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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Now the second of Geek Musical Week on Prodigeek, I continue my interview with Buffy creator Joss Whedon about his upcoming internet, musical, superhero series, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, appearing next week beginning on July 15th on their official site. Read Part 1 of our Joss Whedon interview here.

Prodigeek - How did you kind of come to this idea of an internet musical about a superhero?

Whedon - I had come up with the concept and the title originally as an audio podcast. I wanted to write a song. I was tired of not writing songs and I wanted a structure to write from. And I though this guy would have a blog and sing about what’s going on with him. It would be a fun thing to do. Then, during the strike, when everyone was looking to create internet content, I thought of it as a limited series. Then when I decided to do it myself, I thought of it as an even more limited series. It played itself out pretty simply. I brought writers in; we knew from the start exactly what we wanted to do. I had written the songs for it a while ago. The first song was called “My Freeze Ray.” I played that for the other writers. We got sort of an idea of sound, and then we started breaking a story. We broke it into three acts, a mini-series event, and then hopefully to make it a downloadable commodity. In addition to creating something out of love of musicals and love of the fans, I also wanted to create something where we could make money doing our own thing, outside the system. I also want to, in a perfect dream world, pay my crew.

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To kick off Geek Musical Week, Prodigeek speaks to Joss Whedon about his upcoming internet, musical, superhero series, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog coming to a website near you next week. The creator of Buffy and the Buffy musical episode, “Once More, With Feeling,” Whedon already has a classic Geek Musical under his belt as he tackles the world of new media and internet distribution, something you surely need superpowers to tame.  Check out part 2 of our Whedon interview here.

Prodigeek - Tell me about Dr. Horrible.

Joss Whedon - Well, I can tell you it’s the story of Dr. Horrible, a low-rent super villain trying to make his way in the world, being evil, defeat his nemesis, Captain Hammer, who beats him up on a weekly basis, and work up the courage to talk to the prettiest girl walking around. It basically follows his travails. It’s about 40 minutes, in three acts, and was designed to be just your typical internet, superhero musical.

Prodigeek - What defines the typical internet, superhero musical?

Whedon - I don’t know, I’ve never seen one. It’s supposed to define the typical superhero musical, by being the first one. We’re getting it out before Spider-Man on Broadway. By the way, they are doing Spider-Man on Broadway, you know that, right?

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Comic book superstar Jim Lee took time out of his busy day to give Prodigeek the details of his many projects from his art on All-Star Batman and Wildcats to running Wildstorm to his work on the upcoming DC MMO video game. Check out part one of Jim Lee’s thrilling interview. Now here’s part two.

Prodigeek - How’s the DC MMORPG going?

Jim Lee - It’s going real well. Stuff looks better and better each passing week. I think I’m very happy with the way it’s turning out. It’s a game I want to play. I think that’s kind of why they hired me to come aboard.

Prodigeek - What’s your title?

Jim Lee - Executive creative director. I’m involved in a lot of aspects of the game, most aspects of the game. Things that I know about, like art obviously, but you know even game play and stuff like that. I just give my feedback and sit in on discussions and be the eyes and ears for DC to make sure that [Sony Online] delivers a great game and so far they have been delivering, I mean it’s been a real educational experience to. Have to say I mean it’s one thing to be a gamer playing, it’s another to see and understand how it came together. A really staggering amount of work [is needed] to produce a video game, much less an MMO which is so much more.

Prodigeek - How have you seen the DC MMO change over your time working on the game?

Jim Lee - Oh a lot, you should have seen the early generation models and buildings. It’s not just, Sony’s development or my development in the process that’s are growing, but the whole team. All the people that are working on the game care. All the guys have learned and improved the game by leaps and bounds. The stuff their knocking out now in terms of environment and figures and designs are light years ahead of what we were doing a year ago. All aspects of the game are steadily improved upon. [Sony says] This is a first model of this character. We’re going to rebuild it a couple of times. You have to kind of go through this process to get to the final good stuff. We’ll get closer and closer to the final good stuff so it’s exciting. Continue reading…

Comic book superstar Jim Lee took time out of his busy day to give Prodigeek the details of his many projects from his art on All-Star Batman and Wildcats to running Wildstorm to his work on the upcoming DC MMO video game. Come back tomorrow for the second part of Lee’s first Prodigeek interview. Here’s part one.

Click here for part two.

Prodigeek - How’s All-Star Batman and Robin going?

Jim Lee - It’s going really well. I’m working on All-Star Batman and Robin #9, finishing that up. Frank’s been writing great scripts. It’ll make for a great trade. It’s a big story. Much bigger than either of us originally envisioned it to be. But the great thing is taking the time to explore the world that he’s created. We’re doing a lot of cool stuff with a lot of characters, not just Batman. Not just Robin and Gotham. There’s Black Canary and the Joker, Green Lantern, Justice League. It’s a world bigger than just Batman.

Prodigeek - What attracted you to working on All-Star Batman, especially after your run on the regular Batman title?

Jim Lee - Oh it was definitely the chance to work with Frank Miller. He’s the guy that got me into comics. I was a fan through his work. I’ve always admired everything he’s done, not just the early era of old Batman stuff, but the stuff he did for Dark Horse, Sin City, 300. I think he’s one of the all-time great talents and you just cannot pass up opportunities like that.

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