Rickman - Gleeful!: a totally unofficial guide to the hit tv series glee

A Villard Books Trade Paperback Original

Copyright 2010 by Amy Rickman

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Villard Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

V ILLARD and V C IRCLED Design are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Originally published in slightly different form in the United Kingdom by John Blake Publishing Ltd.

eISBN: 978-0-345-52520-8

www.villard.com

v3.1

For Mum and Dad, who never stop believing.

W hen a show has the ability to coin a brand-new word exclusively to describe its fans, there can be no doubt about its success. And if you happen to be a certified Gleek, then Glees appeal will be of no mystery whatsoever to you! With its strong cast, hilariously witty dialogue, a high-school setting ripe with drama andof coursea fantastic songbook packed to the brim with Broadway tunes and hits from every genre and decade, Glee is a universal crowd-pleaser. But it wasnt always so cut and dried: for every Glee, theres a musical show like Cop Rock or Britannia High that never manages to get off the ground. So what sets Glee apart from the rest?

It helps that all Glee cast members knew something special was happening on the set. From the beginning, they realized as they were filming that they were creating something truly magical. Theres a real sense of excitement when you hear the actors talk about their work, and its not just because its their first jobalthough for most of them it is their first real television gig. Its because their characters speak to them in a way that hasnt been done before. Ryan Murphy, Ian Brennan, and Brad Falchuk have captured the voice of a generation, with all its wit and quirk and self-esteem issues. Weve entered an era where its way more cool to be square, where geek really is the new chic, and where a weekend at San Francisco Comic-Con gets more respect than a day out shopping in Beverly Hills.

Finally, TV scriptwriters and producers are realizing that teens are smart and they want television writing that respects them. The major TV networks are also becoming more aware that there are other ways to interact with this savvy audience than just through the screen. Social networks, Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, podcasts, YouTube videos, Hulu, Wikipedia, iTunes, flash mobsthey all add up to transform the marketing industry. No wonder Glee is doing so well; the marketing teams have been working in overdrive to innovate their advertising campaigns. No one has been content to use the regular methods when it comes to Glee. One pilot wasnt enoughthere were three. The Glee-cast singles, released simultaneously with the airing of the shows, hit the charts internationally. Fans from every corner of the globe uploaded videos of themselves singing their own covers of Dont Stop Believin and thats when the producers knew they had struck a gold mine with Glee.

It seems the musical genre is back and thriving, hitting the big and small screens in a huge way, with Mamma Mia!, Nine, and, of course, High School Musical, drawing in massive audiences. Musicals demand so much of the actors who star in them. Although Ryan Murphy claims to have been inspired by the reality TV talent show American Idol, Glee is the very antithesis of the assembly line of singers churned out by the Idol and X Factorstyle hit-making factories. A large proportion of the Glee cast have come straight from Broadway or, if they were newly discovered, have all the talent to perform in front of a live audience.

Gleeful! A Totally Unofficial Guide to the Hit TV Series Glee charts the shows history, from a spark in Ian Brennans mind through to Ryan Murphys slickly conceived pilot episode. You can also read all about the cast members and how they became part of this musical television phenomenon.

The curtains up

William McKinley High Faculty
Principal FigginsIqbal Theba
Will SchuesterMatthew Morrison
Emma PillsburyJayma Mays
Ken TanakaPatrick Gallagher
Sandy RyersonStephen Tobolowsky
Sue SylvesterJane Lynch

New Directions
Rachel BerryLea Michele
Finn HudsonCory Monteith
Kurt HummelChris Colfer
Artie AbramsKevin McHale
Mercedes JonesAmber Riley
Tina Cohen-ChangJenna Ushkowitz
Quinn FabrayDianna Agron
Noah Puck PuckermanMark Salling
Mike ChangHarry Shum, Jr.
Matt RutherfordDijon Talton
Santana LopezNaya Rivera
BrittanyHeather Morris

Other Lima, Ohio, Residents
Terri SchuesterJessalyn Gilsig
Jacob Ben IsraelJosh Sussman

W hen the pilot episode for Glee aired on May 29, 2009, in the prime ratings spot following American Idol, Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk, and Ian Brennan anxiously awaited the publics reaction. The three creators of the show simply didnt know what to expect. So would America take to their darkly comedic vision of an all-singing, all-dancing band of social misfits? Would they see it for the hilarious, original show it was, or take it for a High School Musical rip-off? And most important of all, would they want to see more?

At first, Murphy wasnt sure about the post-Idol time slot. He could see the merit in putting the two music shows together as much of the audience was bound to cross over. But Glee wasnt officially planned to premire until September 2009three months after American Idol. He spoke with Terry Gross on National Public Radio about hearing the news for the first time from the executives at Fox. And I said: Well, I dont know. That seems a little scary to me because, you know, then the show will be off the air for three months. It doesnt make sense to me.

Luckily, Murphy got over his reservations and the planned pilot went ahead. It had to be edited down to fit the forty-seven-minute window after Idol, but as far as the taster that the audience had? They loved it. Unequivocally. Glee was an instant hit, and audiences hadnt even seen a full episode yet.

But Murphy and Falchuk were no strangers to television success. Murphy was already an experienced television producer. Born in 1966 in Indianapolis, Indiana, he was the precocious child of a housewife mother and semipro hockey-player dad. He came out to his parents when he was fifteen years old, but his dad had already been bemused by some of his sons earliest quirkslike asking for a subscription to Vogue magazine when he was five years old, not to mention his growing love of musical theater. My dad would look at me and go, What the hell? I dont know who you are! How did you come out of me? He would say things like that, Murphy recalled. But he was fully accepted by his parents and never experienced any of the taunting that many gay kids have to endure in high school. Instead he was popular and well liked. He sang in his church choiran experience that would inform him down the line with Gleeand performed in as many of his schools musical theater performances as possible.

After graduating from college, Murphy started his first job as a journalist, working as the entertainment reporter in Hollywood for the