail on all the remaining songs but i'll just share a couple of my favorite highlights happy ending might be my favorite song in the entire show i honestly jam out to it in the car all the time i love overlapping three-part harmony so much you all have no idea and this one sounds chillingly good while also remaining lighthearted and funny i also adore the contrast between jafar and aladdin's parts not just in the lyrics but the underlying music as well just listen to the transition between the instrumentation of these two parts i can't wait to be here like you don't even have to hear the lyrics the instruments say it all take off your clothes is um yeah the song twisted ramps up the intensity in the instrumentation at the beginning and captures the sound of every disney villain's original villain song super well but what i especially love about this song is the ending bit which parallels some of the things jafar or the people close to him sang earlier in the show where he was at a more optimistic point in his life how will they tell my story how will they tell my tale i'll be treated like a hero all the citizens [Music] the callbacks here are really strong and really heartbreaking they showcase how this guy is on his last rope and how he has nothing left to lose anymore it feels incredibly climactic and tragic and then there's the power in me the emotional climax of the show which features that one damn lyric that makes me cry every single time you are kind and that's enough you're a diamond in the rough yeah um this show is actually really powerful yes this show show manages to have unreasonably strong dramatic moments in it and yeah how about we get into that now [Music] the most mind-blowing thing about twisted is how it manages to trick you into thinking it's a shitpost musical at the beginning i mean you're watching it and enjoying the comedy and the parody angle plus admiring the songs and the choreography and the acting and whatnot it seems like a fun lighthearted romp based on the first half hour or so and then things take a turn jafar finds a mysterious necklace from his past and starts to reminisce thrusting us into a 25-minute flashback sequence that shows us what happens when he first started working at the palace in sharp contrast to the modern day where everyone hates him he is respected and everyone's optimistic about the good societal change he's gonna bring once he starts working at the palace to use the show's own language he started out well liked but ineffectual only to become moral but maligned in the present day this musical has a lot to say about societal progress and how well-meaning people want to drastically change things for the better only to get bombarded with pushback as they start to realize how the world actually works jafar's disillusionment with what he can accomplish after seeing how corrupt the ruling class is is pretty heartbreaking and real is this how the world is he's so beaten down in the present day and we can see exactly how he got to that point by contrast the princess represents the new generation who wants to make a difference just as jafar's generation did her ideas are unconventional but they ultimately do lead to good societal change everyone is a princess and it's all thanks to jafar paving the way for her and teaching her how to be good as evidenced by the lyrics of the power in me if i'm capable of greatness don't you see [Music] even if one generation doesn't finish a fight for equality and justice their children will keep the fight going and maybe even achieve goals that their forefathers could only have dreamed of this is one of the driving themes of twisted and it's handled exceptionally well but even then it's not the main focus of this extended flashback and the overall story the main focus is sharazod weaver of a thousand tales this is one of many small ideas from the original aladdin that was greatly expanded in this show the genie mentions her briefly during friend like me shares out ahead a thousand times and now here she is kicking off the show at the beginning this is yet another tale to be told so it only makes sense to have her here to tell it especially since she's a part of it jafar and sharazad met in the palace and fell in love and she even became pregnant how wholesome i hope she doesn't die or anything oh she died mega f the scene where they both approached the sultan and he requested her for his harem inexplicably manages to be hilarious and really dramatic and heartbreaking like i don't know how they balance the tone that well it's kind of a miracle back away from my wife it's all perfectly punctuated by jafar's line bringing us back to the present first i lost her to the sultan and i lost her to heaven from this point on jafar has a new motivation he's a realist who never believed in magic or wishes but sharazad did so he puts his faith in her and dedicates himself to searching for the all-powerful genie that can bring his love back it's a really brilliant shift in his character and it makes him infinitely more sympathetic it also lets dylan saunders flex as hard as he can in the acting department like holy [ __ ] but what i think the most impressive thing this scene does is this little monologue many years ago i took my finger and i pushed in my penis [Applause] and it hasn't come out since okay jesus christ i don't know what's going on believe it or not that is one of the most important monologues in the entire musical yes that because later in the show when jafar is reflecting on how much the princess means to him he notes that charizard died in childbirth and that coincidentally the princess was born around the same time hey wait a minute the sultan inverted his penis years ago he couldn't have children this is how the musical chooses to reveal the bombshell that the princess is jafar's real daughter and it works i simply cannot get over the fact that this line serves as a legitimately great dramatic reveal if the sultan inverted his penis years ago he could tell children that's honestly just the miracle of this show it balances goofiness and heart in such incredible ways and the stories that can do that are my favorites in all of media i've gone over this many times before but this is why i love stuff like majora's mask or jojo rabbit one second i'm losing my mind at how batshit insane and funny something is and the next i move to tears by how deeply emotionally investing something is it takes such an exquisite mastery of writing to be able to pull that off and that's exactly what twisted has but even everything i've mentioned thus far doesn't compare to the best bit of writing in the entire show which happens at the very end in case you zoned out for this entire video the jokes and the overall plot of this show are so pristine and well thought out taking minor elements from aladdin or the other disney movies and expanding them greatly and incredibly logical ways like in the song twisted when jafar is visited by all the other disney villains he actually recognizes them from sharazod's stories thus giving them context in the world twist it has created nothing is just thrown in here for the sake of it everything is deliberate so again at the very end of the show after that song that gets me every time i wish you every happiness we see jafar trapped in the lamp his new shitty shitty living space but of course the princess wished for his happiness and so he's finally reunited with sharazod a truly uplifting moment for a character that suffered so much name a character that suffered more than him i'll wait at this point everything is wrapped up for every character except for aladdin who just kinda ran off at one point and never came back i wonder what happened to him well jafar was wondering the same thing and so we see what happened to him good evening yes everyone has their theories about the merchant from the original aladdin who tells us the story is it the genie because he wears blue and is also voiced by the same voice actor as the genie nah that's too obvious it was actually ness the whole time but hey that's not what the show does obviously aladdin is the guy who's telling the story reframing it so that he was the good guy and jafar was the evil villain i cannot begin to express what an exceptional stroke of genius this was this one tiny detail at the end of the show basically makes it so everything you just witnessed could be completely canon if you wanted it to this is no longer just a fan fiction about how the story would be if jafar was a good guy this could totally be what happened since you don't have to believe the narrator in the original aladdin was telling the real story this is the real story ahmed really did [ __ ] that tiger what it's perfectly in character for the slime ball aladdin to smear jafar's name in his retelling and it makes him a much more hateable villain in the process i find stories where true history is buried and hero's legacies are tragically tainted to be insanely compelling look at hamilton it's a bittersweet ending bitter because he dead now but sweet because at least his legacy lives on and this story will continue to be told then look at metal gear solid 3 aka the best ending to any video game ever because of how perfectly and tragically it encapsulates this concept i won't get into any spoilers but suffice to say this ending makes me cry so hard every time perhaps the worst fate a character can have is living on an infamy when they only wanted to do the right thing and yet twisted remains a happy ending because jafar has no interest in his legacy anymore over the course of the show he gives up his hopes of ever being loved by the masses or remembered fondly it no longer matters to him since all he wants is to do the right thing and ensure the kingdom's prosperity whether or not he gets the credit he nobly sacrifices his legacy which is almost as significant as sacrificing his life if not more so and in the end he got to be with sharazad for eternity which is all he truly needed who cares if no one will ever mourn him as long as he can spend eternity with his true love their ultimate fate together is foreshadowed so brilliantly over the course of the show from their love song where they profess their desire to spend more than a thousand and one nights together to this lyric and happy ending we'll retire to some far-off place and share an itty-bitty living space to my personal favorite the story sharazad tells about the iconic scarab beetle necklace that leads to the cave of wonders it is said that the cave was sealed by two lovers who were then transformed into one golden scarab the cave will only reopen when the two halves become one the lovers are united once more you're forgetting the best part when the two lovers are reunited and they live happily ever after that's beautiful yeah it's a beautiful story a beautiful bonkers heartbreaking hysterical shakespearean shitposty magnum opus of an amazing talented team it's one of my favorite musicals of all time and maybe the most impressive balancing act between incredible comedy and genuine hearts in all of musical theater if you haven't seen it before shame on you for not watching it before this video i just spoiled it all well even so it's still well worth checking out i didn't spoil all the best jokes the whole show is free to watch on youtube and you don't want to miss out on it even if you're a guy who doesn't like musicals chances are you'll still like this show it's such a sharp parody of disney and the original aladdin plus the comedy is so incredibly strong that i'm sure you'll enjoy the songs as much as the jokes and once again it's a solid introduction to musical theater if you want to get into it but don't know where to start i mean it's literally free on youtube you have nothing to lose please check it out as well as the rest of starkids library which is also free on youtube i have devoted myself to the church of starkid now you're welcome commenters [Music] [Applause] you

Channel: Schaffrillas Productions

Views: 1,220,849

Keywords: Schaffrillas Productions, Twisted, Aladdin, Disney, Starkid, Jafar, Jasmine

Id: 0sDuc9Xnttg

Length: 31min 23sec (1883 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 03 2021