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Transcriptions by: Masha Latvinava

The Addams Family Musical – Episode #113 – October 29, 2020

Jess: Hello, I'm Jesse McAnally.

Andrew: I am Andrew DeWolf.

Brianna And I'm Brianna Jones.

Jess: And welcome to Musicals with Cheese, a podcast where I try to get Andrew to like musical theater and we've got a returning guest - in fact, the most returning guest. The unofficial third host of this show, you might say. It is incredible, we're always so –

Andrew: Soon to be one of the only two hosts.

Jess: But also, he is joining a club today. He is entering the Five Timers Club today. It is Brent Black.

Andrew: Is it actually? Is it actually five times?

Jess: Yes.

Brent Black: Wow. That's - I'm so flattered. No wait, let's count. We did La La Land, Matilda, Chess. This will be – well, we haven't said it yet, but I imagine people know if they've read the thing. But what was the other one?

Jess: We had the trivia contest, which was a full episode.

Andrew: Oh right, yeah. Remember when we did trivia episodes? My goodness.

Brent Black: I mean, the thing is... I still say I decided to come in with medium difficulty questions, thinking ‘I don't want to be that asshole that's like, how many hairs are on Sondheim's ass?’, you know, whatever.

Andrew: It’s not... he waxes.

Brent Black: Yes. In mostly 3/4 time. Pluck two three.

Andrew: Of course.

Brent Black: Anyway. Yeah, five times. That's amazing. I'm flattered.

Jess: Yes. And he will be getting a gift for that. Like, we will be sending him a little gift of the Five Timers Club.

Brent Black: Amazing, amazing. It's such an honor. And I'm excited to do this one. This seasonal one.

Jess: No, no, no. We're honored to have you on. This was actually a Patreon vote that we had this week. So, this was decided by the patrons and Brent is one of the patrons, so it is it suits the situation very well. So, Brent, what are we talking about this week?

Brent Black: We are talking about The Addams Family, the musical. Is that the official name? It's The Addams Family musical, but I'm not sure. Something like that.

Andrew: Cue the music, Bree.

(When You’re An Addams plays)

Jess: “The Addams Family is a musical comedy with music and lyrics by Andrew Lippa and a book by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice.” Man, who are these people? Like, usually I know the names of the book writers at least, but no. “The show is based on The Addams Family characters created by Charles Addams and his single-panel gag cartoons, which depict a ghoulish American family with an affinity for all things macabre. Although numerous films and television adaptations of the Addams’ cartoons exist, the musical is the first stage show based on the characters. It is also the first show produced by Elephant Eye Theatricals. After a tryout in Chicago in 2009, the musical opened on Broadway in April 2010. The original cast featured Nathan Lane as Gomez and Bebe Neuwirth as Morticia. The production closed on December 31, 2011, a revised national tour of North America began in September of 2011.” And yeah, that's basically the sparknotes things of what we're going to talk about, but now it's out the way, you get a good basic backstory. So, Brent - you had some thoughts about this before we even decided we were doing this.

Brent Black: I did, indeed. And the thing is that I lived in New York City in 2010. And even though - as we were talking about before we started recording - even though I have an off-Broadway show that was panned by the New York Times in that same year, I was still a snob not long out of grad school with my opinions. And I heard Addams Family wasn't great and I thought, (voice of snobby Brent Black in 2010) “well, of course it's not. It's a terrible property to adapt for the following reasons - ” And grad school in the arts really makes snobs and jerks of people. And I've spent 12 years trying to become more of a non-dick about it. But, so yeah, the thing is that I began to listen to the album almost with that smug kind of... the way you watch the room or the way - you know what I mean, you watch something that you know is bad. And weirdly, I now have this strange situation where, yeah, I don't think it's amazing, certainly not the Broadway version that I am more familiar with. But I have an affinity for it almost in the way that like, if you're in a musical that's not all that great, but you hear the songs over and over again, you play a part, it's like it's got a special place in your heart, and it almost gets a slight positive tilt. In a nostalgic sense, because of that. Even if it really ain't the best thing ever. So that's my starting point. But I did get a chance to experience the surprisingly revised tour version of the show. And so, I will have some thoughts on the rewriting process, which I find endlessly fascinating.

Jess: We're gonna put a pin in that because this is an interesting show, specifically because it was a financial success despite being a critical failure. They went full Frank Wildhorn here. But I want to hear Andrew’s general opinion - both of your general opinions. What is your relationship with The Addams Family before this musical? What is your connection? Is it the 90s films? Is it the TV show?

Andrew: I think the only Addams Family I've ever seen is the movie. The - I think it's the 90s movie. Not the not the recent movie. I have not seen that. I've only seen the one movie and I watched it earlier this year.

Jess: You didn’t see the sequel?

Andrew: No, I didn’t watch the sequel. I hear it’s really good. I thought the movie was okay? That's all I've had about The Addams Family until I watched this. Which I guess makes it a little strange because I feel like it doesn't fit The Addams Family? But maybe that's just the movie that I've seen, and it just doesn't have that tone and the rest of The Addams Family property is totally fitting of this, but this... It just didn't really feel like The Addams Family to me. I watched the tour version though.

Jess: How do you think, Brent?

Brent Black: Um, yeah, there's a lot there that resonates with me. As a kid, my dad loved The Munsters. And, you know, reruns of The Munsters and The Addams Family were both on TV. So, I saw a little bit of The Addams Family TV show, but I remember more vividly the movie, which would have come out when I was seven. But as a college and older-than-college person, I really got into the movies - particularly to Jess' point, the sequel Addams Family Values. I think that's the best - or at the very least, my favorite encapsulation of the concept of the Addams brought to life. Because the 60s TV show could not be quite as risqué or edgy as a single-panel comic strip in The New Yorker could be. I also own a book that's like a compendium of all of the Addams comics. And what I find interesting about the musical is that they only got the rights to the comics, and also - very late in the game - the TV show theme song. But basically just ba-ba-ba-bum. Like, not even the whole TV show theme song.

Andrew: I mean, do you have to have that though? I don't even know why you need the rights to it though. It's like four notes.

Brent Black: I mean, that's – yeah. I think that they probably - that's a good question. I'd love to know the story on that. I think that seven notes is, like, a court precedent that I've heard for “you've ripped off a song” or that could be total bullshit. But yeah.

Jess: Marvin Gaye and all that.

Brent Black: With that being said, you know... Oh, and let us not forget Addams Family Reunion. The straight-to-video, would-be pilot of a TV incarnation of The Addams Family starring an unfortunately melty Tim Curry as Gomez. And, just – it was really bad. Like, I love so-bad-it's-good. This was so bad, I couldn't. I couldn't. I mean, and not long into it.

Andrew: What? How do you mess up The Addams Family that bad?

Brent Black: Well, it's like this.

Jess: I don't think they messed up the family, though. I think they got the appeal of The Addams Family in a way that I think the musical didn't.

Brent Black: I guess I just feel like - And again, we're not reviewing Addams Family Reunion, but like, in the first 10 minutes, fully half of that is the mailman being terrorized by a mailbox with a tongue that wants to kill him. And then way too long, way too much runtime in that first 10 minutes is Lurch playing the violin. And the joke is that it's shrill and he's not playing it very well. But the joke goes on so long that now you're mad you have to hear this terrible violin. And then it keeps going. Anyway -

Andrew: Yeah. I mean, if you're doing something bad on purpose, it's still bad.

Brent Black: Yeah, exactly, exactly. It's like, this isn't a horror movie where you're trying to like, “Oo, there's tension. Oo, these shots are getting me all spooked.” It's like, “I hate you, Lurch.” But anyway. So, to your point, Andrew, I do feel like on the one hand, you can't really definitively say that something isn't “Addams enough” based on the TV show and the movies, because the comic is the real source. But on the other hand, the comic leaves out so much storytelling, they didn't even have names until the TV show. I mean, I'm of two minds about it. I think that they took liberties, but also I think that so many things I like about The Addams Family that had been brought to life on TV and then the movies were... different.

Andrew: Now, having not seen any of the TV show, and again, only like one of the movies - I'm probably wrong, but my interpretation of The Addams Family is they are like the nega sitcom family?

Jess: Yes. And I wanted to bring that up. I wanted to bring that up because I recently just - prepare for this, because - and I’m also doing a lot of work. I just binged the entire Addams Family original show.

Brianna Wow.

Jess: Yeah, that's actually - it's not long. It's like sixty episodes.

Brent Black: Two seasons, three seasons?

Jess: It's like two seasons, but seasons meant something different back then.

Andrew: Still. Still a lot of free time that I don't have.

Jess: And basically, the best Addams Family stories run like SpongeBob and Squidward, if that makes sense.

Brent Black: Wow. Educate me, prof. I love this. I love this comparison.

Jess: Where the Addams Family aren't exactly dumb, but they always think they're helping and people want them around, when we see through the point of view of the average sitcom characters that they're really being tortured. And the joy is: these clueless, positive people that just like dark shit are just like, “Well, isn't that crazy?” Like, a perfect one is the next-door neighbors move in and they're just like, “What's going on? I don't like this. Who are we renting to? We’re renting to these crazy people and they won’t let us out of their lease.” And the Addams are like, “Man, they're on their honeymoon. We want to help ‘em. We gotta send them stuff.” So, it's like misunderstandings and situational comedy, but macabre-leaning.

Andrew: But it's also that the family themselves never fight with each other.

Jess: No. There’s no one fighting ever.

Andrew: And this whole musical is based on family infighting. And that's why I feel like it really just doesn't work.

Brent Black: Yeah, I think that like, you know - as snobby me in 2010 said, it's really not a great property for a musical because the characters have something of a staticness about them. And in the movies, they really had to have an external plot going on that moved the characters around, rather than the characters being the ones that are driving the story, because they're just so content to have their weird little lives of playing with guillotines and having really hot - if apparently very scary or bondage-filled - sex, whatever they do. I'm so happy for you. And I'm talking about Gomez and Morticia.

Jess: I mean, now Fester and the moon.

Andrew: They're great.

Brent Black: Yes, well, and we'll get to that. But you know. I really have thought so much, especially now, now watching two different versions of this musical, having already known the album. And also being a musical theater writer who has spent the better part of the last three years adapting what is not a good property for a musical. I'm obsessed with the ways they got it right and the ways that it seems like they had to shoehorn this property into the musical theater format. And the question I'm left with that we can explore as we go along is, did it have to be this way? Is there a better Addams musical? Or is this actually - if Dr. Strange went through all the multiverses - about as good as it could be, while still being a musical and The Addams Family?

Andrew: I feel like they could have done better. Well, I do.

Jess: Well, it’s the satire becoming the thing it's satirizing. Like, it becomes sitcom nonsense.

Andrew: Yeah, it’s just a sitcom.

Brent Black: That's exactly - I wrote the word sitcom or sitcomy so many times in my notes. And you're right. Like, the whole concept is - and when you go back to the comics, right? It's like, regular heartwarming Americana turned on its head. Like mom and dad who think it's so cute that the kids believe in Santa Claus, “Aww they still believe in Santa”. What they're doing is they're creating a huge fire in the fireplace so when he comes down, he'll fucking die. That's the joke. But it's still like, oh, cute, regular people stuff with a dark twist. Or there's, you know, this great line. I think it's in Addams Family 1, the movie, where Wednesday wants to electrocute Pugsley in the electric chair. And, you know, Morticia’s like, “We have to go. We're late.” And they're like, “Oh, mom, can’t we just do it?” And she's like, “I said, No.” And like, clearly, it's fine that they want to electrocute each other, but they're late. And then finally Morticia’s like, “Okay”. Like, and it's beautiful because this is just mundane family stuff with that twist. And to your points - both of you - It feels like they just accidentally did the thing - I think I'm saying exactly what Jess just said. They did the thing that Addams Family has typically made fun of, which is so jarring.

Jess: Mhm. And the thing is, sometimes they get it right. And with this exact plot, even with this exact Wednesday-has-a-boyfriend plot, it could have worked. Because that is an outer interference coming into this world. And there's comedy to be had there. But the joke is always on the situational comedy: “Dad’s so stupid, dad doesn't know how to keep a secret” jokes and not on the “Oh, it's so dark and these people aren't used to it.” I think a better version of this story is the Hotel Transylvania films.

Brent Black: I haven't seen those. But how would you compare your perfect version of this to La Cage aux Folles/The Birdcage? The movie The Birdcage is an adaptation of the movie and musical La Cage aux Folles.

Jess: I mean, there's that side of it, but also, they could have just done a parody of that, to be honest.

Brent Black: Yeah, and as we'll get into, probably later, but it seems like they were setting up a La Cage thing of like, “Okay, we have to pretend to be normal to impress the family of this, you know, of the person our child loves”, and I went, “Okay, this is interesting”. I love Fester coming in with the football thing, and grandma’s a nurse, and Pugsley just came from Bible study. But they don't follow through on that. And I understand why they didn't - because you don't want the Addams Family to be trying to be regular people with the whole show. But, I feel like if you're going to set that up as the premise, and then drop it after two scenes, what was the point of “we’ll be normal”? You know?

Andrew: That already just doesn't work, though. Because I feel like The Addams Family don't see themselves as not normal.

J & Brent Black: Right.

Jess: And that's kind of the idea of being, like, they would never think that we're normal.

Andrew: Yeah. Like why? Why is Wednesday self-aware of her family in a way that nobody else in the family is? It seems odd.

Brent Black: I mean, that I actually can buy. It's incongruous with what we've seen from The Addams Family, but like, think about when you suddenly realize right before going off to school, “Oh my god, my family is such a bunch of weirdos and they are so set in their ways they don't realize...” Like, I can actually buy that part of it. It makes me sad for the Wednesday we don't get to see. Like, the OG Wednesday. But they had to have some kind of conflict to set the ball in motion. It just - I don't know.

Andrew: I feel like you already have the conflict without even doing that, though. Wednesday's bringing her boyfriend back and the parents come to. That's it. And then the parents - and then nobody gets along. That's the whole - that's it. That's all you needed. You don't need them to pretend and Wednesday to get all upset because her family’s so weird. You know? I don't know, this is just a basic sitcom stuff that they didn't have to do.

Jess: I mean, yeah. Or it could be like the boyfriend totally is into it. And gets it? Kind of like a Debbie from Addams Family Values where they kind of fit in pretty okay. And the parents are the big X factor in there.

Andrew: Yeah, that's all you need is the parents freaking out. And then the parents learn something from it because they're like, “Wow, these guys actually are weird, but they all get along so well and we don't because - ”

Jess: Right. That could have been the message, like, “These weirdos get along and we don’t”. Yeah, there is a version of this that could work.

Brent Black: Yeah, I'm very old school about musical theater structure. I feel like if you're not going to break new ground and do some really interesting Sondheimy thing, then you just need... And you know, we're talking about a musical comedy, not a song cycle, not a stepping-on-butter-and-rubbing-it-on-your-face performance art thing. I feel like there has to be a character with a specific thing they want and the journey of trying to get it. Or a group protagonist that all want something related, kind of like Spelling Bee or Chorus Line, where everyone's connected by a similar want but there's different reasons for it. And yes, this is an ensemble piece, it's required by the size of the cast of the source material. But you just get caught up in “Who wants something?” Like, Fester loves the moon. Does he have a plan? Grandma? No plan.

Andrew: Well, he does. He's gonna rocket to it.

Brent Black: Pugsley actually probably is the most active character.

Andrew: In like, a bad way, though. He's like the villain.

Brent Black: And yet, you know - spoilers. And yet, ends up being, let us say, helping the story along in ways that are constructive. But yeah, I just, you know, I'd love to see that other musical that could have been better. And, you know, in general, I want to know what it felt like to make this. Because my sense - and I could be dead wrong - but my sense of the score is that it was money? I don't know Andrew Lippa. He's very, very talented.

Andrew: It was money.

Brent Black: But like, honestly, I've thought about Jeanine Tesori doing all of these really avant-garde interesting things, and then being handed Shrek. And the differences between –

Andrew: Or Ariel's adventure, The Little Mermaid 3.

Brent Black: This is what I'm saying. I feel like the kind of work that you produce when it's just for money - even if you're extremely talented - I feel like there's a... You can just sense something in it that isn't quite as passionate as you know, John & Jane [John & Jen] was a thing that - I think that's what it's called - was a thing that Lippa wrote that even though it was much more of a proto, like he was much younger, there's passion in it. And I don't know any other way to say it. Like it just feels like - The music and lyrics feel like they were a very well-crafted. Very, you know, full-of-effort and -discipline job. Just a job, you know. I think the book was better but in its comedy - like in the one-liners and the laugh lines - Really a lot of really great one-liners, which makes sense. That's kind of what the Addams do, you know? Like, disconnected punchlines. But the big picture of the story and the structure - Just off the bat, problems. Weaknesses. Anyway.

Jess: Now that we're 22 minutes in, I realize we have not even explained to what the story of this musical is. Andrew, please do the honor.

Andrew: Okay. I mean, there's not a lot. Do I start from the from the top here? Fester summons a bunch of old Addams or something. I don't really get this whole part. There's like a bunch of Addams family ghosts that are just lurking around.

Brent Black: Okay, so - I'm being this asshole. Once a year they gather in the graveyard. They gather the family and they call out all the ghosts of the whole Addams family clan. And usually apparently they just have some kind of small ceremony and the ghosts go back in. But this time Fester’s like - I wrote down the exact wording. He's like, “You ghosts can’t go back because I have magical power. And you can't go back into the crypt where I guess it's good to be until love triumphs.” Okay.

Andrew: It doesn't make any sense.

Brent Black: Nope.

Andrew: It just makes no sense at all.

Brent Black: It’s a real half-baked way for a Broadway show to have a chorus of dancers and singers, which is the thing Broadway shows feel compelled to do.

Andrew: Well, they also have very small character acts for all the ghosts.

Brent Black: Yeah, yeah. Because like, one's a soldier, one's a bride, one's a flapper girl, one's a caveman, etc.

Andrew: They're all stereotypes of some kind. And if the idea is like –

Jess: I like the ghosts. I like them. I'm glad they're there.

Brent Black: The idea of like a military man in The Addams Family? Like, having that weird, genetic, like, there's a fanfic I would skim. I would take a look.

Andrew: I mean, I don't see any reason why the Addams wouldn't partake in the military. I think that –

Jess: They they'd be great at it. They'd be, like, the best. They'd have so many ears, like, attached to their keyrings.

Brent Black: The interrogator.

Andrew: They might get discharged for being too gruesome, honestly.

Jess: And only if they were in any other country but America. If they're fighting for any other country, maybe. America? Nah.

Brent Black: Yes. Oh, yikes. Enhanced interrogation techniques.

Andrew: The Addams Family mercenaries.

Brent Black: Sorry to interrupt your story - your explanation of the story.

Andrew: I have not even gotten anywhere so far, so it’s all good.

Jess: Continue, Andrew, please.

Andrew: Oh, yeah, yeah, sure. Um, where are we going?

Brent Black: Fester has said “Not until love triumphs can you go back into the crypt.” That's where we're at.

Andrew: Yes, and Fester is of course talking about the moon, but, I guess Wednesday is also in love. And that's where the real plot is. Wednesday has a boyfriend who is, like...

Jess: Normal.

Andrew: Seems normal on the face.

Jess: He's from Cincinnati. You know, like, that's normal if I've ever –

Andrew: Yeah, everyone in Cincinnati is normal. So, they come over to their house with the boyfriend's parents - who are also normal, but they have their own emotional problems - and the Addams family gets all upset with each other because they ruin everything for Wednesday, and Wednesday runs away and then comes back. The end.

Jess: Happy ending. All right. Now, there's some specific differences I'm going to talk about. Specifically in the Broadway version, where their dropped subplot –

Andrew: Which I did not watch.

Jess: No. And out of fairness to all the creators, I try to show Andrew the best, “best version” of each thing we do. I try to not just show him the garbage version to laugh at, you know, like “look at how bad they did”. So, we showed him the most recent version, the US tour version. But in the Broadway version, there's just a lot of plot cul-de-sacs, specifically one with the boyfriend's father and octopus. Or tentacle monster.

Andrew: Excuse me, what?

Brent Black: I think they have a pet giant squid.

Jess: Yes.

Andrew: I mean, that makes sense.

Jess: And he, like, discovers love because he falls in love with being held by the squid. And there's an entire song number about it.

Andrew: This doesn't seem necessary.

Brent Black: No. The revision of “Mal just rediscovers love because he sees the crossbow and the apple thing and then talks to Fester about it” is a very efficient way to not have to have him dragged into the squid chamber and then come out with suction cup marks all over himself and sing a love song about how he rediscovered his own heart and now he's ready to love his wife because of a squid, like...

Jess: Tentacle porn saves the day, everyone.

Brent Black: But Andrew, I wrote a note very, very similar to what you just said, thinking “Fester’s in love with the moon?” They must have been sitting around having Chinese food, smoking a bowl going, “What the fuck do we do with Fester?” And he's like, “Okay, well, maybe he... Maybe he has invented a new, absorbent material for mucus. I don't know.” “Maybe he wants to breed hamsters.” “Maybe he's in love with the moon.” And they all just laugh hysterically.

Jess: “That's the funniest thing ever.”

Brent Black: Exactly.

Jess: Well, I can offer a little bit of elaboration here.

Brent Black: Please do.

Jess: Because I just recently did the entire bingeing of The Addams Family. So, the way that Fester recharges in that show is going out and moonbathing because he has – Addams’ in general have a special relationship with the moon. So that's where he recharges. Because the entire electricity of the Addams’ house is run out of Fester, because when you put a light bulb in his mouth... Electricity. He can light up the light bulb.

Andrew: Wait, are you being serious?

Jess: I’m serious. This is a thing. So, that is probably their jumping off point. Like, he has this relationship with the moon, he recharges that way, he wants to fuck the moon.

Brent Black: Well, and I think what it shows is again, the adaptation of a movie into a musical I wrote is nowhere in the league in any measure of The Addams Family. But I do speak from experience when I say you really have to pick and choose which characters actually have an arc and which just have a three-part bit. Like, a thing they present, a thing they present again, and then a different thing. It's just a slight resolution. The end. But Fester has the whole moon thing and I guess the arc is he's in love with it, he does a cute charm song with it, then he flies up to it. Pugsley’s whole thing - You know, like, they all have arcs and the way that they are... The way that they gave everyone a little journey is kind of an admirable noble effort, but I don't know that every character needed that. I guess grandma doesn't really have an arc and it's, like, thank God.

Jess: She used to have a pointless song in the Broadway version, Let's Not Talk About Anything Else But Love. Which I'm like, “Why is this here?”

Brent Black: Oh, and the reprise and then Mal is like, “I don't like talking about love.” And then Nathan Lane’s like, “Yes, you do. And also, chocolate. You must love chocolate.” Anyway, yeah.

Jess: Okay, Brent and I might get into a little debate here, now that we brought up Nathan Lane into this. I think he is a terrible casting choice for Gomez. I think he’s a horrible miscast there.

Brent Black: Okay, this as opposed to –

Jess: He works as the policeman in The Addams Family Values and that's it.

Brent Black: As opposed to Douglas Sills?

Jess: I think he does better – or, Douglas Sills does better because he feels more close to what Gomez is to me, which is charming and suave, where Nathan Lane is just Nathan Lane, just doing his usual deliveries. And I don't know what it is, but I'm getting real sick of Nathan Lane kind of doing the same thing every time he's in a stage show. Have you seen his production of Angels in America where he's Roy Cohn?

Brent Black: What is he like? (sings In Timon’s voice) “I can see what’s happening and they don’t have a clue. These angels in America - ” I can’t say the thing I wanna say, but go on.

Jess: What is it? “I wish I was an octopus. I wanna be an octopus.”

Brent Black: I just feel like every Nathan Lane Angels In America joke’s – I just don't want to go any further than how far I've gone. But your point is that he's still being Nathan Lane in that.

Jess: Yes. And he's not Gomez and I feel like... With every other Gomez - even Tim Curry - you kind of forget he's Tim Curry and just accept that he's Gomez. Nathan Lane is just always gonna be Max Bialystock delivery-wise.

Brent Black: This is a very complicated situation because I think Douglas Sills and Nathan Lane - I think neither of them really fulfill what I want Gomez to be fully.

Jess: I’ll agree there.

Brent Black: The thing is, if we're doing a Broadway musical comedy - this is a given, right? If we are doing a Broadway musical comedy, having listened to the album of the Broadway show, having watched a bootleg of the Broadway show, and then watched Douglas Sills (for whom I have a lot of respect). It's kind of like what you get with Nathan Lane is bigger laughs on a lot of the punch lines that Sills just didn't seem to get why the line was funny. For instance, when Nathan Lane - In the opening number, he says, you know, talking about the Addams clan in the graveyard and he goes, “Living, dead” and then he looks at Lurch, “Undecided”, and it's this perfect Nathan Laneness and Douglas Sills barely gets a laugh on the line. Now, would I think Sills wasn't that great if I hadn't seen Nathan Lane? I don't know ,but it's like if you're already doing a Broadway show and you're interpreting these characters in a different way... You know, Nathan Lane does look more like the comic book Gomez, but more importantly than that, I feel like if you're gonna do a Broadway show, he's more entertaining.

Jess: I get that too.

Brent Black: Though Douglas Sills is more suave and you buy him as more of a John Astin in the TV show or Raul Julia in the movies. It just kind of comes down to what are your tastes with the Addams? And how did they get changed or not once it's a musical? But yeah, I prefer Nathan Lane a little bit.

Jess: And I understand why but for me, I want a character. I don't want a character actor. I want a character, I think is more where I sit there.

Brent Black: Yeah, cus you aren’t getting Nathan Lane Gomez. You're not getting Gomez as Gomez. You're getting Gomez as Nathan Lane.

Jess: Andrew, what do you think of Douglas Sills’ performance? Like, just out of context of that? Because you only saw him.

Andrew: I mean, honestly, I don't know if it's because of him, but yeah, there wasn't that many laughs for me. I just don't know if the humor just didn't land though.

Jess: I don't imagine you guffawing just because of the delivery though. That's not really how you work.

Andrew: No, that's probably not. I think it really just probably wasn't - I didn't find the humor particularly funny. I think The Addams Family can be very hit or miss for me because I don't find someone just doing something that's dark to be funny. There has to be a real joke there. And sometimes that's what The Addams Family does. But –

Jess: I mean, I’m just thankful there wasn’t a story – like, that this wasn’t just Fester-meets-a-girl story or Fester-being-controlled-by-woman story. Like both of The Addams Family movies were.

Andrew: Yeah, what is with Fester and not being a character, by the way?

Brent Black: But I mean, then again, do you want to follow a whole musical where Fester’s the Annie?

Andrew: No. I don't want - You can just get rid of Fester if you want, I don’t really care.

Brent Black: Brief detour. Can we talk about the fact that they decided to make a Nintendo game with Fester as the star, called Fester’s Quest? When there had been no Addams Family properties of any kind, in years and years and years, and they're just like, “You know what, let's make an Addams Family game and let's make it Fester with a gun.”

Andrew: Yeah, Uncle Fester, of course.

Brent Black: Very strange.

Andrew: Well, I mean, I think it makes sense. Uncle Fester is obviously the most relatable character because he looks like Charlie Brown.

Jess: Oh, my God. All right, I think we gotta take a break and go into our new segment. Usually, it's called Breesviews. But I'm gonna give Bree a little break today and it's gonna be Brentsviews, where we compare our thoughts with the thoughts of New York critics at the time of this release. Don't worry, Bree’s gonna have her moment in the sun today. For all you Bree lovers out there. All right, so, Brent, we have it in the doc. You've got a lot to read. I wish you luck.

Brent Black: Oh, my goodness. Well, let me open the doc as fast as I can. I'm so sorry. I have my own doc. I honestly, I just got to the point where I know how I work on this podcast, being part of the Five Timers Club. So yeah, I have my own word doc open.

Andrew: The only member of the Five Timers Club.

Brent Black: Hey, I'm the Alec Baldwin of Musicals with Cheese. My Donald Trump is also bad. Anyway. Okay.

Jess: Does anyone do a good Donald Trump?

Brent Black: Yes. Yes.

Jess: The President does a pretty good one, I think.

Brent Black: His is okay, but I'll tell you what. I'm looking now. James Austin Johnson on Twitter. You shouldn't stop listening to this podcast ever because it's great, but James Austin Johnson, who on Twitter is @shrimpJAJ does a better Donald Trump - I swear to God - than I've ever, ever, ever heard. But anyway. Okay, so I'm looking at Breesviews. Let me tell you all about it. John Simon, writing in the Bloomberg News called it a “glitzy-gloomy musical in which the quick and the dead are equally full of character, especially the chorus of ancestors that exhibits wonderful esprit de corpse.”

Andrew: Okay, is that a positive or negative?

Brent Black: Well, you know, it's really hard. That feels like something that you pull for a blurb, but it's really difficult to tell from just that one sentence.

Jess: That is the most positive blurb that they had on all The Addams Family information. The only big negative one is this next one from Ben Brantley.

Brent Black: Ben Brantley of the New York Times says, “Imagine, if you dare, the agonies of the talented people trapped inside the collapsing tomb called “The Addams Family.” Being in this genuinely ghastly musical which opened Thursday night at the Lunt-Fontanne Theater and stars a shamefully squandered Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth must feel like going to a Halloween party in a strait-jacket or a suit of armor. Sure, you make a flashy (if obvious) first impression. But then you’re stuck in the darn thing for the rest of the night, and it’s really, really uncomfortable. Why, you can barely move, and a strangled voice inside you keeps gasping, “He-e-e-lp! Get me out of here!” These worries have been set to blandly generic - ” Sorry, I was doing my Captain Kirk – You know what, I'm gonna do the rest of this as Captain Kirk.

Jess: Do it, yes.

Brent Black: (as Captain Kirk) These worries have been set to blandly generic music by Mr. Lippa. And though the show makes fun of the greeting-card perkiness of Alice, who writes poems, listen to what Gomez sings to his daughter: “Life is full of contradictions/Every inch a mile./At the moment, we start weeping/That’s when we should smile.”

Jess: I can’t agree - Yeah, that was wonderful. Great job.

Brent Black: You can't agree and neither can I. I can't agree. Um, anyway.

Andrew: How do you come out with that negative of an opinion on this show?

Brent Black: But again, again –

Jess: That's Broadway.

Brent Black: Assuming you're not being sarcastic, Andrew, you have only seen the seriously retooled –

Andrew: The better version, yeah.

Brent Black: With songs added, songs cut. You know, six minutes shorter, but boy, did they do some work to get that six minutes shaved off.

Andrew: Yeah, that's fair. Maybe it was that bad.

Jess: I don't think it was that bad, as someone that saw the Broadway show. It's nowhere near as bad as Ben Brantley tries to frame it.

Brent Black: Well, the problem is the momentum. Here's the thing about Ben Brantley and any reviewer: Maybe they're in a good mood. Maybe they just got laid, or maybe they just got broken up with. This is the spectrum.

Jess: Well, with Ben, I think we know which one it is.

Brent Black: It's true. He's always getting broken up with. At least every 2-3 weeks. But, you know, you’re somewhere between “I just had a first kiss” and “my dog died”. And so, you can be fair to any show in any mood, but if a show’s already kind of like one of these shows that loses steam, and you're just waiting for it to be over, AND you're cranky, AND you're Ben Brantley... Well, the knives come out. But, you know, I kind of compare the Broadway version - which again, I knew the album but I watched the video for this podcast - I watched it in 20 minute chunks. I basically quibi’d it. RIP Quibi.

Andrew: Which, Quibi’s gone. Bye-bye.

Jess: May it die a long death.

Brent Black: Yes. Or a 10-minute death that can be watched in two different angles. But anyway –

Jess: What the fuck are they gonna do with all that media? I know it's like a dumb question, but that's a lot of media. Like an entire season of Reno 911!, a Sam Raimi movie...

Brent Black: My first thought was, “Oh, they'll just sell it off to whoever – Netflix, Hulu, Disney Plus, Crackle - wants it” but I hear that a lot of those series were passed on by Netflix, Hulu, Crackle. If Crackle’s like “nah, we good”, then don't do it. If Crackle didn't want it, don't do it. But anyway –

Jess: Back to The Addams.

Brent Black: So, we were talking about the Broadway version. And I think it's a matter of momentum, Jess. I think it's the fact that sometimes you get to the point where a scene’s not working, but the reason it's not working isn't because it's bad. It's because you have taken the steam out of the show and the momentum. All the air came out of it two scenes ago. So now, even though some people in the audience with no taste are still laughing loudly at every joke - the snarky kind of you know, “Make me laugh. I paid $300 for this” people are like, “Okay, this is... I'm really starting to think about my grocery list. And... did I leave the stove on?” And if that point is 45 minutes into a two-hour-and-15-minute show, you're really in trouble. So, I think that if I had watched the entire Broadway show, in one go, I think it would have been like watching the Neil Breen movie where you're like, “Okay, this is fun, because it's bad, but I also don't want to live.” Anyway.

Andrew: That's a good place to be, though. I feel like Neil Breen kind of really captures the spirit of life.

Brent Black: I love Neil Breen movies, but again, in chunks. My girlfriend was like, “let's watch one for your birthday because this isn't my kind of thing, but I'll do it for you.” And we watched an entire one all the way through and I kind of wanted to turn it off. And I feel like that's the deal with the first Addams, the Broadway incarnation, which wasn't the first. There was a pre-Broadway version but –

Jess: The Chicago one.

Brent Black: Yeah, it's not that it's just hellishly bad. So much of it for me - maybe you feel this way, Jess - is that you sense that certain actors are wasted. Particularly Bebe Neuwirth’s Morticia in the Broadway, because she's very good, but not in that role. And the role didn't really have much for her to do. So, there's comparing it to the talent of the actors, and then there's comparing it to how this could have been. “It didn't have to be this way. This scene didn't have to happen. Why did they do this? Why did they keep this song going? Why are Andrew Lippa’s lyrics, like, this weird combination of that”, you know, like - Sometimes William Finn will write a lyric where you're like, “That's the first thing you fucking thought of, you weirdo.” But because of that, a William Finn lyric sometimes will have a sloppiness, and in something like Falsettos, that can be very endearing and very charming. But Lippa will have lyrics that are as silly as your first thought, but also have internal rhymes that are really weirdly specific. And it's just like, I don't know, I have lots of... Lippa is prolific and very good and I'm sure he's a lovely person. But, sometimes the choices are just, like, you could have revised that and you didn't and that's why I think this was just a job for you.

Jess: You see, I don't get that as much here. But maybe it's just because I don't think there's a real dramatic arc to the music and storytelling of The Addams Family, even at its best, where I feel like you can have a sloppy lyric here and there and it would still kind of work for me because the Addams are sloppy here and there. I get that a lot with his adaptation of Big Fish, where a lot of the sloppiness of his lyrics and a lot of repetition of his music comes out. So... I know it's not really fair to bring that up here, but -

Andrew: I feel like if the lyrics weren't so lazy, it could really help the show a lot, though. Because The Addams Family is based on gags and and puns and things like that a lot of times.

Brent Black: Yeah, I just, there's certain things that I think are filler that I never like to hear and - to be redundant, cribbing from a video I recently made on YouTube, I almost never like the phrase “to the core” or “down to my core”. And when Wednesday says, “You have to swear to me, yes. Promise to the core.” Well, how do you promise to the core? It's just to rhyme. I hate that. Or when she says, you know, “A normal house without a mouse to feed a plant or two.” Well, that's a very tortured wording of “without anyone feeding a mouse to a fucking plant”. That's what she means. When she says “a normal house without a mouse to feed a plant or two” -

Jess: That's backward talk.

Brent Black: That's Yoda. That’s worse than Yoda. And yes, I guess in the Broadway, we have seen the mouse being fed to a plant. I'm not sure in the off-Broadway - or sorry, the tour. I'm not sure we've seen that even happen. And there's a lot of little things like that, that I just feel like - And you know, nobody's lyrics are perfect. It just like you just went with something that was not quite as specific as what you meant. And the fact that they revised the show so heavily, and so retooled it, but you kept some of those choices, is curious to me.

Jess: The thing is, they didn't change many of the songs. They changed their placement and they cut a bunch of songs. I don't remember any brand new, spankin’ new songs or any intense song edits.

Brent Black: I think Trapped was new. And also Gomez’s thing where he keeps looking out at the audience and going “There are two things I would never do.” That sequence is new.

Andrew: And that's actually a funny thing.

Brent Black: Yeah, that’s good. That's when the show is still like - you still believe that it could be great.

Andrew: That's like the best gag in the whole thing.

Brent Black: Yes. And the song Secrets, where Morticia sings to Alice about –

Jess: I'm forgetting all these songs.

Brent Black: About how spouses shouldn't have secrets from each other. This grumpy, stern, disciplinary and becoming-her-mother Morticia. Worst part - one of the worst parts of both versions is what they did to poor Morticia, who is such a great character and they just made her this really grumpy, like, stereotypical “I'm the wife and I've got problems with things” and it's like –

Andrew: Alright, Marge, get out of here.

Brent Black: That’s what I’m saying. It’s like, Addams is the antidote to that. And so, to make Morticia that kind of nag is such a sad kind of thing. But also, Gomez has a “what if”, which is a little bit of Pugsley’s “what if”. He has a little bit of that before Pugsley does. And, let's see, I'm just scrolling through. I think other than that, they cut the song Morticia, which I actually - it's too long and it's silly and it's just a sort of, to give Nathan Lane a thing to do. But I do love the song and the melody of the Broadway version - the Broadway version song Morticia, which is a first act song.

Jess: I want to talk very briefly before we get into this mid-show.

Andrew: “Mid-show.”

Jess: I want to talk about one of the few plot points that they added to the tour production. There's a lot of them, but one of them specifically bothers me because I hate it. I hate it when... So, Wednesday asks Gomez “Hey, I'm gonna marry this guy.” He's like, “Oh no, your mother would never allow that.” “Well, don't tell her.” And he's like, “Well, now I gotta keep a secret.” And it just becomes like keeping a secret from Morticia. And I don't believe any version of Gomez would ever keep a secret from Morticia ever?

Andrew: Well, this is not a version of Gomez, though. This is The Simpsons, the musical.

Brent Black: And not even. Like, this is Family Ties sometimes, you know? This is like -

Jess: Full House.

Brent Black: Yeah. And I will say - in the Broadway version, Gomez and Morticia didn't know. And so, it gives Gomez a conflict. And honestly, if this weren't The Addams Family, the idea of the dad being like, “Oh, I don't know what to do”, is an interesting place for him to be for a moment. But Morticia’s whole thing with, “We don't keep secrets from each other and any one secret that I don't know is a marriage-ender”. It's like, this is also predictable, and it makes Morticia such a total drag.

Jess: She becomes a shrew, kind of. As much as I hate that term.

Brent Black: Yeah, well, I mean, whatever term you want to use. She becomes, unfortunately, this stereotype that we almost feel, I think, as a culture, is kind of tired and probably a bit sexist, where it's like, “I'm just this grumpy nag of a wife.”

Andrew: And it’s been parodied so many times now.

Brent Black: Right. And the elegance and effortlessness of Morticia is completely thrown out the window. To be fair, the performer playing Morticia in the touring production we saw, I don't think really... perfectly serviceable, great voice, but like, I don't think brought the true elegance, had that true sense of effortlessness. But again, the role doesn't really support it. You'd almost be working against the role. Real quick, just in my notes before we finish talking about lyrics that I thought were not great. So, in the opener - And by the way, I think the opener is solid. Like, honestly, by the end of the opener, I think the audience is like, “Okay, I'm on board. This is fun, the song was fun, and I'm down for whatever you're going to do.” But, you know, Wednesday says, “When you're an Addams, you need to grab a bow and arrow.” Pugsley says, “When you're an Addams, you need a moment to explode”. Now, if there's any problem with my interpretation of lyrics, it's over-literalism. But they just did that to establish that Wednesday uses a crossbow, have a gag where she shoots something out of the sky (which I have never seen get a laugh). And then Pugsley just brings in one of those bomb boxes. A detonator.

Andrew: A Road Runner...

Brent Black: Exactly. An ACME detonator with like a T-shaped handle that he pulls up and pushes down and you hear a boom, but it doesn't get a laugh. And it's like, did they think they needed to acknowledge that Pugsley blows things up? And this is the only place they can do it? Do they want to just make sure you know who Pugsley is? Those two lines bugged me because if you look at them on paper, “You need to grab a bow and arrow you need a moment to explode”. They don't match the “You need to have some poison in your day.” You know what I mean? Like the rest of the song has? I don't know. I'm not sure why I so roll my eyes at that couplet.

Andrew: You lose the subtlety and just go straight for pure literalism.

Brent Black: Yeah. And to me, it's like, if those lines never got a laugh (again).

Andrew: Why? Why?

Brent Black: Yeah. Like, I'd like to think - and of course, you know, it's very easy to armchair all this. But I'd like to think that if a thing in the opening number never got a laugh, you'd be like, “Look, this is a couplet. I know we bought a detonator.” You know what I mean? “I know we - ”

Andrew: Use it later in the show!

Brent Black: Exactly. Or like, you know, not every single Addams reference needs to be in a thing. It's not like Pugsley blows anything up at any other point. Anyway -

Jess: But let's take a moment, go into the mid-show. Also, it's a ooky-spooky Halloween episode.

(Mid-show)

Jess: We already talked a bit about When You’re An Addams. Do we have any more to say about that or should we just jump off that?

(When You’re An Addams plays)

Brent Black: They did cut a little bit between Broadway and the tour. I think it was smart because as much as it's a pretty good opener, it goes on a bit long, especially with the introduction of all the ghosts and then all the different dances - the twist, the bunny hop. And of course, that's all leading up to the joke “rigor mortis”, which is a good gag. But, it's like, they just had a couple of lines they didn't need, so there were some smart cuts there. But, you know, honestly, as much as I think the show has problems, I think it's a really solid opener.

Andrew: The opener doesn't have any of the issues that the rest of the show has. You're just getting right into it and they're introducing what the Addams are.

Brent Black: Yeah, there's no conflict in it, so it's just presenting jokes, and fun, and you see the - I think Ben Brantley even mentions in his review, the curtain comes up, you see the Addams, the chorus is like, “Aa-oo-oo-oo”, and you go, “Oh my god, they're real. Look at them. They're right there.” That's exciting. We haven't gotten into the - You are totally right. Like, we just get to enjoy the idea of the Addams’ for four or five minutes before we, you know, hear them talk.

Jess: I also want to talk very, very, very briefly about how the revisions change who the “protagonist” of the show is. Just a tiny bit in song placement form. Because in this one, with Trapped for Gomez, that makes him the one with the “I want” song early on. And originally in that place was “Pulled”, which makes Wednesday the “protagonist” with the one song and the basic goal.

Andrew: Which makes more sense.

Brent Black: I think either one is flawed because they don't follow through on either one as the protagonist in either version. But I do feel like Gomez, I don't know. I honestly, I shouldn't say that there's a character that is ideal to be our protagonist, because even though there's protagonists, there's also the notion of the narrator. Fester ends up being kind of the narrator, which is not a protagonist, but it's its own, you know. But I just feel like we know that Wednesday is in love. What does she want? I guess she wants to get married, but then she doesn't, but then she does, but then she doesn't. I don't know. I think that the way they've led us into Gomez’s heart and mind in the tour version is better and makes him a little bit more central to the conflict.

Jess: I agree with that as well. And I don't think either works. Because originally, in Trapped’s place, there was Wednesday’s – Or, Where Did We Go Wrong, with Morticia and Gome.

Brent Black: Yeah, not good.

Jess: Which is just like, I feel like they're just trying to hearken back to The Producers of Where Did We Go Right?

Brent Black: Yeah, the jokes in Where Did We Go Wrong are Addamsy, but like for instance, in Where Did We Go Wrong, there's a line where Gomez says, “Are we good parents?” and the idea is like ha-ha, what he means is “Are we bad parents?” But it just doesn't land. I think actually Trapped is a really nice tight little comedy song. But unlike the best comedy songs, it goes from really funny to less funny as it goes along. Like, it comes out with that, like, “on the moderate right-wing? I'm trapped.” That's funny. “Like the New York DMV, I'm trapped.” That's funny. And then, like, to me a good comedy song - especially one that's repetitive and it's tight - gets funnier as you go along and it gets plot-ier and more thinky-feely.

Andrew: You gotta save the good jokes for the end.

Brent Black: Exactly. Honestly if you just rewrote it to the point where the republican right-wing and the New York DMV and those kinds of jokes were later on in the thing. Thinking it wouldn't be very different song. It would be better.

Jess: Funnier.

Brent Black: That said, he really painted himself into a corner with there's just not a lot of things that rhyme with “-apped” and he proved that by reusing some, and anyway, whatever, it's fine. When your hook has a very specific rhyme, sometimes you don't have many options. Are we past Pulled because I had thoughts.

Jess: No, we're about to talk about Pulled.

Brent Black: Great.

Jess: And Pulled, I would argue, is - tied with When You're An Addams - the most iconic and long-standing song in this show.

Brent Black: When you say long-standing, you mean like memorable or iconic?

Jess: Memorable, reused, and iconic, so to say. It is the one that all the young girls have now co-opted into their songbooks and are now sung at like all the 54 and below performances. It had a life outside of this show that is stronger than the life inside the show.

Brent Black: Right. It's one of my favorite tunes in the show. Like, in terms of the album tunes.

(Pulled plays)

Brent Black: I think, on paper, the idea of a song where Wednesday's like “I'm being pulled”, but she's pulling a lever that tortures Pugsley - that was a funny idea. And I think I'd like to see a version where Pugsley is like, oh, I don't know 15, cus Wednesday's older too, you know? Or like Pugsley’s maybe like, Spelling Bee-style adult playing a kid. But seeing... And I'm getting into some weird territory here, folks, but seeing a real child be pulled on the rack, like, I'm doing motions in the video that you can’t see here. But like, doing bondage and stuff -

Andrew: Should we explain what's going on?

Brent Black: Oh, that's a great point, because some people haven't - Yeah, so basically, Pugsley is up on a wall, where he's chained. Every single one of his limbs is sort of shackled and chained.

Andrew: It's like a medieval torture device for like stretching your bones out.

Brent Black: Right? And so, you can even hear on the album, there's like this “krrr” kind of sound where Wednesday pulls a lever, and Pugsley screams because his limbs are being stretched out. But, number one, in order for it to be safe, it's very tame. Like, you don't really ever believe that Pugsley’s - Yeah, and the thing is, I guess that's just how it has to be when you're working with a child actor, and you're trying to be safe and OSHA regulations. This is all to say that there's just something... Like, I think in the Addams comics and the movies, they reference torture, but you never fully see it. And I don't think you really want to see it? And when you see a child saying the phrase, “that was good, that was good. Do it again. Do it again.” I'm like, “this is uncomfortable.” And it seemed funnier on paper, because it seemed funny in that comic, single-panel picture kind of way.

Andrew: I think it is funny when they're both children because –

Brent Black: Or both children, sure.

Andrew: Because, like, children like to torture each other. But this time they actually enjoy it.

Brent Black: Right. And later on in the show when Pugsley is like, “Will you still torture me?” And Wednesday says “Yes, until you find a girl of your own”. And I'm like, “weeuuh, gaaaak”.

Jess: Whoa!

Andrew: That’s a different context.

Brent Black: Right. There's these things that just feel, like - And look, this is possibly just my dirty mind, but it feels like it's adjacent to some kind of weird, creepy stuff. In a show where we also have kind of a joke that I'll talk about later that flirts with sex trafficking? Like, we're just getting on the edge of things. And this was written -

Andrew: Did Epstein write this?

Brent Black: That’s what I’m saying.

Jess: Epstein was an Adaams.

Brent Black: The writing period of this was probably as far back as 13 years ago. It was a different time. But anyway, okay, so there's that. I've made my point about that. But also, a lyric I really don't like is... So, Wednesday is listing the things she suddenly into. I get it - birdies and bunnies and whatever. But she's like, “unicorns and dancing mice, Disney World, I'll go there twice.” Why does it bug me? I just feels like he went fucking “I don't know. I'll go there twice. Great. Fine.” But it's like, I don't know. It just feels like filler. And, yeah, it's a catchy song. But I just try not to think too much about the vaguely incestuous torture relationship and also “Disney World, I'll go there twice.” Equally offensive, both of those.

Jess: My God. Brent, to your credit, the UK tour does have an adult actor as Pugsley about the same age.

Brent Black: I think that's good. Because again, you want to be able to laugh at it. But when it's a little kid who doesn't really understand what enjoying torture would be like in the first place... And just doing, you know. If you watch it, you'll see what I'm saying. It’s just, there's an awkwardness to it that feels like the idea of this was funnier than the physical reality that can be safely presented in a touring musical.

Jess: Another thing, like an idea that popped in my head as you're talking, I think it's specifically the fact that his arms and legs are being spread and that is like something in sexual things that we see quite often. If it was an electric chair and it just literally, like, went off and like a kid can mine that a little more...

Andrew: Well, what if it was like the actual medieval ones where they pull your arms straight up and your legs straight down instead of being pulled sideways?

Brent Black: And that's the problem - it's like, they'd have to rig up something where only his head was actually his head and the body was fake. Which can be really funny. But they made it cartoonish where the limbs were like Stretch Armstrong. That's funny, but something about... stretching? Again, I know this is strange territory, but having the kid be like “I'm screaming in pain but I also like it”... Having an actual like probably 8 to 10-year-old act that out - not really probably getting it - just makes me, as a former child actor, be like, “You know, there was a better way.”

Andrew: I wonder what that child actor is doing right now.

Brent Black: Well, it's nine years later, so probably - dead.

Jess: Incesting. Oh my god, let's talk about One Normal Night.

(One Normal Night plays)

Jess: Does anyone else think this feels like it should be an Act 1 ender?

Brent Black: In a different show, yes, it has that feel. But this is, I think, my favorite song in the show. It definitely is an Act 1 tentpole. Feels like, I mean, the promise of this song is a better show than we get. But the tension that ramps up - despite the fact that it doesn't feel like a thing Wednesday would ask for, the whole thing feels a bit un-Addams. It's just a great song, I think.

Andrew: It's the Act 1 closer and then the first song in Act 2, they just get rid of it. That's what it is.

Brent Black: Well, I mean, and the thing is, again, the notion of a normal night is such a great setup for a musical (again, La Cage aux Folles/The Birdcage), but they don't really follow through on it. And I've already said that I don't like the line, “Without a mouse to feed a plant or two” and I don't like the line, “You have to swear to me, yes, promise to the core”. But the tension and the freakout at the end of this song that you can just hear they've chorally arranged, the buttholes kind of like squeezing, like, “Oh, no, uh, it's gonna be awkward.” It's so great, but the rest of the show does not fulfill the promise of the energy or the content of this very good song.

Jess: I agree. Specifically, another thing that bothered me - as someone that listened to the cast album well before watching any version of this. Or, I didn't even listen to cast album, I listened to just disparate songs from the show. Why don't we get a meet cute with Wednesday and Lucas? Like, I feel like that's more of a story. Like, why don't we figure out how they meet and that'd be most of Act 1?

Brent Black: We have no investment in their romance.

Jess: None. And the first time we see them alone, they're bickering. And I'm like, “Why do we want you to be together? Go fuck yourselves, both of you.”

Andrew: Um, the show wants them to be together and we have to agree.

Jess: And Fester wants them to be together.

Brent Black: Yes. They figured out a chess game before they figured out whether the bishop wants to move. So, a couple of things in between the songs. The Lurch bits in both versions always threatened to kill the momentum. Anything in a Broadway show and a Broadway musical comedy that is slow on purpose is such a risk, because if it doesn't land, you've spent 12 seconds, which are an eternity in Broadway musical theater dialogue, setting up a joke that didn't land. And this is the part where we suddenly see this weirdly domineering Morticia nagging about - not, you know, always being honest with each other, but also, I've never seen the Morticia enforce the Addamsness. You know what I'm saying? Like, I feel like the Addams have a “We're just whatever weirdos we are”. But here, Morticia is like “Goddamnit, you're not gonna wear yellow.” It's like “Whoa, are you some weird flipped version of the mom from Carrie? You’re so militant about that.” And it’s not fun.

Andrew: I thought the whole point of the Addams is that they don't care.

Brent Black: Right, Right.

Andrew: Like, if Wednesday decided to just start wearing yellow and liking bunnies, I don't think they would give a shit.

Brent Black: They'd be like, “Great. Can we torture them? Can we kill the bunnies?”

Jess: Let me say something to the core.

Andrew: To the core!

Brent Black: Tell me to the core, Jess!

Jess: I tried to make a joke.

Andrew: He’s a talking apple.

Jess: You got him while he was drinking, Andrew.

Brent Black: No, that’s a perfect time. Go on.

Jess: So, there was an episode of The Addams Family show where Pugsley was becoming normal. And he was into, like, becoming a Boy Scout and all that and they were like, “Oh, no, what are we doing? He doesn't like hanging out with us. He doesn't like it when I make the trains explode. He just wants to see the move. He wants to do these Boy Scout stuff.” And they were taking him to therapists and shit. So, there is a precedent for them not reacting well to people that are normal within the show itself.

Brent Black: The most generous response I'd have to that would be: Maybe it was the actor, the performer doing Morticia in the production I saw. Because she came off naggy, domineering, militant, and so the opposite of the fun of Morticia. And again, I mentioned - I don't know if we were recording it or not. But, in the movie, I think it's the first one where the kids want to electrocute each other. And Morticia is like, “I said, No.” And the thing is, she's not being mean, she’s not raising her voice. She's just being a mom telling you what to do. And that's where the comedy comes from. Maybe there's a performance in the script of a Morticia who isn't being quite so... I don't know, judgmental? But it really feels like, again, the mom from Carrie, the mom from The Waterboy. Just very domineering and pushy about “You're gonna be Addamsy”, which is kind of supported by the text of the opener. “When you're an Addams, you do what Addams do or die”. I guess I get that, but I don't like that take.

Andrew: They got the, like, weird conversion therapy plot going on here.

Brent Black: I mean, this is the thing. It feels like “You will do this or else.” And to your point, Jess, it seems like they've explored that in the TV show. It just seems like in the TV show, they were more concerned and clueless about the right way to deal with it, as opposed to - and again, I haven't seen that episode, so I'm talking out my ass, but - as opposed to really, kind of firmly, and in a negative reinforcement kind of way, saying “You don't get to wear yellow. We wear goddamn black and gray in this family. And you will do this.” Or, you know, like, “These are the rules under my roof.” It just feels weird.

Andrew: Yeah. It’s the difference of, like, “concerned because they don't understand why they would want to do that” vs. “You don't get to do that because I say so.”

Jess: I think... This is where it's just uncharted territory with any version of The Addams Family, because we've never seen teenaged characters of them, where we have the rebellious youth. In theory, this could work. If you have the rebellious youth rebelling against their parents and all that, and it takes the form of wearing the yellow dresses and all, that there could be humor to be had there. I agree with you that the performance just plays it more shrew. But the idea of it - because that is new territory for The Addams Family and probably give Morticia something to play with, because she's always played with the younger children and how to deal with young kids that are scared of knights in shining armor instead of scared of dragons.

Brent Black: Yeah, yeah.

Jess: Where I feel like they were trying to do a pastiche on the nagging mother of a teenager and then realizing “Oh, I was the same way” and that storyline. I don't like it, but I get what they're trying to do.

Brent Black: If they had introduced - really early on - the idea of her continuing to talk about her terrible mother and how terrible her mother had been, and we get a sense all the whole way through the show that Morticia is not realizing she's becoming her mother - Then that's the gag. But instead of it being a gag we're in on, I'm just sitting there going, “God who replaced Morticia with this asshole?”, you know?

Jess: But then again, a lot of mothers of teenage girls do come off as assholes sometimes.

Brent Black: Sure, but none of them are this very weirdly ethereal dark character, constantly - I mean, I don't know, you're not wrong. I just feel like –

Andrew: Jess, it's supposed to be an Addams Family, what the fuck?

Jess: I agree! But I’m saying there’s nothing wrong with trying a new thing and failing. I get what they were –

Andrew: Yes there is, you failed. You failed!

Jess: All right, we got to keep going on. We spent like 25 minutes on One Normal Night. Full Disclosure, Parts 1 & 2.

Andrew: What the fuck is happening in this song? I don't get it.

Jess: Andrew’s mad. It's getting stir-crazy here.

Andrew: Why are they yelling into a cup? What the fuck is happening?

(Full Disclosure plays)

Brent Black: I think this song, actually, is a clever way for everybody to have their confession booth. Like, when you're watching a reality show and it cuts away with people going, “I was scared” or whatever. And the fact that they set it up with, you know, giving it a name that was actually, “Oh, it’s actually this other exotic name, but really what it means is full disclosure.” - I think it's great. It's a great way to catch - I mean, it's silly and it's lazy, but it's very efficient as far as a way to figure out where the characters are. I will say there's this one line that they kept. Again, these lines! Where Gomez points out that the chalice is die cast. Die cast metal like a Hot Wheels car. It's like, one grandpa in the back row chuckles. But, why? Fix it! Make it funnier! Anyway, whatever. So, it makes you feel like when Lippa finished his draft, and then finished - you know what I mean, like didn't want to - Anyway, whatever. I think Full Disclosure is fun. I think that - I was sure they'd cut Fester being in love with the moon from the tour version, but whatever. I love that Grandma gets –

Andrew: Oh, that's important.

Brent Black: I love the grandma gets a little time to do her bit and then say “I peed”. That was fun, but -

Andrew: Wasn't very funny, in my opinion, but –

Brent Black: To be fair, Jackie Hoffman in the Broadway version was significantly funnier as grandmama than the woman in the touring version. And you know, you don't want to write a role that requires a really funny actor. You want the dialogue to just be simply good. But if you've ever seen a high school production of a classic play that's written perfectly, you know, perfect text does not mean a perfect performance, especially when you're on tour every night. But, you know, I liked grandma's part. I think that, you know, the problem of adapting the Addams, like I said earlier, is there's so many characters to worry about. If you could cut Fester and Pugsley, it would be a much tighter show. But you can't because that would be straight up like disrespectful to the source material. It would be like –

Jess: I was gonna suggest something even worse, to be honest.

Brent Black: What?

Jess: And I was thinking about bringing it up, but fuck it, I’ll do it. This would have been sacrilege and people would have burned it down. And maybe I would have been one of them. But what if they pulled like a Hotel Transylvania and/or Mamma Mia 2, and they killed Morticia? And the thing is Gomez is trying to be a single father without his wife and dealing with Wednesday growing up and all that and –

Brent Black: Morticia could just be like a sexy ghost.

Jess: Yes.

Andrew: Or she could just be away for a week.

Brent Black: So, Mr. Mom. The Addams Family meets Mr. Mom, the Broadway musical. I mean, I don't know. I don't know that a talented, well written version of that could be any worse than this.

Jess: Well, that would actually give like some dramatic stakes to add our Gomez losing Wednesday and her getting older, which seems to be something they're trying to apply here. Like, when it gets to Happy/Sad in Act 2, I feel like that would have hit harder if it's like, “Yeah, you're the one girl I had left and you're leaving. And it's sad and all that. But whatever.”

Brent Black: I mean, honestly, like, yeah, that would be interesting. But again, like, it kind of comes down to... This is part of why it's such a tricky property to adapt because the Addams are not characters you think of as being emotionally resonant. Like Raul Julia’s Gomez - part of why he's so great is because you sort of felt his emotions. He was passionate when he got upset about, you know, about Fester not remembering things. It was real, you bought it. But it wasn't the kind of vulnerability that would lead to breaking into song. I don't feel like these characters really inherently have that. So, to tack that on requires a lot of weird warping and manipulation. And, you know, the idea of dead Morticia, Gomez single father, that's really interesting, but I think would take it even further from what we think of as The Addams Family, and make it suddenly fulfill the attempt at emotional resonance and vulnerability this show does particularly in Act 2. These things don't really agree. So, it sounds like what you're saying, Jess, is that that would make a lot of the songs in the show make more sense, but they're the ones that don't make sense when you're trying to make an Addams Family musical.

Jess: Yes. What I'm saying is you probably shouldn't have made an Addams Family musical, but if you were to do it, do it as a series of vignettes. Do it as a series of vignettes and maybe a plot around them.

Brent Black: You mean like You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown kind of thing.

Jess: Yeah, that could have worked.

Brent Black: Also partially written by Lippa. I played Schroeder in high school.

Jess: Well, were you the only one that knew how to play piano?

Brent Black: Actually, it was bullshit because I was, like, losing my hair at the time and I was willing to shave my head to be Charlie Brown, but I was in Academic Decathlon - And so, because we had too much stuff to do outside of school, I couldn't be the lead. So, I had to be fucking Schroeder. But, it turned out okay. Great story, grandpa. Anyway -

Jess: He probably went to a school that had money for the arts and stuff.

Brent Black: At that time, yes. So yeah, Full Disclosure, like, it's fun or whatever. It's like an elongated sketch. It could probably be cut down. But then you get Waiting, which is like a mini-song in the middle of the greater Full Disclosure doughnut.

(Waiting plays)

Brent Black: I think it's a uniquely weird but kind of great song moment. I think any performer who really pulls it off deserves some serious applause. But I would be willing to bet this song was originally written specifically for Carolee Carmello, who originated the role of Alice. She's a longtime associate of Andrew Lippa. It feels like the star moment that was written to lure her into playing this kind of, let’s be real, kind of tertiary role. But it's fun. It's interesting and her whole like “Now I'm being my real self” is interesting. And so, it's fun, but then, you know, we do the whole – ugh, in the in the tour version we do the whole like, Morticia realizes Gomez had one secret from her for 18 whole hours, and so that's all fucked forever.

Jess: I mean, it is literally about their daughter marrying someone. I get she’d be a little ticked about it. But, marriage over, second act breakup of romantic comedy levels – No...

Brent Black: This is the whole thing. It’s like, it's so frustrating that the boy-loses-girl of Gomez and Morticia is... he was between a rock and a hard place. He's unable to say, “Look, my daughter told me to keep a secret. I didn't know what to do. So I kept secret for 17 and a half hours. I'm so sorry that you now want to be - ”, you know, anyway, it's so silly.

Andrew: Absurdity.

Brent Black: Yeah, and not the good kind. In a show that should have all kinds of great absurdity, it's not good absurdity. So that's Act 1.

Jess: All right.

Andrew: Well, what do we got time for? Like one more song?

Jess: We can do two more, I think. There's two big ones I want to hit. I want to talk about - between The Moon And Me and Happy/Sad, which do we prefer to talk about?

Andrew: I mean, The Moon And Me is kind of ridiculous if you want to talk that. But Happy/Sad –

Brent Black: I mean, yeah, The Moon And Me can be summed up by saying it's pure fluff. But, I mean, it's a song to let the rest of the cast have a cigarette and piss.

(The Moon And Me plays)

Brent Black: When the special effects are good, it's very charming. The Broadway version was especially impressive. I feel like all the high school productions of this - that apparently are very numerous - I'm like, “Yeah, how do you pull this off?”, but it's fun. It's just fluff. But yeah, that's all that needs to be said about it.

Jess: I agree. And it's like one of the more melodic pieces in here where -

Brent Black: It’s cute and it's catchy. Yeah, yeah. It doesn't feel like –

Andrew: I like when he flies in the air, it's nice.

Brent Black: Like, the idea of Uncle Fester singing that song makes no goddamn sense if you zoom way out, but it's fun. It's charming.

Jess: Alright, Happy/Sad, which is literally a Sondheim pastiche.

Brent Black: Oh yeah, I didn't think of that.

(Happy/Sad plays)

Jess: It sounds like Sondheim. Like, it literally just sounds like Sorry-Happy. What is that? From Company?

Brent Black: Oh, goddamnit. I'm supposed to know this. Sorry-Grateful.

Jess: Sorry-Grateful. That's it. Yeah, it's literally just a pastiche on that where, I guess, like, it's cute. It's very, very cute. Like, it’s one of those few sentimental moments that kind of work.

Brent Black: It's like, does it only work because you've accepted that they're not doing The Addams Family? Because I'm just saying -

Andrew: I feel like by this point in the show, you have to have already -

Brent Black: Right. Like, I think that if you showed this to someone who hadn't seen the rest of the show, they'd be like, “What the fuck am I watching?” It's a very cute song.

Andrew: “Oh, it’s The Addams Family.”

Brent Black: With one D. It’s the sequel to 1776. No. The point is, it's actually very touching, very resonant, very human condition kind of thing. And like any song, this is my Achilles’ heel, if you want to make me cry a tiny bit. Any song that ends with a shorter person, kind of emphatically hugging and taller person on the last note - the last resolution of the chord - always makes me a little bit misty, no matter how bad the show is. But, in the greater context of an Addams Family musical... I mean, really, the second act is this combination of making sure the stars all get their one more number, whether they're good or not, and wrapping stuff up. All the weird, like, their being like, “We're not gonna have any loose ends”, but you've pulled so many goddamn threads! The show could be significantly shorter, if you just hadn’t pulled so many threads that you have to now wrap up. It's just song after song. I don't know. It's a lot.

Jess: It is a lot. But I actually like the next one. So, I'm gonna talk about that. I really like Crazier Than You.

(Crazier Than You plays)

Brent Black: I think that, again, if it were in a show where I give a shit about Wednesday and Lucas, then it's quite something. It's, you know, like, I like the symbolism of it. I like a lot about it structurally and in terms of the writing. But, by that point in the show, the way it's written, I'm like, “Look, it's probably gonna work out fine. I don't care. Just do the thing.”

Andrew: It’s kind of a boring song.

Jess: I will admit I listened to this song originally in a vacuum, imagining a better show around it.

Brent Black: Right? Once you do that, if you take every part of it in the universe it's trying to create around itself, there's a lot of good talented work in this show. It just doesn't match the rest of the show and/or doesn't match The Addams Family a lot of the time.

Jess: But as a thing on its own of a final resolution of two people discovering that they can be together - as just that idea, and one of them is kind of wackier, I kind of dig it. I dig the beat. In the same way that I kind of like Pulled in and of itself, despite it not being a Wednesday Addams that I know in any version.

Andrew: It's pretty, uh, it is pretty late in the show for these two to discover they can be together, especially after all the conflict that them trying to be together has caused.

Brent Black: Yeah, and I feel like one weakness of the show that feels like it was the blindspot of the writers is Lucas is really underwritten. And it feels like - That's why I think if you could cut Pugsley, cut Fester, cut grandma. I would honestly miss them, but we don't get much of a sense of Lucas, we really don't. And I guess if you look at La Cage, we don’t get much of a sense of the fiancé, of the son in La Cage, but I will say I'm Crazier Than You in the touring version has a really good rewrite. And, as we've mentioned before, Mal in the original Broadway version, needed a fucking squid to realize he had love in his heart and loved his wife and liked sex, I guess. But in here, he sees young lovers reconcile in an extreme way and goes, “I have an extreme side to myself, too, that I’ve forgotten, I’ve misplaced.” That's a good rewrite. One thing I'd like to just point out while we have a second - Have you noticed that Mal and Alice, their names, make “malice”?

Andrew: Wow, I did not notice that. But that's obviously intentional.

Brent Black: Well, here's the thing. It's kind of clever. But the problem is, that's - in my opinion - those are the names you give to two characters who are going to turn out to be evil - like really evil and villainous. And it's a hint the writers are giving the audience early in Act 1. But if they are this weird Dr. Seuss woman who's secretly an asshole and horny, and this, like, asshole man who's secretly a hippie and a rocker, that are going to totally reconcile and be chill with everyone and they're not really villains, why call them Mal & Alice? It just seems like a weird - This whole show has all these little appendages, all these little vestigial parts that they just decided not to change. I guess cus, like, they didn't want to change it too much from the Broadway version, but it's like, what version of it in 2007 did that make any sense? Mal & Alice? But the reprise of Crazier Than You with Mal & Alice makes a lot of sense. Do we want to jump real quick, Andrew, to Not Today? Remember that song?

Andrew: Yeah, sure. Not Today? I don't think I remember this one -

Brent Black: Well, I don't blame you. Act 2 is just like a “When is it over?” But this is when, even though it's Act 2, Morticia’s been like, “Well, I don't want to have sex today.” And then Gomez has a whole solo about “She doesn't want to have sex. She said not today? Oh no.”

(Not Today plays)

Andrew: Yeah, right. This one.

Brent Black: It’s so... sitcommy. It could have been 20 seconds of dialogue. It's a whole song.

Andrew: From my viewing of the one movie I've seen, they always want to have sex, at all times. So, I'm not really sure what the heck this is about.

Brent Black: I mean, the idea is that, you know, Morticia’s like, “You lied to me. And I have never seen Paris” and all these things that feel very non-Morticia to me. But if I take them at face value, she's upset at Gomez. And she says, “I don't want to have sex with you today”, which I don't know about anybody else, but to me, that's a thing that happens sometimes. And I know they're the Addams but his whole song, which I think - don't quote me on this - but I think was written much earlier and was re-transplanted into Act 2. I just don't think we need to dramatize Gomez's emotional reaction to being turned down for sex by his wife of 20 years. I don't know that we need three minutes of song for –

Andrew: Oh, yeah, I'm sure this has never happened before, Gomez.

Brent Black: Right. And if it hasn't, like that's, I don't know what.

Andrew: It's impressive.

Brent Black: I mean, yes. And also like, anyway. So, now we go to Live Before We Die, which is Gomez trying to get Morticia back. She's going to move, she's going to go to Paris, she's going to get a taxi and leave.

Andrew: Well, I mean, he kept the secret for, like, almost an entire day. Like, she should move to Paris.

Brent Black: How dare he? How dare he keep a secret not knowing what to do?

(Live Before We Die plays)

Brent Black: I hate - I gotta tell you - As much as I'm fine with people breaking into song, I'm fine with certain contrivances and conventions of musical theater, which is one of the most ridiculous genres of art there is. I hate the moment where woman-is-mad-at-thing-man-did and man can't just say, “Oh, I have a good reason to explain.”

Andrew: Well, and it's almost not even always that. There's just always characters in any kind of media that just do this, where it's just like, mild misunderstanding is suddenly like, end of the world, it's over, I never speak to you ever again.

Brent Black: Yeah. And if it's an episode of The Golden Girls, great. We're spending 22 minutes with these old broads and that's fine. But when we're spending two hours with the goddamn Addams Family, I'm like this feels like more sitcommy than your sitcom. It's silly. Then they do a tango. Honestly, by the time we're in the tango, I'm like, “I don't care anymore. Just end it. Yeah, I know you can dance, I know it's a Broadway show. I don't give a shit. I see everything coming.” And I'm not one of those people that goes like “I saw it coming”. I like to be surprised. I like to go on the ride, but – So, just, to jump to the finale, I think it's a weirdly good finale even though it doesn't follow any of the rules. It's very plotting. It's slow. It takes its time. It's actually structurally kind of rambley. But, like, seeing Lurch smile is beautiful. I think that finale actually weirdly combines the Addamsness and this non-Addamsy show they've both done in this kind of peppermint swirl that is pretty good.

(Move Toward the Darkness plays)

Andrew: What they should do is release a new version of the show. And they'll do the opening number, and then the ending, and then everyone goes home afterwards.

Brent Black: I don't hate it.

Jess: Yeah, let’s do it. I vote for this, I fully endorse it, let’s try it at once.

Brent Black: I – that’s from something and -

Jess: You’re doing videos on it, Brent. You’ll figure it out.

Brent Black: Is it...? Oh, that’s Nightmare Before Christmas, aka Lyrics Don’t Matter, the musical. And here’s the thing - Look, I’m a snob about lyrics and I know that my taste doesn't actually apply to most lyrics the average person even experiences, but I still have these opinions and that's just it. My problem when you make a YouTube video criticizing lyrics is the people that will go – It’s kind of like if you're debating someone and they go all the way to “Well, how do we really know anything?” It's like, “Oh, you've really retreated to a place, and so - ”

Andrew: You're talking about lyrics and then they're just like, “Well, really, if I'm just a brain in a vat, I mean –“

Brent Black: Precisely. Andrew, precisely. If you go to the heart of solipsism of lyrics... I cannot follow you. So, they'll be like, “Maybe Danny Elfman meant for them to be bad in a meta way.” And I'm like, “I just don't believe Disney hands you $33 million adjusted for inflation and you go, “You know what’d be funny? To write bad lyrics because it's meta.” You know. I don't think so. Or they'll be like, “Do songs even need to rhyme?” and I'm like, “I'm sure there's a dissertation out there about this, but in English, in a musical, like kinda yeah, unless you're gonna do a musical that's about things not rhyming, or a song about things not rhyming – great.” Anyway, we're talking about my YouTube series. I'm trying to get back to Addams. Move Toward the Darkness. You know, it's a serviceable finale. It just has no razzle dazzle in a very strange way, but it's very Addamsy. It's like this beautiful emotional dirge. I mean, it's probably in my top five songs in the show.

Jess: I agree.

Andrew: All right, you want to get to the closing thought and cheese rating? We have to finish this up before Jess literally dies.

Jess: Oh, hell yeah. Before everything else falls apart on my audio end.

Andrew: Brent, as our guest, you go first.

Jess: Yeah, before I die of COVID-19, Brent, what is your overall thoughts on The Addams Family Musical and your cheese rating?

Brent Black: Well, it isn’t the best property to adapt to the musical and they have to manipulate the Addams characters to shoehorn them into a musical theater story, especially Morticia. But like, it is not an untalented show. There are moments that I really enjoy and come back to and some of the one-liners in the book particularly - well, actually, no, they're both good. Both versions have one-liners in the book that are just really good. My favorite joke in the show is “My mother? I thought she was your mother.” That to me is, honestly, especially when Nathan Lane said it - but we'll leave that alone. The cheese rating I would say that this show is a combination of something old but also with the new twist. Just like the old world craftsmanship blended with modern technology that produces the award-winning Adams Reserved Cheddar Cheese, which is real as fuck, I looked it up. It's appropriate. It's well thought-out. That's what my cheese rating is, motherfuckers.

Jess: Good, good, good. Juliet Antonio, keeper the cheese, give him a thumbs up emoji right next to that. Like, that's great. Andrew, your turn. Overall thoughts and your cheese rating?

Andrew: Honestly, I was kind of bored by this one. It just wasn't very strong. The whole like, lame family breakup, plot just sucks and doesn't feel like an Addams Family plot, and it just, especially when you get to Act 2, it just does not end. It just keeps boring you in new and exciting ways.

Brent Black: Quotable quotes.

Andrew: Um, I don't know. So, as far as a cheese rating, I looked up the worst cheese for your health because I guess that would be something The Addams Family would like, right? And honestly, the only answer I could find is low fat cheddar, so we're going with that.

Jess: Why is that the worst for your health?

Andrew: Apparently they replace the fat with stuff that is even worse for you. So yeah.

Brent Black: The hair of a hamster.

Jess: Great. Bree, how would you rate our discussion and your cheese rating on that?

Brianna I thought you guys had a lovely discussion. It was quite entertaining. Especially with Jesse, your life going to shit over there. But the -

Jess: I wish I had COVID-19.

Andrew: Don’t wish that.

Brent Black: No. Nay-nay.

Brianna Yes, don’t wish that. But the cheese I’m going to give this podcast is not a specific cheese, but a family of cheese. Blue vein cheeses. And mainly because that was the coolest family of cheese on this website.

Andrew: Like The Addams Family. I get it.

Jess: Da-da-da-dum (snap snap)

Brianna Like the Addams Family, yes. Okay, good night.

Jess: Hold on, I gotta get my boring thoughts that nobody cares about. Um, I think this show gets better as it ages. So, the more times they put it on, the more improvements they go. And it's strange because it was a financial success despite being a critical success.

Andrew: Failure.

Jess: And the only frame of reference I have for that are - despite being a critical failure, thank you, Andrew. And I do appreciate that. I think I meant to say despite not being a critical success. The only comparison I have to that is Jekyll & Hyde, which also, like, in any production you see is not the production on Broadway. People keep changing that show anytime it's fucking put on. Like, there is not a single version of that that is the same.

Brent Black: Yeah, this is a better show, but that's a better album, I think I'd say.

Jess: Yes. Um, but same with Addams Family, it's gonna keep changing, the more school productions, it's just going to get weirder and stranger and they'll bring in stuff from there and bring in stuff from there. And I think that's great. And I feel that the improvement of musical theater, a bad show can become a much better show with time and this is the only medium where that really can happen. In theater in general.

Andrew: George Lucas.

Jess: Well, yeah, but George Lucas isn't doing that anymore. Disney's doing it. So, my cheese rating is Wensleydale cheese because it kind of sounds like Wednesday-dale.

Andrew: (in a British accent) Wensleydale.

Jess: (also in a British accent) Wensleydale. But do you know who isn't so boring?

Andrew: The Addams Family?

Jess: Our wonderful patrons. Thank you guys for listening. Brent, I know you’ve got a lot of stuff to put out there. Shill it for the world.

Brent Black: Oh my goodness. Well, I'm currently taking video game tunes people love and adding lyrics to them and little musical numbers and music videos on my YouTube channel, as well as doing snooty critiques of lyrics in such things as the Tasmania theme song from the early 90s, and a deep dive on the Nightmare Before Christmas at my YouTube channel brentalfloss, which is dental floss with a br at the beginning instead of a D. Also, if you're interested in my Star Trek Parody musical, you can watch a pretty well shot video of an older draft of at twitter.com/uastpm And also, I'm the designer and co-creator of a super fun party game called Use Your Words. It’s kind of like the Jackbox Games’ Quiplash, but funnier.

WIKIPEDIA – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Addams_Family_(musical)

Uncle Fester Flies, Gomez Tangos in ‘Addams Family’- By John Simon https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2010-04-08/uncle-fester-flies-gomez-tangos-in-addams-family-john-simon

Buh-Da-Da-Dum (Snap Snap) – By Ben Brantley https://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/09/theater/reviews/09addams.html