The news that Glee creator Ryan Murphy has purchased the rights to Funny Girl, which jetted Barbra Streisand to stardom in the 1960s, and has talked with Lea Michele about her starring in a real Broadway revival, as opposed to the fictional production depicted on Glee, made us think about some of the great fictional musicals of the past.
Here, in no particular order and with no scientific selection criteria whatsoever, are Classicalite's Five Best made-up musicals that popular culture has (or hasn't) presented us with.
Red, White and Blaine
Who could forget "A Penny for Your Thoughts," "Nothing Ever Happens on Mars" and especially "Stool Bloom" from the 1996 comedy Waiting for Guffman? "Working, making…never stopping, never sleeping." With songs by Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer, the movie and its fake musical may be the funniest sendup of community theater ever.
Bombshell
Far and away the best element of the late, unlamented TV bomb Smash was this fake musical based on the life of Marilyn Monroe. Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman's songs and the production numbers devised to put them across had authentic pizzazz. It's too bad the TV show itself could never gin up any.
The Drowsy Chaperone
A fictional 1928 musical by that name is the whole concept of this modern-day show-within-a-show, which makes it this list's most fully realized fake.
A Taste for Love
The Dracula-puppet musical that Jason Segel put together for his hit film Forgetting Sarah Marshall is seen only in a two-minute montage, but it sure made this writer wish he could sit through (and laugh at) the whole dratted thing.
Springtime for Hitler
The award for tastelessness surely goes to this astounding concept from Mel Brooks's classic 1967 comedy The Producers, which starred Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder as producers trying to create a show sure to be a flop. The movie was such a non-flop it got made into an enormously successful theatrical musical and then a second movie in 2005, both with Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick.
Just to bring things full circle, I'll note that The Producers opens with a number from a fake musical about Hamlet called--wait for it--Funny Boy.
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