Jon and Al Kaplan continue telling Prodigeek about their unique musical talents.  Click here to read part 1 of the interview with creators of Silence: The Musical and 24 Season 2 Musical.

Prodigeek: What can you tell me about the 24 Season 2 Musical? How did that come together?

Kaplans: Our mother kept bothering us to follow up Silence with this “the musical” or that “the musical” and we just couldn’t stand it anymore so we decided to adapt our favorite season of 24. We also liked the idea of doing a musical that was so weirdly specific and even more impossible to stage than Silence was.

Prodigeek: Haha, very true I’m sure

Kaplans: So we wouldn’t have to worry about other people taking it and staging it

Prodigeek: What musicals did your mother suggest?

Kaplans: Our mom would suggest literally anything she saw on cable. She even suggested a musical about her new husband. Which actually would have been funny but only to us.

Prodigeek: I think the 24 musical is funny, even though I prefer season 4 mostly due to my hatred of Kim Bauer and the killer cougar.

Kaplans: That Kim story is the reason we had to do season 2. And Kevin Dillon. As straight seasons, 4 and 5 were our favorite. 2 had more to offer musically.

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There are many things that go into making a brilliant musical, and thankfully Jon and Al Kaplan ignore all of these. These brothers have written a website full of hilarious musical spoofs, from Silence: The Musical based on Silence of the Lambs to the never-demanded 24 Season 2: The Musical.  Silence: The Musical premiered at the New York City Fringe Festival and is currently working its way onto Off-Broadway.  Jon and Al spoke with me about their unique musical repertoire. Click here for part 2 of the interview.

Prodigeek: What made you think Silence of the Lambs needed to be a musical?

Kaplans: We’ve been Buffalo Bill fans our whole lives. We would quote his lines in school. We thought it would be funny to hear Buffalo Bill sing. That was the original impetus and it grew from there. We saw that there was a song called “Would You” in Singin’ in the Rain and “Would You?” is one of our favorite Bill lines.

Prodigeek: What brought you two together to work on it?

Kaplans: We’re brothers, and we’ve worked on other stuff together. Most people think we are the same person anyway, even though one of us is bald. We’ve worked together on stuff since we were kids making home videos (including an epic version of Rambo that has been finally rendered obsolete by Son of Rambow) and we started writing music together during college.

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The beginning to 24 started out great.  We got introduced to bad ass Jack Bauer, terrorist killer extraordinaire.  We watched the amazing real-time crisis-on American-soil unfold with twists and turns galore.  Then everything came together.  Jack saved the day and won our hearts.  He was reunited with his beautiful wife and hot but completely idiotic daughter.  But then the final twist.  Jack’s former flame and terrorist-fighting ally Nina was apparently not all that.  Instead, she was a terrorist herself who, at the end of season one got caught during her last minute escape by Jack’s wife.  After the heart pounding excitement of the past 24 hours, the season ends with Jack holding the body of his dead wife and television would never be the same.

Just in time for primary season, I went over the greatest presidents no one ever voted for (well, not all).  These seven public servants are not necessarily good presidents; they have been great at being bad, but they are the most memorable and influential figures of their office.  They got stuff done, unlike most real world politicians (and none of them are good at all).  So here are the seven greatest presidents who get results (and just so happened to never exist).

7. President Skroob

The dashing president of planet Spaceball President Skroob finds out his planet is running out of oxygen.  While carefully orchestrating a PR campaign to keep the news hush-hush, he sends his flagship on a mission that will save his planet.  That mission is to kidnap the Princess Vespa and hold her for random to be paid in her planet’s air.  Brilliant plan, though maybe not presidential at first glance.  Then you realize all Skroob is trying to do is save himself, I mean his people.  Yeah, he’s kind of an idiot and he gets his head flipped around in a teleporter, but it’s Mel Brooks and who doesn’t want him as president.  I rest my case.

6. President Head of Richard Nixon

People in the future have the same crappy memories we do.  Nixon’s head, kept alive in a jar of futuristic liquid, becomes president of the United States of Earth on the series Futurama.  He first gains mobility by taking control of various robot bodies, including the crude, lude dude Bender.  Nixon’s head pushes Earth into an insanely aggressive interstellar policy, starting many wars and getting invaded even more.  Yes, this is a man’s head with conviction and determination to get stuff, no matter how pointless, done.

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