Evil
League of Evil an Impressive Array of Musical Villainy
The main plot of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along
Blog—the online musical webseries created by Joss Whedon
and members of his family—centers on the title character’s
attempts to join the Evil League of Evil, a collection of super villains
led by the “Thoroughbred of Sin,” Bad Horse. Although armed
with a “letter of condemnation from the deputy mayor” and
plans to build both freeze and death rays, Dr. Horrible’s efforts
are continually thwarted by Captain Hammer throughout the narrative
until it reaches a tragic climax. In the final scene, Dr. Horrible finally
achieves his goal and is allowed entry into the allusive organization.
The brief
meeting at the end—when Dr. Horrible is lead into a conference
room where his new cohorts await—intrigued fans of the musical
and speculation immediately began about the identities of the costume-wearing
super villains who make up the Evil League of Evil. The end-credits
listed their names as well as the actors who portrayed them, which included
television writers who have worked with Whedon in the past. Fortunately
the Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog DVD contains a brief
interview with the group, hidden as an Easter Egg, which provides details
about their evil personas. The members include:
--Tie-Die,
who “got sick of all the happy people” when she mixed patchouli
and ylang-ylang oils at the Saturday Markets.
--Fake
Thomas Jefferson, who insists he is the real Thomas Jefferson and has
“the strength of five men, or three slaves, depending on your
unit of measurement.”
--Fury
Leika, who was “shat on by a radioactive dove” when she
was left at the altar during her wedding at Three Mile Island.
--Professor
Normal, who is “completely normal” but has plans to turn
himself into a cyborg.
--Dead
Bowie, who claims to be the actual David Bowie but was murdered in 1980,
“so everything after ’80 was this other guy.”
During the summer of 2008, the official Evil
League of Evil
website posted a call for submissions for new members into the organization.
“The rumblings you’ve been hearing in the criminal underground
since July are true,” the site declared at the time. “At
long last, we are seeking new applicants to the League.” Fans
of the webseries were encouraged to film their own three-minute videos
detailing why they should be accepted into the Evil League of Evil and
the best were subsequently included on the DVD release of Dr. Horrible’s
Sing-Along Blog.
The ten
videos that were successful in their endeavor have a comic flair about
them, and while not all have musical elements, the majority of them
do. “Mister Terrible” (Mark Blasco), for example, features
one long song throughout its duration, even when he is interrupted by
a phone call from his mother. “Yes I’m coming to dinner
on Thursday,” Mister Terrible sings before reaching the crescendo:
“It’s pork-chop night, my favorite night of the week!”
“The
Reverend,” performed by Dr. Vincent Ervig-Lindquest, is also sung
in its entirety but features a Sesame Street-type psychotic puppet as
the main antagonist. Another entry, “Duchess of Defeet”
(Nir Idan), is likewise non-human, but instead a talking chair leg that
“defeats feet” by having people accidentally bang their
toes against it. Special effects are also present in “Calamitous
Orphan” (Efehan Elbi), who can control the weather, albeit with
the side effect of having his hair spontaneously catch on fire.
“Princess
Zombie” (Brynna Campbell) and “L’Enfant Terrible”
(Julie Caccavo) both feature amusing introductions that could fit in
nicely with a stand-up comedy routine before launching into songs that
further their applications into the Evil League of Evil. Princess Zombie,
for instance, talks about how “it’s so much easier to control
people who aren’t, you know, alive,” before breaking into
an entertaining pop-rock song about zombies, while the infant L’Enfant
Terrible belts out “I’m Smarter Than You” with both
sass and vigor.
“Movie
Monkey” (Nicolas Kral), meanwhile, is an animated clay monkey
obsessed with Dr. Horrible actress Felicia Day, and “Lord
Stabbington” (Oscar Sharp and Stephen Follows) is the reluctant
heir in a long line of British members of the Evil League of Evil.
Then there’s
“Miss Broadway Dork” (Alexandra Heinen) who believes that
show tunes can actually be used for evil. “Have you ever gone
out in the middle of a crowded street and just started singing at the
top of your lungs?” she asks. “People stop. People stare.
People look at you like you are horrible and done the worst thing in
the world.” She goes on to explain that the distraction can be
used to perform acts of evil doings.
Arguably
the most popular of all the Evil League of Evil applicants is Tur-Mohel
(Jeremy Dubin and Ryan Lewis) who is a practicing mohel, a Jewish rabbi
who performs circumcisions. His proposed evil plans include “a
scheme to remove the foreskin from the statue of David and hold it for
ransom” as well as blowing off the tip of the Washington Monument.
Tur-Mohel has taken his acceptance into the Evil League of Evil further
than the other applicants by creating his own website
which features a “one-year-later” performance review video.
“We had our best summer yet at ‘Tur-Mohel’s Evil Overnight
Camp for Jew-venile Delinquents,’” the criminal mastermind
declares. “Enrollment was up, which is pretty good considering
most parents are looking for a non-evil Jewish camp experience for their
child.”
While the
success of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog is easy to
quantify given its rankings on iTunes, where it is available for purchase,
and its release on DVD (not only online but also at brick-and-mortar
establishments like Best Buy), its cultural impact is equally impressive.
Almost immediately after its initial release, calls for a sequel sprang
up not just from fans but by media giants like The Hollywood Reporter
and Entertainment Weekly as well. During the 2009 Emmy
Awards, which were hosted by Neil Patrick Harris—the actor who
portrays the title character—a short video involving the main
cast “interrupted” the proceeding. “I have hacked
into your broadcast to tell you that television is dead,” Dr.
Horrible declares. “The future of home entertainment is the Internet.”
Even the
moniker “Evil League of Evil” has entered the cultural vernacular,
as evidenced by a January 2010 article on TV Squad regarding
the Jay Leno/Conan O’Brien Tonight Show debacle that
took place during that month. In regards to the NBC executives responsible
for the mess, TV
Squad
wrote, “Jeff Zucker and company are the Evil League of Evil of
all of television who seek to express their disdain for all of humanity
through their thoughts, words and deeds—minus the tight fitting
spandex uniforms.”
The Dr.
Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog DVD lists almost six-hundred video
applications that were submitted by fans from around the world for the
Evil League of Evil contest, a remarkable achievement. Given the success
of the musical webseries, it is apparent that—despite the best
efforts of Captain Hammer—both Dr. Horrible and the League are
here to stay.
