Glee star, Darren Criss, reveals his top pick for the show's worst cover song. The hit show about the struggling show choir, New Directions, at William McKinley High School ran on Fox from 2009 to 2015. What made Glee such a phenomenon during the show's 6-season run was the way the series interspersed musical covers of hit songs into the plot. As a result, Glee had many hit covers that were performed by the main cast, while other covers were a hit or miss for fans and critics alike. Criss was introduced in season 2 of Glee as Blaine Anderson, lead singer of the Dalton Warblers and a love interest for Kurt Hummel (Chris Colfer.)
Blaine's introduction featured his character singing the Katy Perry hit, "Teenage Dream," which was arguably one of Glee's best musical covers (it even made the Billboard Hot 100 list.) Unfortunately, Blaine would also be responsible for several song duds later on in the show, particularly in the season 5 episode, "Puppet Master." After Blaine attempts to take control of the Glee club, Kurt likens him to a puppet master. Blaine finally apologizes to his fellow glee club members by making them all puppets of themselves, and they proceed to sing a cover of the Ylvis 2013 viral hit, "Fox (What Does The Fox Say?)"
Even Criss agreed that covering "Fox (What Does The Fox Say?)" wasn't the best idea. During an interview on the LadyGang podcast (via Entertainment Weekly) Criss admitted he had fun with the "absurdity" of the song cover choice. Read more about why Criss thought the song was the show's worst cover below.
"There is one that is conventionally understood as a huge oops f---. Me being the f--ing happy go lucky fart that I am, I enjoyed it because I thought it was so absurd. It was so weird...It was one of these 15 minutes of fame for this song and they just decided to put it into the show... I had fun because it was ridiculous, but we were so deep into the show we were like fourth or fifth season and we were so delirious from the absurdity of it. The more absurd it is, the funnier it is to me. So I'm sure there were people who were like, 'What the f--- is this?' and I was like, [laughing], 'I know, right?!"
With the silly song choice and rather nonsensical plot, it's no surprise that "The Puppet Master," was one of Glee's worst episodes according to IMDb. Glee always shone in the song cover spotlight when the show chose songs that actually moved the plot forward or when musical numbers helped add more insight to a character. Blaine had a great character arc from his initial Dalton introduction all the way to his marriage to Kurt in season 6, and sang many great covers along the way, like Pink's "Raise Your Glass," Keane's "Somewhere Only We Know," and more.
However, it's safe to say "The Fox (What Does The Fox Say?)" won't ever go down in history as a great Glee cover. Poor song covers aside, there's no doubt that Glee was a groundbreaking show for its time. The show dealt with issues that many people face in real life, like bullying and accepting one's sexuality. Suffice to say, when Glee allowed a character accept themselves through song, it was inspiring to fans as well.
Source: LadyGang Podcast, via Entertainment Weekly