Hairspray Live! (2016)

December 7, 2016 4:21 PM

A teenage girl living in Baltimore in the early 1960s dreams of appearing on a popular TV dance show.

Vulture - NBC’s Hairspray Live! Could Be the First Live Musical That Matters

Live broadcast begins at 8pm Eastern, on NBC, with a '1st Look Countdown' pre-show starting at 7:30

posted by oh yeah! (19 comments total)

I wonder how they're miking everyone - I'm not seeing them snaking along anyone's temples. Tracy's sound cut out twice during "Good Morning Baltimore", but otherwise the opening number was impressively coordinated, all those moving vehicles and camera changes.
posted by oh yeah! at 5:12 PM on December 7, 2016

Ah, nevermind, finally spotted a mike wire on Amber's back, they must be hiding the mikes behind the hairlines. Not sure I'm a fan of the 4th-wall-breaking of having Darrin Criss hosting at the cut to commercial, or the picture-in-picture behind-the-scenes going during the commercial, but we'll see.
posted by oh yeah! at 5:23 PM on December 7, 2016

The 60s style commercials in the show are very cute.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 5:46 PM on December 7, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm hearing the visual description even tho that setting's off on my TV.(?) (Driving me a little nuts, and I don't have far to go yuk yuk.)
posted by NorthernLite at 6:03 PM on December 7, 2016

That was Ricki Lake dancing in the background during "Welcome to the Sixties", right? And possibly Mary Winokur next to her?
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 6:18 PM on December 7, 2016 [1 favorite]

JHud brings it as per usual.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:43 PM on December 7, 2016 [2 favorites]

Martin Short is adorable.
posted by oh yeah! at 6:55 PM on December 7, 2016 [2 favorites]

I enjoyed the Hamilton shout out.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:22 PM on December 7, 2016 [1 favorite]

Jennifer Hudson and Kristin Chenowith are so far above it actually makes everyone else sound bad.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 7:23 PM on December 7, 2016 [2 favorites]

Derek Hough is pretty entertaining. And this Dove Cameron (who is a Disney kid? I've never seen her before, I'm in the wrong demographic) is very charming.

But yeah, J.Hud and Chenowith are blowing it out of the water.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:34 PM on December 7, 2016

Could not understand a word Grande and Hudson were singing for most of the curtain call, but I'm glad they had one - I remember thinking The Wiz Live ended too abruptly.
posted by oh yeah! at 7:53 PM on December 7, 2016

Enjoyable but uneven- sound problems and some lackluster casting (Tracy and Link in particular) kept it from being a 10 for me. Still had a good time though!
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 8:12 PM on December 7, 2016

Dove Cameron and Kristin Chenowith previously played mother/daughter in Disney's "The Descendants", which is worth a watch for them alone.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 8:13 PM on December 7, 2016

I'm appreciating the nods to the Hairspray of the past in the storefronts..
posted by ApathyGirl at 9:17 PM on December 7, 2016

And Ricki Lake & Marissa Winokur in Welcome to the 60's.
posted by ApathyGirl at 9:27 PM on December 7, 2016

Overall, I was happy with this production. The mix of backlot and on-set locations was ambitious, so even though it seemed to have some audio glitches on backlot and some moments of clumsy camera blocking, I found those kind of endearing. Their Tracy wasn't phenomenal vocally, but I feel like she might have gotten stronger if she was on a stage musical's 8-times-a-week schedule (I mean, she seemed out of breath sometimes, but I didn't think she was off key or a bad actress).

Loved how sparkly/shiny everyone's finale outfits were. Wish they'd done more of the meta retro ads instead of the Darrin Criss outros/intros. (But now I want to go rewatch the Starkid Potter musicals)
posted by oh yeah! at 8:00 AM on December 8, 2016

I thought this was great fun. Very nicely done. A couple tech things here and there (oh look, a camera!) but nothing terrible. And I guess Garrett Clayton brought more to it in the looks department than the singing, but whatevs. J-Hud and Chenoweth more than made up for it.

"This world is filled with a mess of fools, so you better brace yourselves for a whole lotta ugly coming at you from a never ending parade of stupid." Welcome to the next four years of America.
posted by dnash at 8:38 AM on December 8, 2016

Wonder if they will re-air- when they re-aired The Wiz, they fixed a lot of the goofs from the original broadcast.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 6:33 AM on December 10, 2016

It's on "The Shows Must Go On" YouTube channel for the next day or so.
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:32 PM on May 30, 2020