Sat, January 20, 2007
My God, My Ears!—1:22 PM
The much-ballyhooed and greatly anticipated Scrubs musical aired this week.
Imagine if an alien civilization contacted you and wanted to know all about Scrubs, but the only thing you had to show them was a tape of clips your jerkoff friend had edited together, cherry-picked to make the case that no one should ever waste their time watching Scrubs.
This is like if that civilization came back a year later with a script for a musical episode.
"Christi" — Sat, 1/20/07 5:01pm
I couldn't disagree with you more. I thought it was fun, funny, original, and a great way to spend a half an hour!
Joe Mulder — Sun, 1/21/07 12:30am
Yeah. Jameson's on crack. Bad crack, too; not the fun stuff.
Brandon — Sun, 1/21/07 2:21am
What? WHAT?!?
Joe and I spent 10 minutes of my kick-ass birthday party today talking about how great the Scrubs musical episode was. In fact, I'm on record (well, Joe's record) as stating that if Scrubs were a lesser show (say According to Jim), they could still walk around with their heads held high simply based on this one episode.
Are you sure you haven't been replaced by a Jameson created by a misinformed alien civilization?
Bee Boy — Sun, 1/21/07 10:56am
Don't get me wrong; I really like Scrubs and I thought the "Guy Love" number was pretty fun. This just really failed to live up to the potential of a musical episode or a Scrubs episode. The songs were so crappy and predictable! That obviously-forced-rhyme-scheme bit is good for Adam Sandler, but it works because his "thing" is that he's a doofus. These guys needed snappier, cleverer lyrics: Buffy Musical grade or better. Flynn and McGinley were atrociously underused. The big show-stopper was just a tediously repeated chorus of "here's some medical terms we looked up on Wikipedia!" I'd have preferred three really kick-ass musical numbers to non-stop mediocrity.
And the motivation for it?! Ugh! "She's got a brain tumor, so whenever she's nearby it's a musical!" God. If you want to have a musical episode, just do it. If you want to poke fun at studio-audience sitcoms, just do it. A preposterously flimsy premise just distracts from the fun.
I feel like I'm living in a misinformed alien civilization.
Brandon — Sun, 1/21/07 2:39pm
Except for one minor detail... if you read this TV Squad interview with Bill Lawrence, they based it on an actual real-life case!
And since that part of the interview is way down in the middle, I'll cut and paste the pertinant part:
LAWRENCE: Even then, I kept putting up these roadblocks hoping, Deb (Fordham), the writer, wouldn't get through them. So I was like, "All right, Deb, if you find a real reason somebody would be hearing music the whole time so it doesn't have to be some lame cheesy fantasy, I'll do it." And then she and the medical advisor found a case of a person with an aneurysm where everyone who spoke to her, she heard music. Well, then we've got to get somebody decent to write the music, and she hassled and harassed the "Avenue Q" guys until they agreed to write the songs. So she kept defeating me until one day we had to sit down and write these fucking songs and do it.
Bee Boy — Sun, 1/21/07 10:39pm
Except for this minor detail... I never said the motivation was implausible. I just said it was an unnecessary and obnoxious distraction. Scrubs will throw in silly mindscreen flashes whenever they want – they should feel no need to justify a musical episode, like the audience just won't accept it. They should just do a musical episode, and do it right.
(My other example, "My Life in Four Cameras," wasn't motivated by anything medical or plausible: it was just a patient who was a sitcom writer, so J.D. started imagining the hospital as a sitcom. I take issue not with the quality of the motivation, but with the mere presence of it!)
And I'm positively shocked to hear the "Avenue Q" guys were involved at all. With the exception of the one song that sounded like a copyright-lawyer-approved rip-off of "La Resistance," it was the most unprofessional, bland music I've ever heard. Maybe they felt so hassled and harassed, they just dashed something off over a lunch break and turned it in.
"Mike" — Mon, 1/22/07 9:07am
Jameson is on crack. That episode was awesome. Dr. Cox's "Modern Major General" was way better than Studio 60's, Guy Love (as Jameson admitted) was hilarious (I think I've sang that "only man that's been inside of me!" about 1,000 times since Thursday), and the motivation was fine – it set in a hospital! Why not have a medical condition motivate things?
I think it would make more sense for someting like "Seinfeld" to have a musical show that just was a musical with no justification, because there isn't anything about Jerry, George, Kramer, or Elaine that gives us a reason to see the show set to music and rhyme.
That episode was fantastic.
The only bad thing about it is that I forgot Brandon's birthday.
Joe Mulder — Mon, 1/22/07 2:10pm
Not only did I remember Brandon's birthday by spending it with him, but I went out to dinner with the wife and kid later than night and had a nice gentleman stop by our table and say how cute Anna was, and ask how old she was and whether she was talking yet, and wish us the best of luck...
... and that man's name...
... was Billy Dee Williams.
As much as I loved the "Scrubs" musical (I pretty much have it memorized by now), I have to begrudgingly agree with this sentence.
"Mike" — Mon, 1/22/07 2:29pm
Well, Joe remembered Brandon's birthday and got to meet Billy Dee Williams – I forgot his birthdady and was forced got to meet Harlan Williams' third cousin Marlon.
I also agree that Flynn and McGinley were atrociously underused, especially McGinley.
"Christi" — Mon, 1/22/07 7:18pm
So we are all agreed, Jameson is on crack.
Jameson, when you are out here we are going to stage a Musical Theatre intervention and show you truly bad musical theatre, the video tape of my 7th grade production of Give My Regrads to Broadway.
Bee Boy — Mon, 1/22/07 8:08pm
Anything but the Scrubs musical!
Brandon — Mon, 1/22/07 11:36pm
Okay, okay, let's entertain for a moment your notion that the songs were "crappy and predictable" and the lyrics weren't snappy or clever enough. Who's to say that wasn't an intentional choice by Lawrence & Co. to remain true to the point of view of the story? These songs are all taking place in the head of this woman; she is most likely not a composer, lyricist, songwriter, songsmith or songstress. So it stands to reason that her brain would draw upon the sensory memory of familiar melodies, and fall into the easier path of a rhyme scheme.
Chew on that, Scrubs hater!
(Hee hee... has there ever been an entry on onebee where Jameson was so in the minority with his opinion? This is fun!)
Bee Boy — Tue, 1/23/07 12:30am
Oh, man! Here's a guy who should be in marketing for the entertainment industry. "Yeah, we could've written a funnier movie, with clever lines and fewer overused plot devices. But from the point of view of the characters we thought a bad movie was more appropriate. All the same, cough up your nine bucks, please!"
Norbit for Best Picture!
Brandon — Tue, 1/23/07 12:29pm
Well now you're just being ridiculous.
Brandon — Fri, 2/2/07 10:23pm
Now this week's Iraq-centric mess - that was a bad Scrubs episode. So, so bad.
I didn't ask you this when we spoke about it, Jameson, but which episode did you dislike more - this one or the musical?
Bee Boy — Fri, 2/2/07 11:32pm
That's a tough one. You're weighing so many variables. The musical certainly came with more expectations – though I did try to put them aside. But it was just one dud; even some of the best shows have a lousy episode. This latest one established a trend of sub-par Scrubs.
All told, I have to say the musical was probably worse. There were plenty of regrettable moments in this week's, but the musical is the only episode I've ever actually had to turn away from. Each time they broke into song again, I cringed. That one gets the title, but it's a photo finish.
(Not that I want to reopen the torrent of comment spite that this opinion invokes! I'm just giving an honest answer to the question.)
"Mike" — Sat, 2/3/07 10:20am
Torrent! Torrent!
Boy, this week's episode stunk; the most disjointed and choppy of the "His Story" series.
Bee Boy — Sat, 2/3/07 11:37am
Ooh! This kind of torrent I can get behind – one not directed at me!