NBC’s latest musical was big, blonde, and (occasionally) beautiful.
And he grooved, in realtime, with the officialHairspray Live!social squad.
Hairspray Live!felt like a well-earned victory lap.
Credit: Paul Drinkwater/NBC
Good or bad,Sound of Musicdeserves credit for existing at all.
It wasnt that long ago that conventional wisdom declared musicals on TV dead;livemusicals were deader than dead.
Three years later, Im not quite sure people hatewatch anymore.
Meanwhile, Zadan and Meron have made the NBC musical an annual tradition.
The cast featured Tony winners, plural, and Disney stars, plural.
Coincidentally, during one commercial break, there was a perfume ad with three Ariana Grandes.
WithHairspray Live!, more was never more enough.
There were pleasures to be had from all the much muchness.
But the first half ofHairspraydragged a bit.
There was a sense that the performers werent quite all on the same page.
As an actor, Derek Hough sure can dance.
As a dancer, Ariana Grande sure can sing.
(Grande played Penny; as an actor, she sure can sing.)
And sometimes all 58 cameras seemed to be pointing in the wrong direction.
Before that came the dodgeball game, which was either confusing choreography or bad improv.
To be clear: Nothing wrong with cameos!
Hairsprayended there, butHairspray Live!couldnt stop.
Hudson and Grande stuck around for an encore: A victory lap as an epilogue to a victory lap.
LikeHairsprayandGrease,Bye Bye Birdieexudes nostalgia for an earlier era of television.
(Theyre gonna be onEd Sullivan!)
Nostalgias a double-edged sword.
Im already nostalgic for the days when a live musical stopped playing promos for itself after the show started.
But hey:Three thousand lightbulbs!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!
