16 films that we did not expect to be musicals

While there are plenty of songs in “Bob’s Burgers,” the long-running FOX cartoon, it is by no means a musical. That makes it a perfect example for this list. When “Bob’s Burgers” got a late-in-life movie adaptation (though it didn’t take as long as “The Simpsons Movie”), it turned out to be a full-on musical. That’s not what we expected, to be sure.

Yes, when a stage musical is adapted to the big screen, in one sense, it is not a surprise when it is a musical. However, this is a list with nuance. “Mean Girls” existed as a movie. A successful one! That film was not a musical in any capacity. Tina Fey’s film was then adapted to the stage as a musical, which was in and of itself surprising. Then, it was successful enough for them to basically remake the first “Mean Girls” as a musical, for all intents and purposes. We did not see that coming.

“Cats” turned out how we expected because we knew what “Cats” is. The musical is in and of itself absurd. T.S. Eliot wrote some goofy poetry about cats and it was turned into a musical with essentially no plot. On the stage, you can almost get away with it. You can’t, and “Cats” is trash as a musical, but then they moved it to the big screen and created an all-time cinematic fiasco.

Okay, so if we told you there was a movie musical that was made in Canada with an unexpected subject matter, you might guess hockey. Even so, a hockey musical! “Score” is full-on Canadian propaganda, but that’s alright. It focuses on a sheltered, homeschooled boy who becomes a star in junior hockey in a league that is exceedingly violent. Honestly? The least-believable thing in “Score” is not the breaking into song and dance. It’s that a 17-year-old who only just started playing competitive hockey is considered a potential first-overall pick before finishing a full season of juniors.

There is technically a “Hamilton” movie, but we aren’t counting what is just the filming of the stage show. Although, since we’re here, we’ll note that “Hamilton” always reminds us of the episode of “Saved by the Bell” where they do a rap version of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.” Lin-Manuel Miranda was beaten to the punch by “1776,” though. Adapted from a Broadway musical, “1776” is about the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It also features Thomas Jefferson as a character, but Hamilton is absent.

Few films give you the “I’m not entirely sure how to feel about this” vibe quite like “Bugsy Malone.” It’s a musical comedy about gangsters. That’s not unreasonable. However, all the gangsters are played by kids. Jodie Foster plays a gun moll in a movie that came out the same year as “Taxi Driver.” Guns are filled with whipped cream instead of bullets and when you are shot with them you are “splurged.” The guy who directed it also directed “Midnight Express.” We will never wrap our heads around “Bugsy Malone.”

Hey, we didn’t name the movie! Also, that is about as charming a title as you can concoct while still including the word “whorëhouse” in it. Burt Reynolds plays a sheriff happy to look the other way on a brothel in his jurisdiction, because the woman who runs it is his main squeeze. Plus, she’s played by Dolly Parton and are you going to shut down her business? The song choices for the film are fairly different from the stage show, as to work in some of Parton’s own songs. That includes a new version of one of her songs, some tune called “I Will Always Love You.”

There’s an animated musical about a family of mice. What do you think the plot is? Would you come up with it being about a family of Jewish mice from Russia emigrating to the United States? Well, that’s what it is! “An American Tail” is a Don Bluth movie featuring the Mousekewitz family, including Fievel, who gets lost and has to work to be reunited with his parents. Then, in the sequel, he goes west.

In 1960, Roger Corman directed “Little Shop of Horrors.” It’s not a musical. Dıck Miller and a young Jack Nicholson are in it, which is very Corman. The plot focuses on a downtrodden flower shop employee who gains fame (and the attention of his crush) thanks to a mysterious plant that feeds on blood…and it needs a lot of blood. Now, take that, add some camp humor, cast Rick Moranis and Steve Martin among others, and have Ellen Greene absolutely obliterate with the song “Suddenly Seymour,” for our money the best musical number ever committed to film. By the way, the duo behind the music in “Little Shop of Horrors,” Alan Menken and Howard Ashman, also crafted much of the music in “The Little Mermaid,” “Beauty and the Beast,” and “Aladdin.”

From first-hand experience, we can attest to sitting down to watch “Earth Girls Are Easy” and genuinely have no clue it was a musical. Now THAT is unexpected. Julie Brown (the redhead, not wubba, wubba, wubba “Downtown” Julie Brown) co-wrote the film and has a role in it, and it does fit into her comedic sensibilities. Geena Davis plays a Valley Girl who boots her two-timing fiancée from her home, meets three furry aliens, makes them over until they look like Jeff Goldblum, Damon Wayans, and Jim Carrey, and then goes on some adventures. It’s silly but intentional and a lot of fun.

“Newsies” is a cult film, but that’s less about quality and more about the semi-absurdity of it all. After all, it’s a musical about the newsboys strike of 1899 in New York City. Even with a young-ish Christian Bale in the lead role, “Newsies” is a curio at best, a movie that got several Razzie nominations. However, it was adapted to the stage, where it worked better. “Newsies” the Broadway musical got eight Tony nominations.

You may have never heard of Alfred Packer, but the “Colorado Cannibal” was probably more in the firmament if you were from the Centennial State. Like, say, Trey Parker. While still a student at the University of Colorado, Parker wrote, directed, and starred as Packer in “Cannibal! The Musical” a very-low-budget bit of dark comedy. It was not notable at all at the time, but there’s a good chance you’ve heard of Parker, as he and Matt Stone (who has a role in this movie) co-created “South Park.”

Music and the Muppets go hand-in-hand. Thus, the idea of a Muppets musical is not at all unexpected. It’s the choice for this musical that surprised us. “A Muppet Christmas Carol” kind of tracks. Maybe it’s because it makes us think of Christmas carols, or the fact music and Christmas are intertwined. However, adapting the novel “Treasure Island” into a musical was more of a zag we did not expect.

We mentioned Christmas and music going together. What about Hanukkah? Adam Sandler already had “The Chanukah Song” in his quiver, and the title of “Eight Crazy Nights” comes from his novelty hit. This is an animated Hanukkah musical that is very Sandler, in that it is low-effort and even lower-brow. Sometimes, that works, but “Eight Crazy Nights” is not particularly funny. It is an animated Hanukkah musical, though, and that is something.

There’s a barber who is out for revenge and so he kills people with his straight razor and then his neighbor and sorta lover hides his crimes by baking the dead bodies into pies. That is a wild swing of a premise in and of itself. Then, you make it a musical. “Sweeney Todd” Stephen Sondheim did not invent the character of Sweeney Todd. The demon barber was a staple of “penny dreadfuls” during the Victorian era. Sondheim spruced his story up, though, and then Tim Burton and Johnny Depp brought him to the big screen.

Everything about “Joker” was exhausting. The film itself, the people who loved it, the people who hated it, the hot takes, the think pieces, and also the fact it’s the movie that finally won Joaquin Phoenix an Oscar. “Joker” was a huge success, though, so a sequel made sense. Then, we found out it was a musical and that Lady Gaga was going to play Harley Quinn. Frankly, that news made us too exhausted to be exhausted. But, hey, now there’s a Joker musical in the world.