Schmigadoon!s send-up of musical theater is both wholesome and really, really funny.
Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
For a stretch of the early aughts, screenwriting partners Ken Daurio and Cinco Paul struggled to sell scripts.
It was an effort made no easier by their unorthodox style of pitching to executives.
Daurio insists this wasnt as weird as it sounds.
In comedy, the big set pieces are often linked to music, he explains.
Or something funny happening around music.
Wed just perform that moment, says Paul.
Singing those parts in harmony.
Sometimes it was real awkward, Daurio says.
Youd see people, like he mimes leaning away, palms up, looking worried Uhhhh …
Sometimes the duo delighted their audience; sometimes they finished to crickets.
To be fair, we were really loud, Paul says.
We sing all the time.
On drives, in public, in the office.
We kept getting kicked out of offices for noise complaints.
What … is … happening?
Or as Keys Broadway-hating Josh says, Its like ifThe Walking Deadwere alsoGlee.
My whole life has been leading up toSchmigadoon!
My mom loved them, he tells me from his home north of Malibu; Daurio lives nearby.
Camelot, South Pacific, Guys and Dolls,andOliver.I grew up with it in my head.
After attending high school in Southern California, he pursued a career directing music videos for rock acts.
In 1997, his wife dragged him to audition for a play put on by their local temple.
Spend time in each others world.
And, you know, learn a valuable lesson.
I mean, theres not a lot of comedy in the Church, Paul says.
Almost literally, I was a bubble boy, Paul says.
Id never left Phoenix, never been east of El Paso, Texas.
So the world was very scary and intimidating to me.
Today, Paul is a lanky, handsome 57 with a long list of animated hits with Daurio.
I had three thoughts right away, he continues.
One: It shouldnt be friends; it should be a romantic couple.
Two: Theyre stuck there until they find true love.
Three: It should be calledSchmigadoon!.
The central relationship was the key.
Two people who needed to change to become better partners.
Daurio and Paul co-wrote four of the six episodes, and Paul was the showrunner and wrote the music.
Or flop quite so badly if the music stinks.
I love to tell people whove seenSchmigadoon!,A sweet Mormon man wrote this.
Can you believe it?
says Strong of the tone of the show.
Its not corny, but its also not mean.
We dont know if well get shut down, we dont know what the world is.
I just thought hed love it, Paul recalls.
But then there are tears in his eyes, which I thought meant he didnt like it.
And he just said, Oh, man, I miss this.
And they dont know that theyre singing.
Daurio describes learning to love musicals as a moment of conversion.
And there comes a moment where youre singing along.
That is the magic.
The closest thing we have to real magic in the world.
is available for streaming on Apple TV+ July 16.
Thank you for subscribing and supporting our journalism.
