Schmigadoon! season 2 takes Melissa, Josh, and viewers from the Golden Age musicals of the 40s and 50s to the darker musicals of the 60s and 70s that are parodied throughout. When Schmigadoon! was renewed for season 2, it was with the twist of a new setting and characters. While the core Schmigadoon! cast remained the same, with the exception of one actor who didn’t return from season 1, the Schmigadoon residents took on different roles to reflect the time period. As Schmigadoon! season 2 introduced viewers to the world of Schmicago, many musicals were parodied through songs, storylines, and characters.
Schmigadoon! season 1 focused on the musicals of the 40s and 50s, drawing its title and initial plot from Brigadoon, the 1947 Lerner and Loewe musical about a couple who stumbles upon a mysterious village that only appears for one day every 100 years. Schmigadoon! season 1’s musical numbers, characters, and plot also drew from musicals like The Music Man, Carousel, The Sound of Music, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Oklahoma!, and more. Schmigadoon! season 2 takes the parodies a step further, with even more direct references that make for clever and fun musical numbers, darker plot points, and hilarious scenes.
Chicago
Following the events of Schmigadoon! season 1, Josh and Melissa leave Schmigadoon and return to New York City, where they stay for two years before falling back into the routine of unhappy lives. They attempt to return to Schmigadoon in season 2 to see if they can find their happy ending once again. However, they find that the magical town has been replaced with Schmicago, a play on the 1975 Kander and Ebb satirical musical, Chicago, about two vaudevillian merry murderesses. Beyond the town name, Chicago is parodied in the plot and multiple musical numbers.
Not long into Schmigadoon! season 2, Josh gets framed for murder and turns to the best lawyer in town, Bobbie Flanagan (Jane Kakowski), inspired by Billy Flynn from Chicago. Bobbie even has her own parody of his song “Razzle Dazzle,” titled “Bells and Whistles.” The 70s musical gained even greater popularity through a 1996 Broadway revival that is still running today and a 2002 film adaptation that won six Academy Awards. Its popularity made it an obvious choice to parody in Schmigadoon! season 2.
Cabaret
Another prominent musical that is parodied throughout Schmigadoon! season 2 is Cabaret, another Kander and Ebb show that received a popular 1990s revival and a successful film adaptation that holds the title for most Oscars without a Best Picture win. The 1966 musical is centered around Berlin’s seedy Kit Kat Klub, home of American performer Sally Bowles, and the Emcee, or Master of Ceremonies. The Kit Kat Klub is present in Schmigadoon! season 2 as the Kratt Klub, owned by Octavius Kratt (Patrick Page).
Schmigadoon! season 2 also has its own Sally Bowles and Emcee in Dove Cameron’s Jenny Banks and Ariana DeBose’s Emcee. Ann Harada also returns to Schmigadoon! season 2 as Madam Frau, a parody of Cabaret’s Fräulein Schneider. The murder Josh is framed for is the killing of Elsie, Jenny’s roommate and fellow showgirl, named for the character referenced in the musical’s titular song. Melissa (Cecily Strong) becomes a performer at the Kratt Klub as well, getting to live out her own Sally Bowles fantasy with the number, “It’s My Turn Now” a clear parody of Cabaret’s Maybe This Time.”
Pippin
The Pippin parodies are strong right off the bat and continue on throughout Schmigadoon! season 2. The first musical number of season 2, “Welcome to Schmicago!” is a parody of Pippin’s opening number, “Magic to Do” both sonically and in the iconic Bob Fosse-inspired choreography. Stephen Schwartz’s 1972 musical Pippin follows its titular character, the son of Charlemagne, and a traveling performance troupe, led by the Leading Player. The Leading Player serves as partial inspiration for Schmigadoon! season 2’s Narrator (Tituss Burgess, one of the few new additions to the cast).
Pippin’s main character of the same name was also one of the multiple characters that inspired Aaron Tveit’s Topher, who is looking for his “Doorway to Where,” the same way Pippin is looking for his “Corner of The Sky.” Pippin’s influence is also shown in Topher’s band of hippies, which is another partial parody of the Players in the performance troupe. Beyond parodying “Magic To Do” and “Corner Of The Sky” in Schmigadoon! season 2, Topher and Jenny’s love song takes from Pippin’s aptly titled, “Love Song.”
Hair
The rest of the inspiration for Schmigadoon! season 2’s band of hippies comes from Hair’s tribe, with their leader, Topher, taking traits from the 1968 groundbreaking musical’s own leader, Berger. When Hair hit Broadway, nothing like it had been seen before on its stages, with a nude scene and depictions of illegal drug usage and hippie culture making it controversial. Its adoption of the anti-Vietnam War peace movement and the sexual revolution also made it incredibly popular, eventually spawning a 1979 film adaptation.
The Hair parodies are mostly comedic, with an emphasis on so-called flower power, drugs, sex, and nudity. Hair is full of over 40 songs, many of which are strange and tend to blend in with each other, but that pushed the boundary of what musical theatre could sound like. One Schmigadoon! season 2 musical number, “Everyone’s Gotta Get Naked,” is a parody of Hair in general, though the references are mostly shown in its characters.
Sweeney Todd
Sweeney Todd is another musical on this list that has received great success and popularity in part due to its 2007 film adaptation. The 1970 Stephen Sondheim musical is perhaps the darkest musical parodied in Schmigadoon! season 2, with a tale of a barber who kills his clients that his partner then turns into meat pies. Though Schmigadoon! season 2 draws its town name from Chicago, the biggest plot details seem to revolve around Sweeney Todd. The series features clear counterparts in Dooley Flint (Alan Cumming), Miss Coldwell (Kristin Chenoweth), and Sergeant Rivera (Jaime Camil), with even Kratt and Jenny showing shades of Judge Turpin and Johanna respectively.
Rather than a murderous barber, Schmigadoon! season 2’s Dooley Flint is a butcher, and, also fortunately unlike Sweeney, Dooley doesn’t do much actual murdering. Schmigadoon! season 2, episode 3 features two Sweeney Todd parody numbers, “The Worst Brats In Town,” a parody of “The Worst Pies In London” and “There Was A Butcher,” a parody of “Poor Thing.” The song “Good Enough To Eat” also features nods to Sondheim’s famous patter song, “A Little Priest.”
Annie
Like many other characters in Schmigadoon! season 2, Miss Coldwell is an amalgamation of musical characters, not just parodying Sweeney Todd’s Mrs. Lovett, but Miss Hannigan from another popular 1970s musical, Annie. Miss Coldwell owns an orphanage, though she is trying to sell the kids, or, as she calls them, brats, to get rid of them. “Good Enough To Eat” is an odd combination of Sondheim’s dark humor and the endearing “Hard Knock Life” from Charles Strouse and Martin Charnin, but Schmigadoon! season 2 manages to pull it off.
Sweet Charity
Sweet Charity was another Bob Fosse show that made its way into Schmigadoon! season 2 through parody. The 1966 Cy Coleman musical follows an optimistic dancer-for-hire who is looking for love. Its most famous number, “Big Spender,” is parodied early in Schmigadoon! season 2 with the epsiode 1 number “Do We Shock You?” In Schmigadoon! season 2, episode 4, the catchy “Talk To Daddy” parodies both “Rhythm of Life” and Fosse’s classic choreography from “Rich Man’s Frug.”
Jesus Christ Superstar
In 1971, Jesus Christ Superstar became the first Andrew Lloyd Webber musical to hit Broadway, and it’s also the first to hit Schmigadoon! season 2. As Schmigadoon! season 2’s main villain, Kratt is a combination of many villains, including Caiaphus, the High Priest of Israel, and a Jesus Christ Superstar antagonist. Schmigadoon! season 2 features a few parody numbers from the Lloyd Webber show, including “Two Birds With One Stone” which draws from villainous numbers, and “Famous as Hell” and “You Betrayed Me” from Schmigadoon! season 2, episode 5 that parody “Heaven On Their Minds” and “What’s The Buzz” and “Everything’s Alright” respectively.
Other Musicals Parodied In Schmigadoon! Season 2
The Rocky Horror Show: The 1975 musical is perhaps better known because of its film adaptation. While there are unfortunately no Rocky Horror-inspired musical numbers, Josh and Melissa’s car breaking down, leaving them stuck in the strange world of Schmicago is a reference to Brad and Janet’s car breaking down and them winding up at the Frankenstein Place.
A Chorus Line: When Melissa auditions for the Kratt Klub, it’s in the style of the opening song from the most famous show about auditioning, 1975’s A Chorus Line. Complete with dancer headshots and the Michael Bennett/Bob Avian choreography, “I Need To Eat” is a direct parody of “I Hope I Get It.”
Promises, Promises: This 1968 musical from the great collaboration of Burt Bacharach, Hal David, and Neil Simon created two hit singles for Dionne Warwick and inspired one parody number in Schmigadoon! season 2. “There’s Always A Twist,” a duet between Sergeant Rivera and Madam Frau parodies “A Fact Can Be a Beautiful Thing” from Promises, Promises.
Godspell: Godspell is the second Schwartz show to be parodied in Schmigadoon! season 2, and it goes hand in hand with his other show, Pippin. The hippies’ parables and sock puppets are taken from the 1971 musical, whose version of Jesus also partially inspires Topher’s character.
Company: The 1970 Sondheim musical is not parodied nearly as much in Schmigadoon! season 2 as Sweeney Todd, but there is the ever present Barfly (Karin Konoval) who will randomly add in an, “I’ll drink to that!” with a martini glass in hand, which is a line from Company’s “The Ladies Who Lunch.” In Schmigadoon! season 2, episode 2, the number, “Bustin’ Out,” was another Chicago parody, this time of “You Could Drive A Person Crazy.”