Broadway Bro Down

When Randy returns home and learns that Sharon gave Shelly two tickets to see Wicked with Larry, Randy is horrified, and races to Denver with Sharon, revealing to her the truth about Broadway shows, much to her own horror. Initially thrown out of the theater for being disruptive, Randy dons a Spider-Man costume and swings through the auditorium, knocking out several patrons and production personnel, before breaking open a water main, forcing the play into an intermission and fatally drowning now-preserverless Larry, much to Shelly's grief. Randy denies his involvement in Larry's death, claiming that Spider-Man killed Larry. Later, Randy apologizes to Sharon for taking her to the theater to get oral sex in return, though she expresses difficulty in faulting him for doing what all other men also do, pointing out that musicals must have value if they brought them closer together. When Sharon asks which show is coming to Denver next, an advertisement for The Book of Mormon plays, with the narrator quickly muttering, "You'll get a blowjob!"

Production

Trey Parker and Matt Stone had just finished working with composer Robert Lopez in the Broadway musical The Book of Mormon before this season of South Park commenced. During the collaboration, the duo offered Lopez a chance to come to their studio to create an episode with them and workshop ideas. He arrived on a Thursday at Halloween-time, so the notion of a generic Halloween-themed episode was tossed around. Broadway and musicals were never explicitly on the table until the idea of "trying to make Broadway cool for dudes" came up. They were anxious about the number of songs - albeit short ones - that they had to write. They kept on putting this off as they needed time to hash out the story. They ended up frantically writing songs on the following Tuesday. Trey and Matt thoroughly enjoyed the one-off experience and expressed an interest in collaborating with Lopez again, not necessarily in the context of a musical episode.^[1]

Reception

Ramsey Isler of IGN gave the episode a 7.5 out of 10, writing, "When it comes down to it, it's the one-liners and the strength of the A-plot that make this episode work. Had it not been for the annoying repetition and the near-useless B-plot, this would have been one of my favorites of the season so far. But the episode accomplishes the neat trick of poking fun at a topic while still expressing love for it, and that makes up for a lot".^[2] Ryan McGee of The A.V. Club graded the episode an A, stating, "The show has long featured the musical stylings of its co-creators, but rarely has that skill been deployed as effectively as tonight’s masterful half-hour ... It managed to be incredibly sweet while being ridiculously filthy. It mocked what it loved while never losing sight of that love in the process. In short, it was pure South Park."^[3] Eric Hochberger of TV Fanatic rated the episode 3/5 stars, commenting "There were definitely some fun theater references, including the most appropriate costume Randy could have grabbed to sabotage a play, Spider-Man, but was the one-note joke of the blow job really enough to sustain the full half hour of laughs? For me, not so much", and adding that the B plot "seemed to tie-in nicely with the Broadway adventure at the end, but it still felt undeveloped".^[4] Aly Semigram of Entertainment Weekly said "The episode could have just been a one-off about Broadway and worked just fine, but by bringing Spider-Man — a show that’s been out of the spotlight for a while now — into the mix, it felt somewhat outdated."^[5]

References

External links

• "Broadway Bro Down" Full episode at South Park Studios
• "Broadway Bro Down" at
  IMDb