Glee-ful, No More

Feels like I've been thinking too hard on these posts this week and I really wanted something light to ring out the year so here we go...

BACK

FRONT

I bought this shirt when Lesley and I went on the Epic Birthday Trip to California mentioned in September. Our VIP tickets included a limited edition shirt red and white baseball-tee-ish shirt but it was of a less solid material than the ones at the merch tables so I bought another.

It was a pretty successful trip by all measures. We found our way there, had a pre-show meal of various appetizers, and enjoyed the kick-ass seats down in the lower bowl. Glee was still in the darling days of its premiere season and this tour was really testing the waters as to how far the fan base was willing to go to be a part of the New Directions adventures.

Some memorable moments included: Lesley getting to high-five the Season 1 leading men, Cory Monteith (Finn) and Mark Salling (Puck) as they came running through the audience; the usherette/dancers dressed as Cheerios and handing out barf bags before the show; and the performance of their cover of Salt 'n' Peppa's "Push It" that wasn't released as a cast recording until the compilation at the end of the season even though it appeared in Episode 2.

 This is still my most viewed YouTube video to date

***January 2013 edit***

The bloom had faded from my Glee fervor a long while ago but Season One will always be a fun and positive memory for me. Sadly, Season Two made show loyalty harder to maintain with spotty writing and improbable character twists. Even the music wasn't that good. (Especially in comparison to the Smash premiere season which delivered a more satisfactory story about musical theatre and the people involved in creating a show.) Season Three has been even more silly and unappealing. I have been completely unmotivated to follow Rachel and Kurt to NYC and the fact that most of the graduated class has reappeared in the halls of McKinley makes me paranoid about my own students never moving on beyond high school.

And then, like an unhealthy and worn-out relationship where the partners hold on out of nostalgia until one or both of the partners finally cross the line - physically, mentally, or emotionally - the show-runners of Glee irrevocably lost my support and viewership when they shamelessly ripped off the Jonathon Coulton acoustic cover of Sir Mix-A-Lot's "Baby Got Back" in a recent episode. You be the judge: 

 

In fact, with very little effort, you could probably find the sweet spot where these two versions sync up exactly (like a couple of Nickelback songs do) but the undeniable truth is that Glee stole Coulton's arrangement, timing and lyric changes while giving him no credit whatsoever.

 

So what does Big Butt Revenge look like? Coulton has cheekily covered the Glee cover of his original cover or, as he states on his blog, "which is to say it’s EXACTLY THE SAME as [his] original version" and is donating proceeds from the online purchase to charity. 

I've bought my copy and I'm considering buying copies for all my friends who have iTunes accounts. Maybe Glee won't notice that I've turned my TV off but hopefully they'll notice that their dishonest version is getting its butt kicked by the JoCo version on the Internet charts.

Yeah, so, maybe not so light a post after all... but better late than never.