Review: A Fairly Odd Musical! Is Fairly Delightful — for Gen Z-ers Anyway

Ever wanted to spend an evening chatting with your favorite cartoon characters from the early-to-mid 2000s as they sing and dance? Your very specific wish is now fulfilled by Wanda and Cosmo at the Jerry Orbach Theater. With a clever interactive concept that delivers both highs and lows, A Fairly Odd Musical will delight Gen Z nostalgia-seekers and provide a moderately entertaining evening for everyone else.

Timmy Turner (Callahan Gillispie) wants to impress popular girl Trixie (Melia Jost, stepping in at the performance I saw). He uses his fairy godparents (Tess Gilmore and Arthur Knox) to wish for the newest and greatest streaming service, Dimma+. But Timmy and his friends are dismayed to discover that every show on the streamer is an ill-advised, unwatchable reboot. Timmy goes on a quest inside his TV to cancel the reboots, get the girl, and save the future of children’s television. The audience participates in the adventure by voting on aspects of the performance, including what TV reboot Timmy goes to next.

Things get even more complicated when villains from two popular TV shows appear to take over the world, or at least the tri-state area. Clay Webb and Lucas Boniface give spot-on impressions of Mr. Crocker from The Fairly OddParents and Dr. Doofenshmirtz from Phineas and Ferb, respectively, and their banter is humorously infectious whether you are familiar with their characters or not. Webb particularly shined in the performance I saw, generating some of the funniest material of the night with an audience member who volunteered to be a part of the show, then repeatedly refused to play along. He so effectively and hilariously handled this challenge that it felt like part of the script.

With funny lyrics and boppy melodies by Hudson Keown, the music is also a strength. The cast has uniformly solid to strong voices, with Gillispie standing out from the pack. It’s clear she could overpower the small theater with her incredible voice, and I was impressed by her control in showing off her skills and range. Jost also got big laughs and helped carry the show with her performance.

When the musical veers too far from Timmy and the villains, however, it starts to spiral. The moments where the audience votes for the next pretend reboot they want to visit becomes a double-edged sword, or perhaps a double-headed cartoon character. The audience clearly enjoyed having the power to affect the storyline, but because we never return to the options that weren’t chosen, we’re missing a good chunk of the content. The “divorce” proceedings of Cat and Dog from Catdog made me chuckle, but Shaggy inexplicably becoming a cult leader/God (and apparently turning the other men on Scooby Do into dogs?) made me wonder if I was seeing the creative team’s best work. Others seemed to agree, based on an audience member calling out for Danny Phantom, a show that lost the vote, during a scene change.

Additionally, book writer Brayden Martino makes some of the material so specific, without giving much of a primer, that it risks losing the audience. My millennial companion and I (both with experience in the kid’s TV industry) couldn’t identify some of the references and minor characters from the largely Gen Z shows. Who knew that Mr. Crocker’s first name actually IS Denzel? Not this viewer, and I’ve seen enough Fairly OddParents to know about the baby fairy that disappeared. Some of the specificities, as well as a few less crucial songs, add to an overly long two-act show that could be pared down to one.

Despite this, the seamless blend of audience interaction and musical moments was an enjoyable format with many successful results. A Fairly Odd Musical is a show that people outside of a certain generation may not connect with, but I suspect it will be a hit with those who know these TV classics inside and out.