James Corden, Rachel Bloom and Nathan Lane offer up some Inappropriate Musicals. Mr. Lane's head has been shaved for his upcoming role as attorney F. Lee Bailey in an upcoming episode of American Crime on FX called "The People Vs. O.J. Simpson." That strikes me as real odd casting but, hey, maybe they added in some show tunes. It's not like it would lower the dignity of that trial.
I love Rachel Bloom and the fact that she now has her own TV series. She started pretty much promoting herself on the web via self-produced and self-financed music videos, one of which was the controversial, "Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury." If you've never seen it and can handle a bit of naughty, you can view it here. Ray was among the many who loved it.
At the 2012 Comic-Con International in San Diego, there was a big Ray Bradbury Tribute event to note his passing. Rachel had volunteered to perform the number but someone (this was before I became involved) had told her it was too "adult" for a Comic-Con event. No problem, said she. She wrote a set of clean alternate lyrics that I believe turned the tune into "Touch Me, Ray Bradbury" and she showed up in her schoolgirl costume from the video to perform it. She would be singing live to a recorded musical track.
I was co-hosting with Ray's friend/biographer Sam Weller and on one of my trips out on stage to introduce a speaker, I noticed something about the audience: There were no kids there. Not a one. No one under the age of 18 or maybe even 30. When I went backstage, I went over to Rachel who was waiting to go on and asked her if she'd rather sing the raunchy lyrics. She said, "I'm not sure I can remember them but I'll give it a try."
So when it came time to introduce her, I went out and polled the audience. I told them they had a choice: They could hear the laundered version or, in the spirit of Fahrenheit 451, Rachel could perform the unexpurgated version. We did a show of hands and not one person present wanted the cleaned-up lyrics…so out she went to perform the song as written.
There's an online report on the memorial that says she was the one who asked the audience which version they wanted to hear. Nope. I did that and I want credit for it because I could hear Ray giving his wholehearted approval.
Rachel is a tremendous talent who will go far. Here she is the other night with James Corden and Nathan Lane…