Thank you so much for taking the time to make this. Stephen Sondheim is my god, FTH and LIMAH my holy texts, so to be publicly told that my work on this show meets the standards laid out therein is the highest compliment I could possibly receive--I'm in lyricist heaven!


A few things:


I generally agree with Sondheim's the-chorus-speaking-as-one-doesn't-really-make-sense rule, but as you pointed out, this is a parody of Disney movies, and content dictates form, so the times that we did use the chorus in this way were very deliberate: the songlet at the end is every mini-reprise over a close-up kiss at the end of all the Disney Renaissance movies; the ego-boosting army chorus in No One Remembers Achmed = Gaston's fans/hangers-on; The Golden Rule, since it's part of a flashback, is sort of a throwback to the Disney songs of the '60s and '70s, so it's meant to be a simpler style of song (plus their repeating Jafar's words shows that they're internalizing his message). However, I really liked your point about its use in the "Whistle while you swallow..." line--that was not something we did consciously, but you're right, it DOES make sense that they would all repeat verbatim and in unison the platitudes and life lessons they had all absorbed in their youth. Good catch there. How accidentally smart of us!


Also, I am militantly against the use of false rhymes in musical theatre (outside of Hamilton)--you said that Twisted has its share of false rhymes, but as far as I remember, there is only one, and no one's ever (directly) called me out on it but it's been haunting me for six years! It's in the final section of "The Golden Rule." I felt justified in fudging "reciprocity/philosophy" because 1) like I said, it's modeled after an earlier style of Disney song, and three-syllable slant rhymes appear in every verse of "The Bare Necessities" and 2) three-syllable rhymes are really hard!


I'm thrilled by your appreciation of the internal rhymes--but you missed one in the example you cited! "SAY/ It'll all be OKAY/ But HEY,/ That's just the WAY life is for me." It's echoed in the next verse: "Right and WRONG/ Or to sing me a SONG/ I LONG/ To be as STRONG as I used to be." I'm not sure whether to feel smug or disappointed that this went unnoticed...


One tiny quibble: next time you make a video like this, you should credit the authors of the work you're discussing by name. You obviously put so much time and energy and analytic thought into making this video about a work of art that you clearly love... and that work did not appear out of thin air. No hard feelings--my primary takeaway here is that I'm extremely flattered--but perhaps you could add our names to the description, at least? Don't leave me feeling like Achmed over here! (Forgotten, that is. Not enraged to the point of invading a country. I would never do that. Nor fuck a tiger.)


Again, thank you for this. Watching it absolutely made my day!

Reason one: Tiger Fucker
Reason two: Every Other Aspect

Underappreciated pun: how The Golden Rule (Evil Reprise) lyrics gradually shift to "Follow the gold and rule"

Reasons why Twisted is the best musical: just plays the whole show

the biggest lighting surprise was lauren hitting the light switch in the middle of one of the shows

I literally can't listen to "A Whole New World" anymore. I think they nailed it, because the two songs are different in many ways, but they're just similar enough that they sound the same in my head.
Also, I sang "The Power in Me" with my dad (who is also my music teacher) for my school's talent show and everyone cried. I still cry every time I hear it.

YES. BRING ACHMED HIS TIGER AND NO ONE GETS HURT

Can we get some appreciation for Kaley McMahon, Twisted’s lyricist? Isn’t she amazing!

Ok, hearing "You can't be a real Disney princess without an I Want song" and then an immediate shift to "Sands of Time" had me thinking you were going to say Jafar was a Disney Princess for a second

Hnnng going through the technical aspects of starkid shows is like crack to me. I love joke videos but I love just taking things apart.

There's this essay I really want to make someday about the clever ways that Twisted reflects on our current political landscape.
Ja'far is the old-school liberal Democrat who wants to believe that everyone can get what they need as long as they just sit down and listen to each other and compromise, and is finding himself fundamentally unable to make any meaningful change to the systemic inequality in society because the people he's trying to work with just do not care about compromising.
The Princess is a young person who is more willing to challenge the status quo and propose radical action, but a combination of her socioeconomic privilege and her lack of life experience means she doesn't yet have the perspective required to effectively execute her visions.
Aladdin is your typical edgy pseudo-libertarian who believes that he personally should have the right to live his life however he wants without having to put in any effort. He takes advantage of The Princess's compassion and naivete to portray himself as an oppressed progressive thinker, but that only stands as long as he is occupying a marginalized class. Once he gains access to wealth and power, it becomes abundantly clear that he never actually valued anyone's interests but his own.
And yet, Aladdin ultimately teaches Ja'far a very valuable lesson. While Ja'far has become a slave to his moral integrity, Aladdin gets what he wants because he believes that he can have it all and doesn't let anyone stop him. This leads to Ja'far realizing that he has to take The Princess and her generation seriously and nurture her drive and her ideas, even if they may sound impractical to him. And in the end, he was right to believe in her. She stops the war peacefully, she successfully enacts what sounds like wealth redistribution by making everyone a princess, and the kingdom's culture is now thriving.

dylan saunders
thats all

While it isn't my favorite part of the show, I think the most well-written part is the turn around from Golden Rule to the reprise. The lyrical change from golden rule to gold and rule is incredible and perfectly establishes how the kingdom still fell  apart with Ja'Far at the helm.

Take off your clothes also just, sets up really well that they have very different expectations for that relationship. Aladdin just wants to *bleep*, the subliminal messages, and clearly trying to manipulate her into it (like mind control) adds up to everything we already knew about him. He's an asshole, he's clever to other characters but really transparent to the audience. Meanwhile the princess grew up very sheltered, Aladdin knows that, but it's reaffirmed when he asks her what the tower looks like and she says it's a giraffe when his way of asking clearly implied something more lewd. She's still a child, she's 16, and Aladdin is being way more than a little rapey, especially up from his 33 years, and when he talks about his age he always implies that he's not old ("age is just a number" *ahem*) using language like "orphaned" which is used mostly for children, or saying that he's "only" 33, even though he's literally more than twice her age.

Oh my gosh. Only when “dream a little harder” and “twisted” were put up for comparison did I realize, that the issue was the same with the townspeople and the villains. They only dreamt. They only wished. Oh dear. I think I’m just a very slow thinker.

Edit: also “take of your clothes” as the song to bring closure to Aladdin and the princess’s relationship is really telling. He’s the one stringing her along, trying to confuse and fool her. It’s basically showing how unhealthy it is, therefore making the audience unable to cheer for this relationship.

Ah yes, Sondheim, also known as soprano_hater_69

One of the most underrated lines is when Jafar says he loves the princess and Aladdin says something along the lines of, “That’s gross, you’re like twice her age dude” when she’s 16 and Aladdin is 33, one year older than twice her age.

And the best part about this is this video only went into why the MUSIC was so good! We still need full analyses on plot, character, writing choreo, set, etc.

Silvana: The more I looked into it, I realized how good of a show it is. Especially the music

My Mind: A sOnG iS a DiCk iN sHeEpS cLoThInG

the way that they parodied disney songs in such a clever way always blows my mind