Schmigadoon!

Schmigadoon! takes the mini-arc of a scene-into-song — words no longer suffice so one must explode into song — and expands it out into beautiful, staggering, slow-motion detail. It's a triumph of craft, character, and courage. It's a show I can't recommend enough, a strange bird I hope never stops singing.

“Schmigadoon!” is a hoot — an inventive and thoroughly enjoyable summer delight.

Jubilant and wonderfully clever. ... Schmigadoon! is such a delight I never wanted to leave. [19 Jul - 1 Aug 2021, p.6]

Schmigadoon! is silly, sweet, sharp, and most of all, sensational. It’s just the latest in a string of Apple TV+ comedies to balance wit and heart.

Along with Trying and Ted Lasso, Schmigadoon! is another entry into AppleTV+ cornering the market on uplifting, positive, smart TV. It may be a niche joy, but you can’t watch without smiling.

An irresistible original musical romcom that gleefully mocks the thing it loves. Cecily Strong and Keegan-Michael Key lead a cast of Broadway luminaries (shoutouts to Aaron Tveit, Ariana DeBose, Ann Harada and Marin Short) in a series that throws so many woke and witty curveballs that even musical haters will be laughing too hard to resist.

“Schmigadoon!” manages to both expose and celebrate the formulaic structure of traditional musicals; theater buffs will love the sheer audacity of it all.

I found myself wishing the show would go further, hit harder, follow through on its more savage instincts. But it does build to a satisfying finish, echoing Pleasantville as the two outsiders kick off a chain reaction of chaos in town with their new-fangled ways.

The Joshs of the world will likely balk at the very idea of Schmigadoon! – after all, 2021 isn’t short of a musical (In The Heights, Dear Evan Hanson and West Side Story are just a handful of this year’s cinematic offerings). But for us Melissas, it’s an exuberant, escapist slice of heaven.

Spoofing the theater is hardly new. ... But by regularly acknowledging its own joke, “Schmigadoon!” wins.

“Schmigadoon!” has its moments of good honest fun, but it is more inclined toward ironic and satirical fun — it’s in on its own joke and routinely mocks its own corniness. (There’s even a song called “Corn Puddin’,” which, like all the other songs on the show, is pretty darn good.) The vibe works, particularly the jabs at classic musicals’ rigid sexism.

The show goofs on the conventions of the genre, but it’s an affectionate goof, one that makes fun of the sexism and vapidity of the old shows while simultaneously delivering top-notch and well-shot choreography and plenty of catchy schmaltz. ... It’s fun to suss out all the allusions — but if you’re not a student of Broadway musicals, you will most likely get a kick out of the witty songs anyway.

Whatever nostalgic, unattainable utopia those old musicals portrayed, Schmigadoon!—as sharp, fearless, and at times even crude as you’d imagine from a Lorne Michaels production—imagines a new one. And, for the love of all the wind that comes sweeping down the plain, it’s so delightfully weird.

Schmigadoon! has no pointy edges with which to skewer anything. Even its harshest angles are eventually wrapped in a warm, four-part harmony embrace. It is a musical pastiche, yes, but it’s mostly a bowl of corn puddin’ — wholesome and familiar and maybe a dash too sweet.

“Schmigadoon!” is just about as entertaining and cute as it dreams of being; in that middle section it becomes especially breezy, and offers that cozy spectacle that comes from basking in vibrant musical numbers with smiling faces, stacked vocal harmonies, and epic choreography. ... It most of all very clearly wants to put on a dazzling show. That very enthusiasm is nearly impossible to resist.

Whether watching characters spontaneously burst into song causes you to roll your eyes or to perk up in your seat, it’s hard not to be won over by the new musical comedy.

Thanks to some inspired choreography by Christopher Gattelli, “Schmigadoon!” is as excitable as its exclamation point and just as worthy.

The show, in short, does what “Into the Woods” does with its fairy tale characters in terms of mashups and revisions. It starts out on a narrow path that widens, nicely. And if I ever get DeBose’s schoolroom tune “All of Your Heart” out of my head, it’ll be a bittersweet miracle.

An ambitious show that hopes to both modernize the musical while humorously poking fun at some of the more obvious narrative flaws of the genre. With hummable songs and a stellar cast of Broadway and comedy veterans, it’s almost enough to make you forget how surface-level the conceit comes across.

"Schmigadoon!" is a fun romp of midcentury musical tropes, an obvious metaphor for the work that goes into a successful relationship and a showcase for Strong as a leading lady that has eluded her on "Saturday Night Live."

A slyly funny, sometimes sticky sweet and exceedingly charming endeavor that pokes fun at old-school musicals such as “Oklahoma!”, “The Music Man,” “Carousel” and “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” while also paying tribute to the genre.

To the extent that “Schmigadoon!” makes fun of musicals, it does so with great wisdom and affection; qualities it also applies to the give-and-take of romantic compromise.

Catchy songs and a spirited cast lift up this too-short Apple TV+ musical parody.

Schmigadoon! is cute, as far as it goes; it just doesn’t go as far, or as hard, as fans of contemporary TV musicals might expect.

The Apple TV Plus series is consistently good-natured, and its creators are so obviously infatuated with musicals that even when the tone wobbles, or things get a little preachy, it’s still a breezy good time.

Everything has the shape and feel of the real thing, but very rarely the substance that makes either one satisfying. At a brisk six, half-hour episodes, it’s painless, and sometimes genuinely enjoyable. Just not as enjoyable as the schoolchildren, or anyone in Schmigadoon, seem to find everything around them.

By the end of the show’s frenzied arc, the love story that emerges most charmingly is that of a parody falling hard for the subject it intended to satirize.

The series is executive produced by SNL boss Lorne Michaels, and has the feel of an extended sketch. It certainly doesn’t match the great musicals for dramaturgical sophistication or specificity, nor will it convert those who’d rather cut off their own ears than listen to a dreamy Lerner and Loewe ballad. But, after a barren year for Broadway and the West End, this good-hearted show is a welcome musical reprise.

Overall, it’s difficult to pinpoint Schmigadoon!’s intentions. It doesn’t offer a new narrative like Crazy Ex-Girlfriend or impressively catchy tracks like Netflix’s Julie And The Phantoms. It doesn’t tap into the real potential of its seasoned cast like 30 Rock or Portlandia, nor does it have anything new to say for or against musicals, in general. But if you’re looking for something breezy in which to escape the world’s heaviness for a song or two, Schmigadoon! is a watchable enough option.

The series perhaps inevitably drags in the middle, a little too self-satisfied with the premise and its cleverness in evoking the past.

It is certainly likable in its parts, and in its performances, and in that it acknowledges there was musical theater before Disney took over 42nd Street. ... But the book doesn’t sing, even if the actors do. Jokes fall flat. It’s conceptually muddy, magically themed yet somehow lacking magic, schematic but illogical — a charge against which “Schmigadoon!” preemptively defends itself.

Strong and Key are both very solid anchors for the story, though there are moments where they’re treating the material as an extended sketch, not a naturally occurring world. Everybody sings with enthusiasm and leaps into the choreography with the best of intentions. ... I just needed more from Schmigadoon! than “Hey, we love that thing you love!” camaraderie. I do love that thing. I just wish I liked this thing more.

It comes to life in bursts, leading one to hope that it will cohere into something more daring and complex around the next toe-tapping corner, but then it recedes back to the surface, afraid to really engage with any of its ideas about love, relationships, or even classic musicals. Sure, it’s fun, but it’s almost more disposable than the broadly goofy stage plays that it parodies.

So much talent was involved in bringing to the screen a show that ought to have been a home run. There’s something miscalibrated about “Schmigadoon!” After having borrowed quite so heavily from traditional forms, the show only haltingly and gradually, and without much of the help that the neglected Key and Strong might have provided, arrives at something that can stand on its own.