My Space Classics: My entire review of Dr. Horrible's Internet Premiere

What did I think of Dr.Horrible when it came to my computer nearly five years ago. From my old MySpace blog:

From My Space, July 2008:

Waiting for Dr. Horrible

I did have to the chance to see Dr. Horrible early this morning after I got off my overnight shift at my radio station. I thought the site would be there in the morning.

Then I find out it crashed along with Whedonesque. Holy Internet Musical, Batman! This new idea from Joss Whedon made you and the Joker almost moot...until this weekend rolls around, of course.
Still, the crash of the site is excellent news for iTunes. I am sure a lot of people are buying part one at two dollars a pop, and will do the same for the other two parts as well. I'd do that, but my iPod is audio only. I'll have to really consider upgrading to a video iPod soon.
This should also make DVD sales jump very high once people can take that route, like me. It's also good news for a group called J!nx, who has made Dr. Horrible t-shirts. I got the logo shirt, because Nathan's face on one of the designs looks a bit too creepy. I just hope my shirt gets to my house by next Tuesday so I can take it with me to Comic-Con. I hope someone can start making Dr. Horrible hats, too.
All this excitement over an internet musical has to get the notice of someone in the Big Media. If people can make a website explode over a little musical, imagine what they can do for a "lost episode" that's web exclusive. That would work for shows like Lost, Heroes (maybe revive the Origins arc this way), Stargate: Atlantis, Battlestar Galactica...or even Doctor Who. As for regular dramas or sitcoms, I am not too sure. They can make webisodes, like Rescue Me and The Office, but I'm not too sure about full episodes unless they are wilder than the TV-MA ranking. Al this just proves that once again, Joss is on to something...bringing new meaning to independent producing.
Now, can someone give the website some Cybernetic Growth Hormone?

Down with Captain Hammer!!

That guy is the Sean Hannity of super heroes!
However, his duet with Penny (Felicia Day) was quite romantic..and this whole musical is great. Neil, of course, brings humanity to an evil villain who just wants to be loved. He'd give up the Evil League of Evil for Penny's friendly touch.
I gotta say...I never expected Nathan Fillion to be a musical leading man. Too bad he isn't in Mamma Mia as one of the three "fathers". Hopefully he can find himself in musicals, just like Lucy Lawless. Maybe we can have Serenity the musical! All you need is the soundtrack.
As for Miss Day, I do remember her singing in the HBO movie, Warm Springs. Yep, that movie on FDR's life before he became president included Day as one of the wheel-bound patients being able to show her musical talents.
Bring on parts two and three...then the DVD!

Mamma Mia! This is the musical to see! (Sorry, Meryl)

For those who think the musical based on Abba songs is in trouble if they let Pierce Brosnan sing, rest assure that Doctor Horrible's Sing-Along Blog has everything you need in a clever good vs. evil musical.
After we see the Doc's stunned look that Penny can be so easily swept off her feet by Captain Pen--I mean Hammer, we get a lovely duet between Penny and the Doc, "I Cannot Believe My Eyes", where their views of the world may conflict but their voices are well-matched. We see that Captain Hammer is indeed the Sean Hannity of superheroes, when he shows some reluctance to shake hands with the homeless or with geese. But show off on one of those paddle boats? He lives for that.
We also see the Doc's freeze ray caper fizzled out because his blog's popular with Hammer and the cops. A few clicks of the mouse could have fixed that. Now, Bad Horse, the Thoroughbred of Sin (great name for a race horse), wants nothing less than death and assassination from the Doc, or he can kiss the Evil League of Evil good-bye.
Meanwhile, he seems to be bonding with Penny thanks to Pinkberry, until Captain Hammer brags about how he's been able to get Penny that building for her shelter, thanks to his fist..and a pen, of course. Once he brags about how he'll bring Penny to his place, and present his hammer, which is also his penis, suddenly assassination sounds like a great idea to the Doc.
His song of new purpose, "Brand New Day", followed by his dream of recreating the climax from the Buffy episode, "Fear, Itself", with Hammer as Gachnar, wraps up part two.
Leave it to Joss and his brothers and friends to come up with a musical where we root for a mad scientist whose evil is genuine--as is his love for the Lovely Damsel. Does that trump the need to please a Thoroughbred of Sin, even if it means knocking off the least super of superheroes since Puma Man? Well, that's what part three is for. Maybe she'll be evil in the end, or just smarter than the two main guys. Now that's an ending.
Just a reminder that this musical will have its own panel late Friday night, but it's up against the major awards at the Eisners. I just wonder if the cast will be at the late-night showing, If so, it will be wall-to-wall fans there.

We should have seen this coming, but it was still cool

Well, we have seen all three parts of the Dr. Horrible saga...the first internet musical that also could have made a good comic book. This is exactly what this was..a comic book story with music. 

We were all right up there with the Doc, who was all set to take down Captain Hammer, who is what would happen if Fox News invented a super hero. The doc was all set to show us the truth, of how the world really was, and how he just might be a hero after all.
Well...let's just say the Doc has to deal with how it all turned out, especially with the points he did prove. I don't want to reveal the ending, but it's something that wouldn't surprise those who are familiar with Joss' work.
The third part centers on Captain Tool, I mean Hammer, about to get a statue for helping the homeless. He's the darling of the media, while fans wear shirts with his face to show their devotion. We also learn that David Fury should have been in Mamma Mia instead of Pierce Brosnan (as far as vocal abilities are concerned). He and Marti Noxon also make an ideal L-A TV anchor team, probably the noon news. Anywho, Captain Hammer makes his big speech about his great deed, and his sexual relationship with Penny, then sings a song about how everyone can be a hero (but not quite like him). As the audience waves their arms in time with the tune, Doc Horrible interrupts with his freeze ray..which actually works. He gives his song about how people are like sheep, and that the world isn't all sweetness and light. While it's not as upbeat as the Captain, his lyrics are much better. This all leads to a showdown where shocking truths are revealed, and a new day has begun.
Again, I won't say what happens, but I have this question for Dr. Horrible, after all that has happened...
Happy Now?
Well, one look at him at the very last second, and you'll know the answer.
It's a brilliant ending to something that just may revolutionize the internet's role in entertainment, or at least get the process going.
All three parts will be shown at Comic-Con next Friday, and I'm guessing it's going to be packed. It may even be cooler than the MST3K reunion. It's already cooler than Mamma Mia!

 

I'm going to the PaleyFest, but when?

As some of you may know, this year's Paley Festival will feature two Whedon projects, Dr. Horrible and Dollhouse. They'll be on consecutive nights, April 14th and 15th. Some other show will also be part of the event, from Desperate Housewives and The Mentalist to The Hills (why?) to 90210 (see The Hills). There's also True Blood, Big Love and Fringe on the lineup.

You'd think my chances of going depend on the Dr. H/Dollhouse doubleheader, since both are sure to sell out before the mere mortals get a chance at tickets on March 1st. In an ideal world, where Fargo would have been Best Picture at the 1997 Oscars, I would get tickets to Dollhouse because the whole cast, and The Man, would be there. However, there is one event that will make it certain I will be in L-A during the festival...
they're showing the last three episodes of Pushing Daisies at least four months before ABC will bother to show them on TV.
Not only that, it will be a matinee, and the price will be about the same as seeing Watchmen in Imax!

That is enough! If I luck out on Dollhouse, I'll go there too, but my trip will be around my final, fateful trip to the Pie Hole. It's only a question of whether I'll arrive on Dollhouse night, or Pushing Daisies Day. Anyway, Bryan Fuller, who created the show and is also Heroes' Last Hope, will be there to introduce the episodes. I would hope he'd be around at the end, maybe organize a crowd to head to ABC's office complex and start throwing pies at the programmers' offices. Or...he'll give us pie. That would work. Maybe he'll also talk about the Dead Like Me DVD movie that someone should have told him about so it would be done right.

I would be very surprised if anyone from the cast would be there for the matinee event. It would be a kick, and you never can tell. Afterwards, maybe I'll go see Coraline in 3-D, if I don't get a chance to do that next week during Wondercon.

Getting back to the festival, I noticed that while Joss, his brothers, Nathan Fillion, and Felicia Day will be there, Neil Patrick Harris may not. I'm guessing it's due to his sitcom, How I Met Your Mother, but maybe he can call and give ominous warnings from the Evil League of Evil boardroom. I hope his presence will be felt somehow. This will be a treat for those who weren't at the Doc's appearances at Comic-Con last summer. Believe me, the electricity felt when it was shown on a big screen with the cast there....once in a lifetime!

Some are also wondering if Dollhouse will stay on TV when April 15th rolls around. At least one smart aleck at Aint It Cool News has brought it up. I am certain both shows will survive long enough on Fox and the Festival.

In any case, pies will definitely get me to L-A in April.

Joss Whedon's Secret Award....Revealed!!

Remember way back in September, when ABC had a poll of what was the most dramatic and funniest moments on TV in 60 years, and the winners would be recognized at the Emmys? Well, the results came in, and they were never revealed on the air. They were too busy convincing themselves that six reality show hosts being the perfect group to host the Emmys was a good idea. The winner for most dramatic moment, as many of us know, was Buffy sacrificing her life to save Dawn at the end of season five. The producers decided not to tell the viewers, maybe because they figured no one would know who Buffy was. feh.

Well, the People's Choice Awards recreated that piece of bait and switch Wednesday night. They pulled out all the stops to announce the winners, from Batman: The Dark Knight for five awards to any CBS show that won its category. In an attempt to prove that it's cutting-edge, they had two web categories: internet sensation and most popular user-generated video. They could range from home video to Paris Hilton actually talking more intelligently than Chris Matthews...with some help. In this case, the winners were a clip from Ellen DeGeneres's talk show where she dances with Barack Obama, and...
Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog!! At last, Joss Whedon and his siblings have created something loved by the people! By an honest-to-goodness mainstream! Certified by a scientific poll!

Then...a cruel twist right out of the Evil League of Evil TV Network: the awards show never mentions the results of the two web awards--at all. Maybe they forgot in all the excitement of giving Dark Knight five awards at once. Still, if you have two web awards, you should mention them, even if it's before a commercial. Otherwise, why have them?

I was worried they'd never give the results but they added the results a couple of minutes after the show ended. Again, they must have forgot.

After all, this is internet programming. Such webisodes will never take over real television, so why make them as important? That must have been the attitude of the PCA organizers. They'll recognize that video podcasts, web comedies or homemade videos exist, but they wouldn't go as far as give them an award and national airtime for a salute.

So, somewhere, Dr. Horrible enjoys his victory, but has a difficult time proving that it exists...or matters.

At least, not yet

Dr. Horrible's Hidden Sequel

By now, evil visions of evil, along with the usual sugarplums, have been dancing around the heads of Whedonistas since their copies of the Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog DVD arrived from Amazon this week. The classic tale of a villain and the girl he dreams about may not be typical Yuletide fare, but the fact that it exists at all may be a miracle in its own right.

Not only that, it comes with its own built-in sequel called "Commentary: the Musical." It's not enough to invent an Internet musical, but to also add a spin to the classic commentary track where the actors, writers, director and such talk about how they came up with this scene or that scene. No one every tried to set this typical DVD extra to music...until now.

Once you hear "Commentary," though, you get the idea the play is not the thing. It's really about how getting such a project off the ground and into our computers can be a pain, but a pain worth suffering. They also admit a commentary set to music is a cheesy gimmick...

Moments like these sell DVD's
We need to sell more
We've only sold four (yeah, four per minute!)

So is the idea of DH itself: An Internet musical is a wacky idea that's zany! Where did it come from? (Nathan Fillion: It came from pain!)

This is followed by a song that summarizes the Writer's Strike from last year. This basically led to the creation of Dr. Horrible. The song is so peppy, SAG members may be inspired to strike for better wages, too. Too bad some don't want to strike because the economy's becoming one big hellmouth. The unsung bit players make their own song so someone sings about them, while Felicia Day refuses to talk about the "process", but will sing about it and squeeze in a plug about her web sitcom. Through all of this, the songs have nothing to do with the images of Dr. Horrible...until Nathan has his song of how he's "Better than Neil". It's no accident it comes just as Captain Hammer makes his first appearance..or is it?

Zach Whedon, brother of Joss, then comes in with a sexy rap that's cooler than Jay-Z, or Kanye West. Then, Simon Helberg, who played Moist, DH's sidekick, sings the song that would have been in the musical if there was time. Let's just say, there should have been a director's cut with Moist. After Nathan sings about Ninja Ropes, and whether Ninjas can survive in space, the "unsung" bit players sing again about how important they believe they are. Then, Maurissa Tancharoen, one of the musical geniuses behind DH, sings about why she didn't get the part of Penny...which leads into a commentary of why there's few Asians on TV and movies.

Even Joss gets into the act about what commentaries do, and that takes an interesting turn. Soon, Neil Patrick Harris is all alone, and takes musically takes advantage of that...until it's too much. The song actually reminded people of "Rose's Turn", the finale from Gypsy. However, the gang reunites for the finale, which sums up the real purpose of a commentary that's so legendary, the guys from Cinematic Titanic may be left in awe...

Hope you had fun
'Cause now we're done
You've listened to every word
Seeing it through
Makes each of you
A huge f**king nerd

But you're unfazed by the maze of crazed malaise
The lazy phrasing betrays how well this pays
So here's a toast to who suffered most
While we coasted through this


This is followed by a guy who sings with a lisp, but is also one of the "unsung" cast members. He'll be known as the guy who sings through the closing credits.

Of course, if you want the traditional commentary where the cast and crew talk about boring stuff about scenes and music and how it all came together, the DVD has that, too. I haven't gotten to that, but I will maybe before I toast the New Year. I still need some time to see the traditional Christmas fare, even if I have to cheat and see them through the weekend.

I also looked at the ELE applicants who made the DVD. My faves were Mr. Terrible with his witty song, and L'Enfant Terrible because she's from San Francisco and is really cute. I looked at some of the "Dishonorable Mentions" on YouTube, and whoever said DIE-Ronic and The Cutinator were shafted may have had a point. The Top Ten usually had two advantages: good special effects or good songwriting skills. That helped Mr. Terrible get right to the top, and The Reverend is a logical choice for Crank Yankers if they ever revive that show.

Now, if I wanted to get into the Evil League of Evil, I'd be an "evil" guy whose crimes avenge other acts that are even worse. I would be the Couch Potato, and unleash his wrath against terrible programming decisions. I would build a 50 foot pie filled with coal, and launch it at the ABC offices in Burbank, while yelling, "Merry Christmas from the Pie Hole, you @#!!&&%%$ dickweeds!!"

Yes, I watch Pushing Daisies, even if ABC denies it exists. Any questions?

Have A Dr. Horrible Christmas

Amazon has announced the DVD will be avilable for pre-order, and will be sent to millions of fans, no matter what Bad Horse or Fake Thomas Jefferson may try to pull, on December 19th. Just visit Amazon.com for more info. DVD's are 15 bucks each, but add another ten dollars to your order for free shipping.

UPDATE!! Joss posted just before nine p-m Pacific on 11/28 on Whedonesque...

Well, my turkey (or, in some cases, tofurkey) stuffed friends, we literally just put the finishing touches on the disc. Is it worth fifteen hard-earned dollars? Absolutely. In fact, I can say without reservation that the Dr. Horrible DVD is worth $15.23 EASILY. More, if your dollars weren't the hard-earned kind, just the kind you have lying around in your mom's purse. God knows WE'VE worked hard to earn 'em. "Commentary! The Musical" is the most painstaking and exhausting piece of whimsey I have ever mistaken for a good idea. It has nearly twice as much music as Dr. Horrible itself -- since you can't really talk that much during a commentary musical or it sounds like a regular commentary. (Which we also have, with the stars and writers, plus making-of's, ELE applications, and a few items left lying around by a notorious Bunny...) I can say without hesitation that I hesitate to say it's great. And by great I mean ridiculous. It's sophmoric, solopsistic, silly and the most fun I've had being exhausted since the fabled Mushortio itself. And everyone sings beautifullly. Which enrages me. I a little bit hate my friends now.

The listed street date is, by the way, a little later than we'd expected -- I'm hoping Amazon is just playing it safe and we can beat that date. More on that as we learn it. Expect a twittering sensation.

Finally, I just want to say "thank you" to everybody who has supported this venture. We've been able to pay our crew and all our bills, which means a lot. What means more is proving that completely independent ventures can muscle their way through the blizzard of big-budget behemoths. (A blizzard of behemoths? Back to writing school, alliteration-junkie!) All that rhetoric about the future of entertainment that flew about during the Strike is still entirely true. We need to find our own way of producing entertainment. A lot of people are watching Dr. Horrible to see if it's any kind of model -- way more people than I expected -- and it means everything to me to help pave the way for artists to start working and making a living from the ground up. There are a couple of real pioneers in this that I know personally: Felicia Day, I'm thrilled to say, and choreographer Chris Elam are both looking far ahead in terms of monetization and interactivity. Me, I'm more like Jimmy Stewart in "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance", but at least I'm out there. Thanks, he finally summed up, to you.

My story has become tiresome! But wait till you hear the songs.

Did we cover "silly"...?

How to be Dr. Horrible's Henchman

From MySpace...

During the end of day 2 of Comic-Con this year, hundreds of people filled Room 6A to see Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog on the big screen. It's an honor that falls on very few internet shows. Naturally, it was a big hit, and I noticed people trying to come up with their own ways of audience participation. Some spoke key lines in the movie while they're being said, but most just sang along with the music.

There was also a bit of audience participation at the "Once More With Feeling" showing, including fake Sunnydale police traffic tickets. So, how can you add audiecne participation to a showing of Dr. Horrible?

I have some ideas...

ACT I

When it opens with the Doc's evil laugh, you laugh, too.
When he mentions the letter of condemnation from the Deputy Mayor, hold up a piece of paper that could be the letter.
During the Freeze-Ray song, wave a small box of detergent like they sell at the laundromat.
When you see the cowboys sing the Bad Horse song, wear a Western hat and wave it around.
Wave a toy hammer when Captain Hammer shows up, and yell out "Balls" at the end of that act.

ACT II

I was thinking that when we first see the doc in disbelief that Penny is seeing Captain Hammer, you say or sing "Is she really going out with him?"
Yell out with him "I have a Ph. D in Horribleness."
When he says it again, say with Moist, "Is that the new catchphrase?"
When the doc says, "Oh, look at my wrist", you do the same.
When the doc becomes big at the end of the act, stomp around like Godzilla

ACT III

Chuckle along with the female anchor when she says "It's a good day to be homeless"
When one of the Hammer fans holds up his picture, you do the same. Repeat when the fan holds up his hair and his dry cleaning bill.
When Captain Hammer signs "Your real home is in your chest", sawy "Awww.."
When they get to the last stanza of his song, start waving your arms
When the doc has his evil laugh after he blasts Captain Hammer with the freeze ray, laugh with him.
When the doc is hit by a defrosted Captain Hammer, say "Owww."
After Hammer gets slightly injured after the death ray blows up, call him a crybaby.
Gasp loudly when you see Penny injured.
During the doc's closing song, sing the refrain "everything you wanted"
When the groupie holds up the doc's photo, do the same.
When Dr. Horrible enters the meeting room of the Evil League of Evil, do your best Bad Horse Death Whinnie.

Now, these are just prelminary ideas. I'd like to hear from others on what props they'd use in a Dr. Horrible sing-along.

Then again, Nathan had his own ideas when he was part of a sing-a-long at DragonCon recently . Check out this YouTube link.