Thanks in part to taking "Theater Appreciation" at my college, I've gotten into musicals again. I enjoy myself a good musical. Songs from "Chicago", "The Producers", and yes....even"Cats" have been on my mind as of late. However, when I thought of musicals, it carried over to musical episodes of TV shows. I know a lot of shows have done it. So I wanted to do a Top 5 of my favorite musical episodes of TV shows. However, I quickly realized that other than the amazing "Scrubs" musical episode, and the infamous "Buffy: The Vampire Slayer" episode, the rest of my list was animated shows. I felt originally that having three cartoons on my list would have been a bit much, since I have talked about cartoons to death on the blog. But I couldn't find anything else that compared. What else could I possibly put there, the X-Play musical? Even the Buffy episode would have been on my list out of respect only reasons since I never watched Buffy growing up.

So since I had an influx of cartoon musical episodes, I decided, why not go that route? So here are my "Top 5 Cartoon Musical Episodes"!


No. 5: "What's Opera, Arnold?" from Hey Arnold!

"What's Opera Arnold?" is a great twist on the premise of the musical episode. Arnold falls asleep while watching "Carmen" at a school field trip. He then proceeds to dream about he and his friends singing at the opera. While the "Carmen" influences are obvious, there are more subtle tributes to operas such as "The Marriage of Figaro", "The Barber of Seville" and "Pagliacci". It's a great send-up to opera while telling a great dream-sequence story using the dreams of Arnold, and later in the episode, Helga. You can watch the whole episode here.


No. 4: "Daria!" from Daria

"Daria" was an amazing MTV cartoon for those that never saw it.. The parodying of high school life is great. This episode at first really doesn't change from the norm of the show, except for that whole "singing" thing. The songs are catchy, and Daria's monotone delivery is hilarious. However, a storm is brewing and every thinks the town will be blown away.




No. 3: "Zanzibar" from Rocko's Modern Life

"Zanzibar" was not only a musical, but also a environmental message episode. It's Earth Day, and Conglom-O is polluting like nobodies business! So Rocko and friends decides to not only recycle and conserve, but to try and fight city hall in order to make their town cleaner. It's both a great message, and a funny episode.




No. 2: "See Me, Feel Me, Gnomey" from Powerpuff Girls

So what can be better than parodying/tributing operas and broadway musicals? How about a send-off to the Rock opera! "See Me, Feel Me, Gnomey" (Which is a play on a song form The Who's "Tommy") takes the musical episode one step further and adding drama, overlaying vocals, and random guitar solos to try and get as "epic" as possible. The episode actually never aired in American due to having cult overtones. Fun Fact: The role of the gnome was originally going to be for Jack Black, until "School of Rock" filming interfered with the schedule, so they got Jess "Wakko from Animaniacs" Harnell to do a very impressive JB impersonation. The episode can be seen here in three parts, although subtitles get in the way.


No. 1: "Mayhem of the Music Meister" from Batman: The Brave and the Bold

"Batman: The Brave and the Bold" is actually a rather recent show and this episode is not even a year old. So why does it top this list? As if the words "Batman Musical" should not instantly have you laughing or at least curious, the casting of the main villain is genius.


NEIL PATRICK HARRIS

Harris as the Music Meister is infectiously amazing, with his ever changing attire, flamboyant attitude, and of course, amazing singing voice. Using his voice, The Music Meister controls his victims and forces them to sing and do his bidding. Everyone has a surprisingly good singing voice in this musical. Almost all of these episodes I've listed poke fun at, if not flat out mock musicals as a whole. While this episode doesn't hold back in having fun with the nature of musicals, it does seem like a legit tribute. The songs are written wonderfully, paying tribute to all sorts of musical theater. All the while keeping true to what makes Batman unique. It's campy as hell, but a blast to watch. I simply cannot link you to only one song.

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TAGS: Music, The Top 5, Television