Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog
This weekend’s gotten off to a musical start. First I saw the film version of “Mamma Mia!” (good movie) and now I’ve just finished up the final act of Joss Whedon’s “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog“.
Starring Neil Patrick Harris as Dr. Horrible, Nathan Fillion as Captain Hammer, and Felicia Day as Penny, the story follows Dr. Horrible as he attempts to gain admittance to a super villain organization and work up the nerve to talk to the girl of his dreams (Penny), who he has inadvertently introduced to his arch-nemesis (Hammer). As the name suggests, the show is a musical and features Joss’ quirky, irreverent sense of humor.
The show is presented in three 15-minute acts that were released over the course of this week for free on the internet. After today (July 19), it will only be available for purchase on iTunes until the DVD is released sometime in the coming months. Joss came up with the idea during the writer’s strike and explains the motivation behind it in a note to his fans:
Once upon a time, all the writers in the forest got very mad with the Forest Kings and declared a work-stoppage. The forest creatures were all sad; the mushrooms did not dance, the elderberries gave no juice for the festival wines, and the Teamsters were kinda pissed. (They were very polite about it, though.) During this work-stoppage, many writers tried to form partnerships for outside funding to create new work that circumvented the Forest King system.
Frustrated with the lack of movement on that front, I finally decided to do something very ambitious, very exciting, very mid-life-crisisy. Aided only by everyone I had worked with, was related to or had ever met, I single-handedly created this unique little epic. A supervillain musical, of which, as we all know, there are far too few.
The idea was to make it on the fly, on the cheap – but to make it. To turn out a really thrilling, professionalish piece of entertainment specifically for the internet. To show how much could be done with very little. To show the world there is another way. To give the public (and in particular you guys) something for all your support and patience. And to make a lot of silly jokes. Actually, that sentence probably should have come first.
