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Saturday, January 3, 2015

Tally-ho! It's "Galavant"! (Finally) Huzzah!


Tomorrow. It's finally happening.

Galavant has taken his time getting onto our screens (I was blogging about his imminent arrival in the middle of last year), but this is for good reason/s (I'm led to believe) and both the critical and pop culture buzzes are excellent.

If you're new here and are wondering "What be this Galavant?" (imagine I used an Olde English font there, would you?), here's a brief low-down:
Once upon a time, the dashing hero, Galavant (Joshua Sasse) lost the love of his life, Madalena (Mallory Jansen), to the evil King Richard (Timothy Omundson). Now, our fallen hero is ready to take revenge and restore his “happily ever after.” But it won’t be without a few twists and turns (and random show stoppers) along the way. 
Insert your own snarky caption here...
Galavant's creators have quite the pedigree, which if the premise worries you at all, should give you a reason to consider taking a peek at this one. Here's the promo list from the official website:
Screenwriter/executive producer Dan Fogelman (Crazy, Stupid, LoveTangledCars) teams up with Broadway and Hollywood award-winning musical team -- composer Alan Menken (The Little MermaidAladdinBeauty and the Beast) and lyricist Glenn Slater (Tangled) -- for a 4-week comedy extravaganza. 
They've already managed to attract some celebrity guest stars too (John Stamos, Weird Al, Ricky Gervais), which is almost unheard of on a new series. And then there's this aspect that has me looking forward to it very much as well:
"... we shot it in real, practical locations, as opposed to shooting on sound stages and sets; we went and shot it in England in real castles and real fields. And we had the costume designers from Downton Abbey so even though it's a silly comedy and sometimes people are breaking into song, it is the real thing." ~ creator Dan Fogelman (source)
If you like Monty Python, The Princess Bride, Once Upon A Mattress and musical comedy that doesn't take itself at all seriously with toe-tapping tunes, then Galavant is for you - for us! It's a very ambitious project which is likely to either shine or flop at each point of it's journey.
The Main cast, supported by hundreds of other excellent and silly people
I have my fingers crossed for their success. Mainstream storytelling has been so serious for so long, that despite some of it being excellent, we're incredibly overdue for some smart and fun series to inspire us and the next generation (and perhaps remind us to laugh at ourselves every once in a while).

The mini-series/limited run/whatever you want to call it, is designed, ABC programming-wise, to fill the gap during Once Upon A Time's lengthy hiatus, and it might well do the trick. Or, if it's as good as it looks like it might be, Once Upon A Time is going to have a hard act to follow for the second half of their season with the (now-banished from Storybrooke) Rumple and the trio of wicked women (Ursula, Maleficent and Cruella)!

Take a look at the animated sing-along lyrics for a taste of the style and audience "participation" the cast and crew are hoping for:
And here's one of the best promos for any new show that I've seen in a while (and yes, this is an official one):

What are you waiting for? Go set your alarm clocks (or DVRs) and get ready to find yourself humming tunes and snatches of ridiculous/hilarious lyrics in inappropriate places... ;)

5 comments:

  1. This one looks like it has nice costume design. I'm not keen on the designs for Cinderella. I understand that Cinderalla is meant to have a kitch/retro flavour, inspired by a more loose theatrical design, but it doesn't really work for me. It might grow on me though!

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    1. I've been impressed with Galavant so far. Cinderella (the upcoming live action movie) is giving me less and less reason to go see it, unfortunately. I'm trying to keep an open mind though, especially since there is a rather large built in audience for it.

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  2. For the record, tonight is also the obligatory fairy tale episode of TNT's The Librarians. I think there's some kind of rule that every urban fantasy TV show has to have some kind of fairy tale themed episode.

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    1. I'm barely aware of The Librarian (maybe you could fill us in?). I agree re UF - a fairy tale theme is pretty much a required at some point! (It;s a reason I started reading UF in the first place. ;) )

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    2. The Librarians is a spin-off of TNT's "The Librarian" movies in which Noah Wylie plays Flynn Carsen, a man with the title of "The Librarian" who hunts down magical artifacts so that they can be safeguarded in a secret library underneath the Metropolitan Public Library. After the events of the pilot episode of this series, the main Library got cut off from Earth's plane of existence, so Carsen spends his time searching for a way to bring it back. So, he put three apprentice Librarians in charge of hunting down magic on Earth from a branch located in the Pacific Northwest. They are Jacob Stone, a blue-collar Midwesterner who's a genius at art history, architecture and languages, Cassandra Cillian, a meek mathematician with synesthesia causing her to hallucinate when doing calculations and Ezekiel Jones, a cunning master thief with considerable luck. They work with Eve Baird a former NATO officer as their guardian and Jenkins as the library branch's caretaker. The show is high-spirited if somewhat cheesy fun. This latest episode was amusing because as fairy tales started coming to life, the main characters started to change as they started to fit into fairy tale archetypes. Stone was the huntsman, Cassandra was Prince Charming (oddly enough), Baird was a princess and Ezekiel remained unchanged since he was pretty much already Jack or "The Lucky Rogue"

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