Schmigadoon!is unlike any TV show you’ve seen before. The Apple TV+ musical comedy starsCecily StrongandKeegan Michael-Keyas Melissa and Josh, a couple going through some struggles in their relationship. While on a reaffirming couples' hike, they happen upon a mysterious town in the woods called Schmigadoon, where life feels stuck in a 1940s Hollywood musical — down to the ornately orchestrated production numbers. As they deal with the town’s unusual characters and try to find a way back to their regular life, they go through some unexpected changes, and maybe even start to find a new song to sing.
The showrunner, co-creator (alongsideKen Daurio), and songwriter isCinco Paul, known for his work on animated family films likeDespicable Me,The Lorax, andThe Secret Life of Pets. As I spoke with him over Zoom, I learned how personal the long-gestatingSchmigadoon!was for him, as it allowed him to reacquaint himself with his first love of songwriting, to immaculately mimic (and parody) the cinematic form he loves so dearly, and to work with incredible comedy forces like Strong, Key,Bowen Yang,Julie Klausner, and of courseLorne Michaels. We also touched on the show’s commitment to accuracy, its show-stopping long takes, its confidence in not having to tell constant jokes, its multiple-season plan, and what it’s like to work with a world-famous director who — gasp — doesn’t like musicals. Plus, we get into an unexpected and wholly delightful story intersecting Borat and the Minions…
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What was the first time you remember experiencing the musicalBrigadoon? And when did it first blossom in your head as, “I can make a show out of this”?
PAUL:Brigadoon, I think I knew conceptually. I think maybe before this show, I had actually never watched the whole musical ofBrigadoon. I was a fan of a lot of other musicals, more the [Richard] Rodgers and [Oscar] Hammerstein. But I think I was aware of it conceptually. I think it was actually watchingAnAmerican Werewolf in London, which is one of my favorite movies, and the opening with the two guys backpacking made me think, “This opening is really similar toBrigadoon.” Then I thought, “What if these guys stumbled on a musical? That would be interesting.” That’s kind of where it all came from.
Was there ever a version that leaned into horror or genre a little bit?
PAUL: I don’t think so. I think I really thought of it as a comedy because that’s always been my genre, although I love horror. But yeah, I think I didn’t really go beyond that. I just thought of the idea, and then set it aside, because I couldn’t figure it out, or I was distracted by other things. That was almost 25 years ago. And then 20 years later, when it was time to go into TV, we met with Broadway Video, and [executive] Andrew Singer said, “We’re interested in something in the musical genre.” And that’s when it sort of hit me, “Oh. Huh. I wonder if that old idea could work as a TV show?” And in today’s world of TV, it definitely felt like it could, and so that’s really kind of the beginning, how it all started.
I’m a big fan of the classic Technicolor Hollywood musicals. But I’m curious, how did you sell contemporary TV makers and producers on mimicking this kind of classic style? There’s a line in the show: “IfThe Walking Deadwas alsoGlee.” Was that your elevator pitch line?
PAUL: That was not the elevator pitch line. It was always trying to tell it from both Melissa and Josh’s point of view. Some of the people at Apple were Melissas [romantic], and some of them were Joshes [cynical]. I know when we were pitching to some of the Joshes at Apple, we were warned, “Try not to sing so much, maybe you should pull back.” But Ken and I just… This is the pitch. We’re singing, people, and there’s going to be songs in this. I actually anticipated more pushback than we got, which was nice and refreshing. It really did help that Lorne early on saw the vision of the show, and supported us. When you have him in your corner, it’s easier to take a hard stance and say, “This is going to be full-on, ’40s and ’50s, Golden Age musical. We want it to look like that, the characters are like that, the only thing contemporary is these two characters coming into this world. We want live singing on the set, we want long takes, I want dancing to not be cut the way it is now. I want to see [the actors] head to toe, and be able to actually see all of the choreography. I want a real orchestra behind this, and I want [orchestrator/producer] Doug Besterman and [conductor] David Chase, these great Broadway guys to elevate my songs.” Everybody was on board, which I was shocked by, ‘cause I thought I was going to maybe have to fight a little harder. But I think everybody saw that the more authentic it is, the funnier it’s going to be, and the more successful it’s going to be.
You brought up a lot of what I had a blast with about the show: The visual language of it, especially those long takes. How much of that was elevated by Barry Sonnenfeld as a director?
PAUL: He was very committed to doing these long takes, and that’s a lot of work to figure out. With all of his experience and everything that he’s done, that was so valuable as we were moving forward. It’s funny because Barry is not a fan of musicals.
PAUL: He doesn’t like musicals.
ButThe Addams Familyhasa musical sequence in it.
PAUL: Right, there’s a musical sequence in there, exactly. But he’s not a fan, and he would half-jokingly say, “Why are there so many songs throughout this?” It was just a little bit of push-pull, but it was great, because he was a Josh, he brought that perspective in there. It really helped with things like “Tribulation,” Kristin [Chenoweth’s] song, which is four and a half minutes, all one take. Chris Gattelli’s choreography, he was the one who mapped that whole thing out, that was really helpful as well. Having all these Broadway musical theater pros also was a huge boon to the show.
Insofar as Broadway ringers in the cast, and also having contemporary comedians in the cast, which camp of people kind of felt like they were more at fantasy camp, so to speak? Were the comedians more excited to be Broadway stars, or were the Broadway stars more excited to be comedians?
PAUL: That’s hard to say, because Keegan was so happy, and Cecily too, the two of them. Cecily’s got serious chops, though, they both do. Keegan was frustrated because he didn’t get a lot of opportunities to sing. But they were kids in a candy store. But also, it was really a labor of love for all the cast. I mean, they’re all just these amazing Broadway stars, and Broadway was shut down, and theaters everywhere were shut down. It was this great love letter to musical theater, and they were so excited to be able to make something during a time when everything else was kind of shut down. Multiple times, Kristin said that, Aaron [Tveit] said that, Ann [Harada] mentioned that. Jane [Krakowski] as well, who obviously is known probably more for her comedy, but she’s got Tonys, she’s a bonafide triple threat, she was amazing in this. I think everybody was just so jazzed to be able to do a musical at this time.
There are, from my estimation anyway, stretches of the show that are not telling jokes. As a viewer, I felt very comfortable, and I felt very okay with that. But I’m curious, especially when you have ringers like Bowen Yang and Julie Klausner in the writers’ room, what the push and pull between “comedy” and a “straight musical” is like.
PAUL: That’s an interesting question. I mean, what’s great about Julie and Bowen, and we also have Allison Silverman and Kate Gersten in the room, everybody freaking loved musical theater. I mean, everybody loved it so much. And every day, I’d show four or five clips from classic musicals that would get us started. I never wanted it, and I don’t think any of us wanted it to feel jokey. I’m not good at writing that type of joke, even though some of them are much better at it than I am. But we wanted the humor to come out very organically. It’s not rapid-fire, it’s notUnbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, which I love, or30 Rock. It couldn’t have that rhythm to it, because that would destroy it, I think. And it’s part of the earnestness of the whole piece. I mean, this show wears its heart on its sleeve in a big way, and so you have to have confidence in that. Sometimes joking is demonstrating a lack of confidence in it; we make jokes in real life because we’re feeling insecure about the sincerity of a moment. I didn’t want to do that to the show.
One thing I really find interesting, that I don’t see a lot in contemporary musicals, is that you are the showrunner and the songwriter. Process-wise, what are some of the key differences and even similarities switching between screen and songwriting?
PAUL: That was always really important to me, that I get to write the songs. It was kind of my first love, and I set that aside and became a screenwriter, and this is a chance to bring it back. But coming from the point of view of one of the writers writing the songs, I really wanted to make sure the songs were moving the story forward and moving the characters forward. That’s always the goal, but I was doing it in less of a vacuum, maybe, because I was hyper-aware of, “We’ve gotthisamount of time in this episode and we can’t stop things for a song. The songs need to always be accomplishing something, character growth, or story movements.” It is interesting about wearing those hats, it’s almost like I always had multiple hats on. It was always fun presenting a new song to the room. It was great having Julie there, and Julie can really sing, and so I would sing the male parts and she would sing that female parts. I would quickly teach something to her, and she would sing it. I also had Kate Gersten sing a song or two. These were all people who did theater growing up. We were living our high school musical theater dreams, reliving them in the writers' room.
I like to get a little"in the weeds"with music theory with songwriters, whenever I talk to them. I’m curious, what is a musical moment, be it a progression, a melody reprise, an orchestration, that you’re especially proud of constructing?
PAUL: I will say that the original “Schmigadoon!” song that welcomes everybody to the town was completely different from where I ended up. I ended up rewriting it, because the first one was what I would call “lazy musical theater,” which is just sort of the bouncy, [uncommitted singing] “Welcome to our town, and we’re blah, blah, blah.” It was great in the pitch, but when we were in the writers' room, I realized I need to be more rigorous, I need to be harder on myself with this, and I need to be more specific. It was really listening to those scores, and actually playing them on the piano, and realizing, “Okay, here’s actually what Richard Rodgers was doing with a lot of these.” Going from the progression of, if you’re in A, going to that G, or to the E chord. That was done a lot, or the G to the D to the E. There was a couple of progressions in there that I sort of translated [from Rodgers' work]. I think in that song, “He’s a Queer One, That Man of Mine,” it’s in C, but you go from the Ab7 to the D7 —
PAUL: — then you go the D7 back to the Ab at the end, which was very much a Rodgers thing, but I was really excited to identify that and find out ways to use that. Then one thing I’ll share as maybe my proudest moment as a lyricist was in a song for Jane, which was very Cole Porter, figuring out “taxi’s socks led to sexy talks.” I was so freaking proud of that, and that’s me writing a zillion things down on my yellow notepad [pulls out a yellow notepad full of notes]. Because I said, “I have to have something like [Porter],” because he was so brilliant at that. I don’t think that’s exactly at Porter level, but it’s in the zone, at least. That was an exciting moment for me.
Talking about homages and parodies, what is the continuum between referencing something and also making sure it has your own voice or authority to it? How do you know when you’ve gone too far in one direction or the other?
PAUL: What I found from experience is that you may’t help but put your own stamp on it. It just happens naturally. I did see something where Alan Menken was talking about [how] he always has another song in mind when he’s doing those pastiche numbers. But because it flows through him and is translated by him, most people can’t even recognize [what he’s referencing]. This was a case where I wanted people to recognize a little more, and there’s some songs that are much more obvious than others, as you can imagine. My favorite ones are the ones that are suggestive, but you really have to sort of listen. It has more of the “feel” of something. “Brotherhood of Man” and “Sit Down, You’re Rockin' the Boat” are two of my absolute favorite musical theater songs. Since I was a kid I loved those, and I knew I wanted to have something like that. So “Cross That Bridge,” to me, is more “suggestive” of those. I guess when you have the counterpoints, the woman singing, it’s very “Brotherhood of Man” there. But I think it all generally, at some point, hopefully, is being translated by what your own personal experience and tools of the trade are. It turns it into something.
From a personal experience standpoint, what did Cecily Strong, not just as an actor but as a producer, bring to the project that wasn’t there before?
PAUL: I met with her really early on, and that was Lorne’s doing. Boy, we just hit it off. We both love musical theater so much. She referenced several shows that I was like, “Hmm, I’m not familiar, I’m going to have to look that up.” There are two things that she brought, which is a true love of musical theater. But then also she has a very modern, funny viewpoint, which is this love of musical theater, but also an awareness that it’s less than perfect. She brought that contemporary viewpoint to the character of Melissa, and definitely influenced us as we were writing for her; a lot of that originated from her. And then, she was the one who handpicked Julie for the writers' room. Julie also has that ability and brought that voice to the show.
That kind of satirical, “rewriting how we wish it could be” kind of voice.
PAUL: And it was very conscious by me, because I know I can be too sweet sometimes. So it’s like, “Julie will be a great addition to the writers' room to maybe counter that.” But she is actually, at her core, very soft and emotional, and loves musicals wholeheartedly.
Jumping to the end a little bit, speaking generally, avoiding spoilers: When I watched the final moments, I was like, “I don’t know how it can happen, but I know I need a Season 2.” I’m curious if you have thought, constructed, conceived of this as a multiple season show.
PAUL: Yeah, I have a pretty clear idea of where I want to take this show, but who knows if I’ll get that opportunity? But I hope so, and we all hope so. I mean, Cecily, Keegan, all the cast, everybody’s hoping for more, so we’ll see. I wanted [Season 1] to feel of a piece, which hopefully it does. But also, you can see there’s a little room left for, “Oh, this could continue, we could explore more of this world.” Because as you know, the world transitions, the town changes, and we’re transitioning a bit, so… That’s all I’ll say at this moment. [laughter]
Something unrelated toSchmigadoon!, just because I was curious: I saw that you are in the special thanks ofBorat 2. I would love to know the story behind that.
PAUL: So it turns out Sacha [Baron Cohen] is a hugeDespicable Mefan, he lovesDespicable Me.
That rules.
PAUL: He reached out when they were working on the movie, and they had started doing quite a bit of it, but he reached out with help with the father-daughter story as part of that. I sort of worked with him on all those scenes, and mapping out those scenes, and kind of writing them, and figuring out how that relationship was going to progress. Because it’s similar toDespicable Mein a way, right? It’s a guy that doesn’t want three girls, or [in the case ofBorat 2] one girl, and then grows to love them. Because of that, he sort of brought me in, which was crazy because, as you’re able to see from what I’ve done in my career, I’m not “push the envelope guy,” that’s not my world. But I loved the first [Borat]. I love the second one too, I thought he did a great job. So that was me. I was a father-daughter consultant. [laughter]
Schmigadoon!is available to stream on Apple TV+ starting July 10, 2025.
KEEP READING:Writers Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio Talk DESPICABLE ME 2, Giving the Minions a Bigger Part, and Adding Romance
