The South Park dudes do a Broadway musical called "The Book of Mormon"

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/02/20/arts/MORMON-Jp-1/MORMON-Jp-1-articleLarge.jpg

NYT

Slate

Sullivan

Hmm.

music bits have always been great on south park. I don't haven't bothered keeping up with the show for a few years after 1 too many global warming episodes, but I'd put money on this being crazy funny.

err remove that 'don't'

I could get into the previews for $35-40 I think

Kim Farah, a spokeswoman for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said the church had not seen the musical. In a statement the church said, “The production may attempt to entertain audiences for an evening, but the Book of Mormon as a volume of scripture will change people’s lives forever by bringing them closer to Christ.”

Mormon PR is so unflappable... smooth like ice.

hell yeah...orgazmo is one of the funniest movies ever mostly because of how great the mormon character was

They were born to do a stage musical...if this comes anywhere near the doubled-over/can't breathe hilarity of their Mormon Southpark ep, it will be a winner.

We showed the Southpark ep to my father-in-law who was raised Mormon and he laughed til he cried (but he already enjoyed Southpark so, take that with a grain of salt I guess)

WANT TO SEE

I'm surprised you haven't been cast.

had I known about auditions, I would have been really, really tempted to go

what if it's as foul and scattershot as Team America?

team america minus the stupid politics = sounds pretty good to me

NYT review sez it's a winner:

http://theater.nytimes.com/2011/03/25/theater/reviews/the-book-of-mormon-at-eugene-oneill-theater-review.html

Stone and Parker did "cannibal the musical" which was hilarious, if their previous musical efforts are anything to go by this should be awesome.

fuck, all the reviews are raves. Why didn't I go to a goddamn preview? It's The Producers all over again.

Hmm

That review seems a little too breathless.

yeah if you've been following their career (especially their first two movies) you'd know there's pretty much no way this isn't good

if it was Team America onstage, see above.

kind of disquieted by presence of fat fuck Josh Gad, and that Brantley invokes 'bromance' movies.

based on Cannibal the Musical, the musical sequences in Bigger Longer Uncut, and the Mormon Southpark episode I kind of fee like they were born to do this, and do it well. I'm pretty much convinced that it will be fantastic.

I think as big a Southpark fan as I have been, the music stuff they do has always been by far my favorite. The Christian Rock parodies and boy-band fingerbang stuff, ...gold!

kind of disquieted by presence of fat fuck Josh Gad

That put me off initially, too (the fact that he's a fuck; not sure how him being fat could possibly affect anyone other than Mr. Gad himself), but I've read a number of "I hated him on the Daily Show, but he's hilarious here!"-type comments.

I wonder if this is more accurate about Mormons than Orgazmo was. I think half the lols my exmo sister & I got from Orgazmo were from the "haha Mormons don't do that" part. Saving up money to go to the temple, Trey & Matt, you kill me.

I would like to see this BofM musical but I don't think that'll ever happen unless they make a movie of it or I start making $$$ (the former seems way more likely).

I doubt Orgazmo was really supposed to be like a "satire" on Mormons; I can't see Parker and Stone being so mean spirited towards them. I think they were just supposed to be really funny characters. Actually, if you stripped the humor out of the movie, it's a pretty powerful story.

Abb, what did you think of the "Let's Build a Snowman" character in Cannibal!? My ex-mo friend I saw it with was dying of laughter, because it reminded her so much of LDS-ness.

like at the time we saw it, she didn't know that those guys were raised in/near "the Church," and her response to it was, "Wait, I bet these guys were raised Mormon!"

all the non-actors playing ridiculous characters was half the fun of Cannibal
especially the "Indian" chief

oh, the Mormons have a history of wtf characterizations of Native Americans!

if i had more free time i would start a picture thread called "LOL at Lamanites"

Yeah there were a lot of Mormony lols in Cannibal. Or just growing up in the Rocky Mtn area, like the French fur trappers guys – who I liked the best because I played a French fur trapper in a fourth grade Idaho history musical.

sarahel I already did that: Thread for my favorite pictures from children's illustrated book, "Book of Mormon stories"

http://www.lds.org/images/Manuals/tchg-pix.nfo:o:d06.jpg

Look at that crafty Lamanite!

^^ i missed that thread! I bet there are plenty of "Deep Purple Jesus" pics!

http://www.lds.org/images/Manuals/tchg-pix.nfo:o:d6a.jpg

Lamanites! Sheesh.

we were discussing the history of religious painting, and my friend said that one of the subtly weird and idiosyncratic things about Mormon religious art is that Jesus always looks like the singer of Deep Purple, the guy who played Jesus in Jesus Christ Superstar.

http://www.lds.org/images/Manuals/tchg-pix.nfo:o:104c.jpg

Maybe you can see why I thought 'omg L:amanites' in this Lady Gagas vid

http://threeceebee.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Lady-Gaga-Music-Video-Alejandro.jpg

beefy dudes w/inky bowl cuts

holy shit!!!

what is a lamanite and can i eat it?

i keep reading it as "laminate"

I am not sure Mormon-style Jesus looks that much like any of the most famous JCSS Christs, sarahel, save for the fact that they are all blue-eyed white dudes?

http://i2.kickasstorrents.com/artists/3508171.jpghttp://www.aboutmormons.com/images/jesuschrist.jpghttp://farm2.static.flickr.com/1087/634067427_ebb61f78f6.jpg

L-R: Ian Gillan (Deep Purple guy), the painting that was on my B of M bookmark Jesus, ted Neeley (still getting INRI'ed in this role to this day)

imo he looks more like Neeley than Gillan anyway – I do like the cast recording w/Gillan better tho. Sorry, Mormon art?

yeah - they all look like Neeley

cannibal: the musical is one of my favorite movies ever.

"NIiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice hat!"

guys, you missed the Jesus who later captained the USS Enterprise

Scott Bakula played Jesus???

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3311/3224329618_2cbda7c9a3.jpg

http://mimg.ugo.com/200710/15372/pike-hunter.jpg

Jeffrey Hunter?

CAPTAIN PIKE!!!! <3

holy crap!

stream the cast recording over at NPR:

http://www.npr.org/2011/05/09/136054170/first-listen-cast-recording-the-book-of-mormon

fuck, i'm low on cash after tax season and want to see this shit so bad

so has anyone else seen this?

the musical numbers were pretty good (if nothing special for broadway), especially the opener, "hello", which killed me. the one toward the end where they re-enact what they think is the history of mormonism is also amazingly funny, if EXTREMELY vulgar (no little kids!) the characters were likeable enough, if you can get over josh gad's jonah hill-ness. some of the parts with the africans, especially in the very beginning, made me uncomfortable but these are the south park guys so to an extent you know what you're getting into

this was great

Coming to Cleveland this summer, def. gonna go.

Sondheim recently chimed in that this is "just a fun college show."

Sondheim dug Bigger Longer Uncut too

goddammit stephen

it was a rather backhanded compliment, Veg

not to me :)

this was pretty great then. upstanding no-prisoners satire WITH A HEART, and a double-handful of killer comedy moments. that 140 characters?

Saw it, liked it a lot. Something to be said for innocently profane makes you laugh (a lot), makes you think (but not that much) capital E Entertainment. Loved that most of the ad buy in the program was from the Mormons.

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/blogsfaithblog/54852206-180/book-mormon-church-lds.html.csp re: the ad buy for the LA run, but obviously they've kept it going, since they filled up the playbill here. Does the London run feature Mormon advertising?

Nope, just saw it tonight and 0 Mormon advertising (but then, it'd probably be the first Mormon advertising I've ever seen?).

I thought it was great, and also holy shit do these guys love musicals.

thought this was not really good @ all

Saw this last week in Schenectady. I generally dislike Broadway musicals anyway, and this just reinforced/repurposed the usual cliches. There were a few laughs, but no more than on a better-than-average SP episode.

The guy playing Josh Gad's character was great, though; I ran into someone at the show who'd seen it with Gad and said this guy in the touring company was ten times better.

thought this was hilarious and super-effective as a musical

Cosign

Yeah, I caught this the last week it was in Chicago and really enjoyed it.