In 2019, I had the pleasure of attending a production of Something Rotten! as part of Musical Theater West’s seasonal programming. The show is a comedic take on William Shakespeare that also skewers the very art form of stage musicals with constant references to other shows. If you ask me, it balances everything out in such a way that you’re entertained by how it engages with its source material, recreating this sense of what it must have been like to see Shakespeare shows several centuries ago.
Even then, I remember feeling critical of the centerpiece number “It’s a Musical,” which was sold as the ultimate scavenger hunt for Broadway fans. You couldn’t just listen to the album and pick up a few. You needed to be in the moment, capturing the show from every angle in order to not miss a single background gag. While it’s fun and I do love the conceit, I felt like it took away from the show, making you want to jump straight to intermission to ask the person next to you what references they got. It’s such a distraction from the story that it takes something away for me.
I know that comedy is subjective and that what is funny to one isn’t funny to another. Even then, I look at shows like Something Rotten! and The Book of Mormon and I see a dedication to craft that goes beyond finding small references. There is heart and soul into every gag that shows a love of theater without taking away from the bigger narrative. You don’t have to know that “All-American Prophet” is a parody of The Music Man to love it, but “It’s a Musical” is so devoid of deeper tissue that it’s more of a narrative detour than a satisfying development of character.
That is why I’ve been leery to give Spamilton a chance. From the artwork alone, this felt like some bargain basement knock-off that would get by on cheap humor. Hamilton is one of the biggest things to happen to Broadway since The Producers or Rent, and I understand anyone wanting to hop on that money train. As a person who gets bored and consumes quarantine parodies of musicals, I get the appeal of making a quick parody that will last forever on YouTube as this loving tribute to the art that means a lot to you. Hamilton alone has enough of that that makes a whole 2.5-hour side production of parody videos.
But there’s something about Spamilton that escapes my usual love of the ambitious joke, or something taken to such an extreme that you admire the audacity that anyone funded it. When I thought that this was just an album, it seemed cute. We all could use a laugh, and the idea of parodying our greater beings is ripe with potential. However, this is a legitimate stage show, working through every last motif not only of Hamilton but of other trendy shows that have existed on Broadway in the past century.
I hope that you have your indexes opened when starting this album. You are required to know everything from popular shows like Cats to the obscure like Bright Star that have yet to form a deeper cultural relevance. Some jokes don’t work at all unless you’re a Stephen Sondheim aficionado and can recognize the aesthetic jokes of shows like Assassins and Company. While I do love the idea of “Book of No More Mormons” commenting on how Hamilton has taken away attention from their sensational presence, it’s ultimately just a smaller gag for theater geeks who recognize the competitive nature of Broadway in the 2010s.
It doesn’t help that Hamilton debuted in 2015 on Broadway and Spamilton was part of Off-Broadway by 2016. It feels rushed, like a revue eager to repurpose motifs in such a fashion that you’re just piling jokes on top of ideas that we already know. This is both a great source of satire, but you’re ultimately dealing with a show that exists as a feature-length version of “It’s a Musical,” where you’re distracted by recognizing the Bernadette Peters or Barbra Streisand parodies than a bigger story. Sure, I love hearing Streisand singing about how she wants to be “In the Film When It Happens,” but it’s as much about recognizing Streisand’s personal tics (like saying “verklempt”) as it is satirizing the Hamilton phenomenon.
To the show’s credit, Spamilton has been seen by Hamilton creators Lin-Manuel Miranda and Thomas Kail, and they both enjoyed it. The fact that they have nice things to say suggests that there’s value in seeing this. The only issue is that I can’t imagine seeing it on Broadway for top-end dollars. This feels like it needs to be a local production, something akin to an improv theater with cheap budgetary concerns. Who cares if their Daveed Diggs looks nothing like Daveed Diggs? It’s all silly nonsense.
To break from the bigger criticism, I will say that I initially thought that the show had potential in what it was trying to achieve in “Lin-Manuel as Hamilton.” The opening song discusses what inspires him to ultimately make Hamilton. Later on there’s even a skewering of his post-In the Heights career with “In the Hype” that creates this wonderful parody of the underdog journey. This is a man striving for greatness, and to have it be a comedic farce about one of the 21st century’s greatest playwrights is a brilliant idea.
I can’t claim to understand the entire plot, but I do like the idea of making a show that centers around humanizing Miranda to the point that he’s a simple bumpkin. In that way, Spamilton has some good ideas in its chest. Songs like “Daveed Diggs – The Fresh Prince of Big Hair” are solid riffs on how Hamilton casts Diggs in dual roles, reflecting a complexity within the plot. In these moments, the deconstruction of a Broadway show is inspired, making you see why someone would think to make this show something greater.
It’s just that everything around it is so off-putting and of its time. If you’re not a Broadway nerd in 2016, a lot of this is going to age horribly. You look at songs like “Look Around (The Schuyler Puppets)” and you find the show holding on by a thread. The joke is that we’re in New York seeing a cross-section of shows that are existing in bastardized forms. While jokes about Phantom of the Opera sequels never go out of fashion, the idea of the mash-up joke grows thin quickly as they combine shows like An American Psycho in Paris or The Lion King and I before proceeding to include interlude satires that keep the melody from ever latching in your ear.
This feels like it was slapped together as it went instead of feeling like one piece. It’s cute at first, but the bit goes for almost SIX MINUTES, which by then the joke is exhausted and you want to not be bombarded with hundreds of Broadway references every second. With that said, we still have 17 tracks to go.
If I’m being honest, even the times that Spamilton focuses squarely on Hamilton, their jokes are hit-and-miss. When it’s commenting on the structure and concepts of the show, it has this inspired touch, reflecting goofs that we all have had with this musical. Ideas like making fun of Miranda for sticking in all of these rap references gets away with its bawdy nature because that is an element that makes Hamilton unique to other Broadway hits. Making fun of references to Stephen Sondheim or Gloria Estefan is less so. Do we really need to have this wacky gag set to Estefan’s “Conga”? No. It adds nothing to the show.
That is an issue that Something Rotten! lacked. Whereas I can claim that any stretch of the show is a distraction, it’s at least using these tools in creative ways. It molds the style in such a way that it flows together seamlessly and makes you feel like there’s heart and soul into making every parody count. It is more than direct copy and pasting, which would be fine for the Hamilton parts, but is sorely lacking when you just make “Book of No More Mormons” a direct melodic parody of “Hello.” It makes you look lazy when that is your only joke for 20 tracks.
That isn’t to include songs like “Straight is Back,” which spends its entire time pointing out how many queer shows are on Broadway. Sure it’s loving and there’s no problematic element, but the “You’ll Be Back” parody is tiring the further along it goes. Sure, it’s humorous that Kinky Boots is going straight to hell, but this is yet another example of the show making fun of Disney as a negative force in Broadway. I’m sure that’s true given that everyone thinks that it’s neutered the medium for family consumption, but there’s no bigger joke besides “Isn’t it funny how Disney ran us out of town?” To this song’s credit, it does comment on the quasi-gay villains in Disney’s history, but besides that the jabs have less impact than the show thinks.
If I sound critical of this show, it’s not because it lacks a sense of humor. There are plenty of moments that are definitely humorous. Even outside of the Hamilton parodies, I do like the Sondheim parodies a lot, and “Book of No More Mormons” summarizes my thoughts on Hamilton’s impact very well (though as someone who saw the show in April, tickets still are costly). It’s just that I have trouble seeing the value of this show as more than pastiche, or a revue that exists for the cheap seats. I can see doing these bits with your Broadway nerd friends and having a good time, but unlike Something Rotten!, I don’t know that it transcends.
Spamilton’s whole identity relies on you knowing everything about Hamilton and Broadway. It’s fine, but the whole thing is exhausting and distracting. Whereas parodies like Documentary Now’s Company parody Co-Op: The Musical can get by on its own jokes, I’d hate to see what would happen if Spamilton had to come up with its own riffs. Most of these jokes would be lost, showing how flimsy it ultimately is. This is a time capsule of a special time, and I worry that half of it isn’t going to make sense in five years. Will most of these shows even be touring in time for Spamilton’s 10th anniversary?
Sure, it’s funny in “What Did You Miss?” to know how many shows have used ’76 as a motif and I do love pointing out the parallels between 1776 and The Music Man’s “76 Trombones” and Hamilton’s narrative devices, but it’s one-note beyond that. It’s often why most comedy shows have something rooted in character.
Fellow “spam” show Spamalot may exist solely as a parody of Camelot-style productions, but the jokes are rooted in characters and archetypes. It may be dated but it works as theater because so little of it requires prior knowledge. It has a high level of jokes-per-minute, but they age well because there is something grounding the show. I don’t get that with Spamilton, which has a story and plenty of jokes, but I’m distracted by the joke that “Ticket Beggar Woman” is a Sweeney Todd parody about Bernadette Peters being a diva. What does that have to do with anything? You don’t need to have preexisting knowledge of The Knights of the Round Table™ to like the song of the same name. Its melody exists outside of cultural references, and that alone makes it easier to take in the lyrical jokes.
I know that I’ve been hard on Spamilton, but it’s more because it seems baffling to make this into a show that plays on Broadway. While that joke is funny on its own, there is nothing timeless about this show, and I can see it closing after a year because the jokes are stale. The kids have moved onto Be More Chill, and I’d hate to imagine what the Dear Evan Hansen parody will look like (it’ll be a different type of spam, that’s for sure). Spamilton is too stuffy and gimmicky to last, and that’s fine. There are tracks that I will revisit for amusement, but as a show it’s lacking a bigger appeal.
There is a reason that comedy shows like Spamalot, The Book of Mormon, and Something Rotten! will be playing somewhere in musical theater in five years while Spamilton won’t. While that makes it special to see and tell your grandchildren that you saw it, don’t be surprised when they snicker and say “Why did they think that was a good idea?” When you say “I don’t know,” the ultimate joke will make sense. Still, those thinking that Spamilton is anything greater are delusional. I’m thankful that I understand most of it, but I’d hate to imagine those who see it as I see parts of “It’s a Musical”: flashy distractions.
With that said, I am sad that Spamilton didn’t take time to make a dramatic parody called “Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Wins Your Tony’s,” because that feels like something they totally should’ve done, and it would’ve been a nice narrative fit. I guess that’s evidence that even while I dislike this show, I like the idea of making Hamilton jokes, so I can’t totally hate them for trying.
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