• 6 months ago
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Fun
Transcript
00:003 little babes in their bassinets, angelic little triplets, or triple threats, they might
00:20have fooled the others but they won't fool me, it's time to give these teething seething
00:27three the third degree.
00:34Which of the pickwick triplets did it? Who of the crew would commit this crime?
00:39My little brat make a mommy go splat, it's a story pretty gory for a nursery rhyme.
00:43Which of the pickwick triplets did it? Which of the spawns had the brawn to kill?
00:47Will a baby get tried for patricide? Time for you, you, you to admit it.
00:52So quick as a whip, got a pickwick, pickwick triplet did it.
00:57Penelope in pink sure is making quite a stink, is she trying to throw me off the scent?
01:04Though she bats her little eyes, is she a killer in disguise?
01:08With a diaper full of criminal intent.
01:12Preening Patrick is pernicious, with an appetite so vicious, he would bite the hand that feeds him with a snare.
01:19But could that rotten tot be behind this evil plot?
01:24Baby's stepping towards a murderous career, howdy little Paco's looking coy, but he's a bad, bad boy.
01:30Could Paco's passion prove apocalyptic?
01:33With his passy and his rattle, did this pisher go to battle, proving he's the perp amidst this pickwick critique?
01:40In this picker-esque puzzle of the pickwick pack, will a lighthouse shed some light?
01:47On which kid gave old Ma the whack? There's an end then to indict.
01:54I'll back this little crook tonight.
01:58But which of the pickwick triplets did it? Who of the crew would commit this crime?
02:03Which little brat made Barbie go splat? Which Grim, which Sim will be doing on time?
02:07Which of the pickwick triplets did it? Which little putz had the guts to kill?
02:12Like a forensic pediatrician, I'll complete this inquisition. I will name the neonatal from the cradle that grew fatal.
02:17I will find the perpetrator who did murder to their nature.
02:23Or, coochie coochie coo, what if none of it is true?
02:31Has my inspection been too cursory? Should I look outside this nursery?
02:35What if none of the pickwick triplets did it?
02:39Who'd have had a menacing motive and hidden?
02:43Who? Who? Who?
02:45Well, I pick you!
02:56Hello.
02:57Hello, how are you?
02:58I'm good. This mic is hot.
03:00So, this is a very musical-filled season of Only Murders in the Building.
03:06Tell me about how this came to be.
03:09And basically, I mean, you're working with a ton of songwriters here.
03:13Yeah, well, Only Murders in the Building is one of our favorite television shows.
03:17And in the true power of manifestation, I was on vacation and a friend of mine said,
03:22I'm starting to be in the writer's room for season three.
03:26And we said, if we ever have the opportunity to write a ditty, anything for Only Murders, just sign us up.
03:31We're doing it for free. It doesn't matter.
03:33She calls us back a week later and she's like,
03:35you will not believe the entire plot of season three is going to be a musical.
03:39And I told them that you guys were in and you guys were doing it.
03:42Do you actually mean that?
03:43We were like, yes, we actually mean it.
03:45And then she was like, and Meryl Streep is going to be in it.
03:47And we were like, oh, my God.
03:50And it was such a thrilling process for us.
03:52We got to work with some of our favorite other Broadway folks,
03:58including Mark Shaman and Scott Whitman, who co-wrote this song with us.
04:02And it's so fun to get to do essentially what TV folks do all the time,
04:07which is create a little writer's room, but for musical theater people.
04:10Yeah, we asked John Hoffman, the incredible showrunner on the show,
04:16we said, could we do what you guys are doing?
04:19When we got to be in the writer's room at the beginning of the season,
04:21we said, could we do the same thing?
04:23Could we get together a group of some of our favorite songwriters
04:27and all create this fake, insane musical together, Death, Rattle, Dazzle,
04:32which is the sort of imagined fictional musical in the season?
04:35Could we do the same thing?
04:37And he said, yes.
04:39The theme of the show is sort of more is more.
04:42So yes, if you've seen the show, you know that it's true.
04:46Like the theme of Martin Short is more is more, et cetera.
04:49You know what I mean?
04:50So he said, yes, let's do it.
04:52So we got to work with Mark Shaman, Scott Whitman, Michael R. Jackson,
04:55Sara Bareilles, et cetera.
04:57So we got to work all together to create this sort of bananas show.
05:04So for those who haven't seen episode 8, set it up as far as where the song appears
05:09and your whole approach.
05:13You got this?
05:14Yeah.
05:15So this song is which of the Pickwick triplets did it?
05:20And it is, I mean, so it's about.
05:27I can't imagine having watched that and having no context,
05:29so let's help you guys out.
05:31So I mean, it is, I'll try to give context for it after,
05:35but it's about Steve Martin plays a character.
05:39He plays a character in a musical who is a constable who is trying to solve
05:45a crime, and that character is analyzing which.
05:50He's convinced that one of three triplets murdered someone
05:53and he's trying to get to the bottom of it.
05:55But what's amazing, I mean, it's absolutely insane and bonkers,
05:58and, you know, the character that Martin Short plays is, you know,
06:02an insane theater director and conceiver of musicals.
06:05So, again, they wanted it to be insane,
06:07and hopefully we delivered something insane.
06:11But what was so wonderful about this is that the song was set up
06:15throughout the entire season, and it's so great when the writers
06:19give a moment for a song to shine like that,
06:22because the entire plot revolved around whether or not
06:25Steve Martin's character, Charles Hayden Savage,
06:27could perform this song, and every time he attempted to do it,
06:31because it is a patter song and because it is really
06:34a pretty difficult to sing patter song,
06:36and we have tried to do it and failed many times,
06:40the plot point then became, can this character actually sing it?
06:43And it had a lot to do with his character's sort of offstage anxieties
06:47and neuroses and all of this, so sort of they ended up building
06:50a season arc around his inability to perform this song
06:54and sort of some of the demons that he needed to shake off
06:57throughout the season, sort of building up to that moment
07:00where he finally was able to perform it.
07:02And what's so cool is that it created a situation where
07:05then the audience is rooting for the character and the actor
07:09to be able to perform it, and this is the moment, finally,
07:12in episode 8 where he gets through it for the first time
07:15after many, many failed attempts.
07:17So were you on set when Steve Martin performed it?
07:21We were in the recording studio with him, and then the day on set
07:27they were going overtime, and they thought that the hours shrunk
07:33from like...
07:34It was supposed to be half the day to be shot,
07:39and instead they had two hours left to shoot it.
07:42And we were like, I'm sure they're just going to push
07:44and give it another half day the next day.
07:46And they were like, no, we only have this venue today.
07:50And so the footage that you can see of the other actors
07:52watching the character, a lot of it is very real because
07:55there was a two-hour window, and he actually performed it
07:59and knocked it out of the park, and so I think everybody's
08:01actually surprised that Steve Martin nailed it.
08:04And so you see that on everybody's face, and Steve Martin's kind of like,
08:06yeah, I'm Steve Martin.
08:09I mean, he's a genius, he's an incredible musician,
08:11so it sort of tracks.
08:13I was going to say, he takes it to another level.
08:15Can you talk about that, the extra zhuzh that he adds?
08:19Well, we kind of always wondered what is he going to be doing
08:22during this performance, and I don't know how you describe that exactly.
08:29You know what I mean?
08:30And I don't know where it came from.
08:33That's why he is who he is, and he does what he does,
08:37and it was brilliant and incredible.
08:41And again, the writers and creators of this show
08:44did such a beautiful job of setting up this character.
08:48And I mean, as songwriters and musical theater people
08:52and all this, I just feel very grateful that in 2024,
08:57we have an audience at home rooting for a musical theater patter performance.
09:01I find that insane and incredible.
09:04You know what I mean?
09:06I love that, you know what I mean?
09:09It's just our hats off and our gratitude to this show
09:13and to the audience and everyone.
09:15What are you guys working on next?
09:18Oh, I'm trying to make it through today.
09:22Justin was just playing, and I feel like, are you okay?
09:25Yeah, I just was trying to follow the click tempo map of that song, honestly.
09:30So that was what I was working on.
09:31He was very nervous about it backstage.
09:32I was very nervous.
09:33And he drank two bottles of water before he came out here, so I'm proud of you.
09:36Better than drinking something else.
09:38I took a beta blocker, and I was just watching.
09:44They're near EGOT winners.
09:47Benj Pasek and Justin Paul.
09:50Thank you very much.
09:51Thank you all, thank you all.
09:55Thank you.