While I generally keep an eye out for new Andrew Rannells projects on the horizon, this one snuck up on me. When I was checking his IMDb for the next piece in his filmography, I discovered that his turn as a proud but snazzy mummy on Vampirina wasn’t a one-off. He’s actually appeared on the show a couple times since then, the first being this season 2 episode.
In “Face the Music,” Vampirina and her friends are practicing to perform at the school talent show as their band the Ghoul Girls. When Vampirina worries that she won’t be able to learn her difficult solo, a ghost friend of the family enchants her spookelele (so many puns on this show) to give her a helping hand that doesn’t exactly turn out the way he intended. In “Fright at the Museum,” Vampirina and her friends need help getting ready for their school presentation on dinosaurs, so they decide to have a sleepover at the museum with their old friend King Pepi. When a another well-intended bit of magic goes awry, the girls and the mummy have to pull together to keep a rampaging fossil from destroying the museum.
I won’t say much about the first story, just that I appreciate any kids’ entertainment that features girls in rock bands and that the solution is obviously about the power of friendship/working together instead of trying to go it alone or resort to magical shortcuts. It’s cute. As I said when I reviewed Rannells’s first Vampirina episode, kid me probably would’ve been all over this show.
“Fright at the Museum” is fun. It features action, dinosaur facts, more puns, and a slumber party at a museum hosted by a pizza-serving mummy – which, isn’t that basically the dream in the primary-school years? Like the first story, this one also emphasizes the importance of friendship/teamwork. Obvious, sure, but it’s innocuous enough, and I’m all for anything that promotes kids working together and supporting each other.
Andrew Rannells remains a mild delight as King Pepi. I enjoy his vocal performance, which is regal, very gung-ho, and just slightly full of himself. He gets to lead another song in this one – while not as cool as the fun Elvis-inspired number from his first episode, this one has plenty of dinosaur rhymes, so make of that what you will.
Even though it’s mostly just a nice bit of fluff, I enjoyed stumbling upon new Rannells content I hadn’t been aware of. The past year has served up a pretty-impressive level of projects from him, including two theatrical adaptations, new seasons of Big Mouth and Black Monday, and a brutal animated superhero drama, not to mention a few appearances that I can’t access at the moment because I don’t need anymore new streaming services right now. :shakes fist as Apple TV and Peacock: Still, it was nice to browse IMDb to see if anything was coming up and discover there was something that was already out!
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Excellent (spoilery) article on Wenwu and the “Asian Dad” as a Marvel supervillain. I love the observations made/parallels drawn here, and there’s of course plenty of high praise for Tony Leung Chiu-wai’s performance.
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