{"id":5587,"date":"2011-09-16T01:20:08","date_gmt":"2011-09-16T05:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/?p=5587"},"modified":"2011-09-16T01:20:08","modified_gmt":"2011-09-16T05:20:08","slug":"yo-joe-a-real-american-hip-hop-musical","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/2011\/09\/yo-joe-a-real-american-hip-hop-musical\/","title":{"rendered":"Yo Joe! A Real American Hip-Hop Musical"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>So here's something we just learned about tonight:<\/p>\n<p><center><object width=\"425\" height=\"246\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/icnrLtCpZ-I&rel=0&color1=0x003366&color2=0x0099cc&border=0\"><\/param><param name=\"wmode\" value=\"transparent\"><\/param><embed src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/icnrLtCpZ-I&rel=0&color1=0x003366&color2=0x0099cc&border=0\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" wmode=\"transparent\" width=\"425\" height=\"246\"><\/embed><\/object><\/center><\/p>\n<p><!--more-->That's a teaser for a musical currently being staged in Chicago:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Chicago - Red Star Studio Productions proudly presents <i>Yo Joe! - A Real American Hiop-Hop Musical<\/i>, a parody of the beloved, patriotic cartoon\/toy franchise. It's comedy, combat and '80s nostalgia set to a catchy, origincal hip-hop score. Heroic good faces off with shadowy evil when it's discovered the action figures kids buy in stores could be the final key to world domination. With ninjas, psychically-connected twins, sexy spies and masked supervillains - it's a wildly colorful blast of musical comedy. Fans have long <b>wished<\/b> the original cartoons were this much fun.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>If we'd known about this earlier, we would have sent our own Rustin Parr to cover opening night! The show <a href=\"http:\/\/www.chicagotribune.com\/entertainment\/theater\/ct-ott-0916-on-the-fringe-20110915,0,2521284.story\">got a good write-up<\/a> in the <i>Tribune<\/i>, earning three stars (out of four).<\/p>\n<p><!--By Nina Metz, Tribune reporter\n\n12:08 p.m. CDT, September 15, 2011\n\n\"Yo Joe! A Real American Hip-Hop Musical\" ***  \n\nPacked with enough jingoism that it practically fertilized everything it touched with stars and bars, the '80s animated series <i>GI Joe: A Real American Hero<\/i> was not my cartoon of choice as a kid. But I was still bowled over by this parody.\n\nThe first 10 minutes are not promising. Too awkward, too stilted. It's an uneven cast, there's barely enough room on stage to accommodate a ninja sword fight later on (I would advise not sitting in the front row), and the clumsy scene changes in director David Flora's production need to be simplified, no question.\n\nAnd yet there is something about creator Jay Gish's show for Red Star Studio that roped me in, but <b>good<\/b>. Gish has a real sense of farce and has written a plot that actually makes sense (a rarity in the world of spoofs): The Joes hunt down voodoo doll action figures of themselves that have been manufactured by the enemy. If it weren't so meta, I'd swear it was a plot ripped from the actual cartoon, but just enough details have been changed to avoid letters from copyright lawyers.\n\nDespite a score that is hit and miss, the songs that do work make a big impact, including the battle rap \"You're Overrated,\" with its indelibly funky backing track, and the hokey party-time finale \"Half the Battle.\"\n\nA few key performances seal the deal. Tamara Todres makes the most of her zany dominatrix who speaks in an unidentifiable foreign accent, and I liked the jangly bravado of C.J. Tuor's master of disguise. Bob Pantalone's hilariously petulant evildoer is unexpected fun because Pantalone understands what makes these crime-lord archetypes so ridiculous. The MVP is Caleb George as Flinch, a Mr. America-type in his camo, black beret and two-day stubble. It's a performance worthy of a Jim Abrahams project, somewhere in the territory of <i>Hot Shots!<\/i> and <i>Naked Gun<\/i>. The guy is a straight-faced clown, in the best sense of the word.\n\nThrough Oct. 15 at Chemically Imbalanced Comedy, 1422 W. Irving Park Road; tickets are $15 at 800-838-3006 or brownpapertickets.com--><\/p>\n<p>If you visit <a href=\"http:\/\/www.yojoemusical.com\/\" target=_blank>the musical's website<\/a>, or their account on YouTube, you can find a few examples of pre-show music and even a few parody PSAs.<\/p>\n<p><center><object width=\"425\" height=\"246\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/60KCWJHa6JY&rel=0&color1=0x003366&color2=0x0099cc&border=0\"><\/param><param name=\"wmode\" value=\"transparent\"><\/param><embed src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/60KCWJHa6JY&rel=0&color1=0x003366&color2=0x0099cc&border=0\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" wmode=\"transparent\" width=\"425\" height=\"246\"><\/embed><\/object><\/center><\/p>\n<div class=\"SPOSTARBUST-Related-Posts\"><H5>&lt;i&gt;And now, some more OAFEry:&lt;\/i&gt;<\/H5><ul class=\"entry-meta\"><li class=\"SPOSTARBUST-Related-Post\"><a title=\"GI Joe Kre-O Zartan review\" href=\"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/2014\/12\/gi-joe-kre-o-zartan-review\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">GI Joe Kre-O Zartan review<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"SPOSTARBUST-Related-Post\"><a title=\"Joe Friday: Skyduster addendum\" href=\"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/2009\/04\/joe-friday-skyduster-addendum\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Joe Friday: Skyduster addendum<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"SPOSTARBUST-Related-Post\"><a title=\"The gift everybody wants\" href=\"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/2019\/12\/the-gift-everybody-wants\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">The gift everybody wants<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"SPOSTARBUST-Related-Post\"><a title=\"Marauder Task Force Gaming Figures\" href=\"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/2014\/04\/marauder-task-force-gaming-figures\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Marauder Task Force Gaming Figures<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"SPOSTARBUST-Related-Post\"><a title=\"GI Joe Movie Watch: ...and that should be all.\" href=\"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/2008\/02\/gi-joe-movie-watch-and-that-should-be-all\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">GI Joe Movie Watch: ...and that should be all.<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So here's something we just learned about tonight: &lt;i&gt;And now, some more OAFEry:&lt;\/i&gt;A real American doggo Todds R Us Flippin' through Previews - November '11 GI Joe: Iron Klaw addendum GI Joe Crystal Ball addendum<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,42],"tags":[22],"class_list":["post-5587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-videos","tag-gi-joe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5587"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5587\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5591,"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5587\/revisions\/5591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}