Jello Reviews - The "Hatchetfield" Musicals

Okay I know it's been like 2 years since I made this post but I recently went back and checked "Hey, is that terrible Ruth song in NPMD actually the longest song in the show?" And like yeah. It is. And it has the least views of all the songs on the OST so clearly I'm not the only one who hates it which is very validating.

JelloApocalypse

At about the 1:55:00 mark, I think the writers just really wanted to make the character have the "S. Laughter" name pun. She should have been Alice.

Lamb

I watched Nerdy Prudes and am revisiting this. And I was gonna say the same thing. I was complaining to my boyfriend after we watched it and I exclaimed “They Marvel Movie-d my ass!”

Markisgay

Hey, just watched Nerdy Prudes Must Die, so I finally checked your review of Hatchetfield. It sounds like you're describing the Avengers Dilemma. The Avengers released some movies, built a fanbase, made some TV shows, and then started referencing their TV shows in the movies. So now if you go to see the movies, you'll be lost unless you go watch the TV show. Which sucks, but it's kinda a good gimmick to get fans to watch the TV show if they want to continue following the narrative. It kinda worked with you where because you saw Nerdy Prudes Must Die without seeing Nightmare Time, you felt a need to go back and watch, while fans who did watch Nightmare Time get to freak out whenever they get a reference to Nightmare Time. Team Starkid is rewarding their fans who saw Nightmare Time with reference that only they will get in NPMD, and they're going crazy for it. Legacy writing can be shitty when exploited, but it works in getting your fans hooked and feeling like they're obligated into watching everything you make...until they get burn out. I just hope they wrap up the plot with Hannah and Miss Holloway vs. the Lords in Black. It seems like they're trying to build a climax between them to break what feels like this curse on Hatchetfield that causes most of the endings to be a bummer.

Clever Chaves

SPOILERS FOR NERDY PRUDES MUST DIE If someone is here so far back and hasn't seen it yet, why are you here Anyway Coming back to this now that Nerdy Prudes Must Die is now on YouTube, and God it's honestly so close to being my favorite in the trilogy of the ending third didn't drop the ball plot wise. It makes me think, would the trilogy be better if there wasn't 5 Lord's in black But one antagonist throughout the three, the first musical being only hearing him through puppets Second musical hearing him directly. (Maybe can show off the black book to open the portal) Then the third, finally seeing him. I'd love to see a rewrite of the trilogy (more Black Friday and NPMD) to make it more coherent without Nightmare time. Also it has some of my favorite songs from any of their shows to listen to specifically, not my favorite overall. Specifically what I mean in this show their ensemble numbers are so good to listen to... the first to songs are a good example of that with Highschool Is Killing Me and Literal Monster are just a delight to zone out and listen to. On to characters, both Richie and Ruth feel like they also barely miss being good supporting characters... though def cut the Barbecue Monologue song. Might have been better as an actual shorter monolog from themselves not a character within the character. Max has such a good actor and is very entertaining their performance. Detective Shapiro I feel could have been a good supporting role in the finale. Their actor is phenomenal at the role and also their singing voice is amazing, especially in Hatchet Town. Like if Max was consistent and only killed nerds so didn't die randomly, feel they could help get them to the school and maybe even lock it down while the protagonists do the ritual. Grace is just a great unhinged character though I don't have too much to say on them. Now Steph and Peter, gonna be honest I just forgot Alice's name from the first musical and fully just thought they were the same name... which really goes to show they would be the same character. Anyway as character's they are interesting, though when they were are just talking together are my favorite moments. I absolutely adore those moments. I think one of my favorite songs from any of their musicals meaning wise is the is Cool as I think I am Reprise of them just expressing their love and convincing the other that they should be the sacrifice. I am also curious if the ending would be better if the sacrifice wasn't stopped and that's how they saved the day instead of Grace's 'chastity', again would need to see it in writing to see if it would work or not. Anyway sorry for the long post on an old patreon post, just felt like writing my thoughts on it cause frustrated that it could have been great but fell apart at the end plot wise.

Evalyn Grey

Coming back to this after watching Nerdy Prudes Must Die and, boy, Starkid sure has a habit of putting random bits of fake musicals into the Hatchetfield trilogy. In TGWDLM it's showcasing "Okay, the professor is a crazy, isolated musical nerd who has been stewing and this is part of his personal revelling in joining the musical zombies", which is fine and entertaining. In Black Friday, they just have a movie the characters are watching in universe to energetically segway back into Act 2 of a much darker show, which is weirder. Then BBQ monologues happens, and I will be skipping it in all future rewatches because we could've just cut to Max Jagerman being the best character.

Act One

I didn't know about about Robert being a dick (haven't watched anything since black friday) thanks for the info XD I really hope they change their minds and do something not hatchetfield Also it is funny because their second show Me and My Dick has 2.2 million views (on the first ep, because old youtube time limits) vs. the 60k for nightmare

PrettiestBeardedLady

Lol i think you underestimate how much of your audience leeches off indie internet projects for our serotonin this was really fun to listen to

The guy who doesn't like musicals seems like someone took the musical episode of Buffy the vampire slayer and made a full musical out of it. This is not a criticism that's one of the best episodes of Buffy and I'm definitely going to watch The guy who doesn't like musicals now

Bryan Davie

this guy doesn’t like firebringer. let’s explode him with lasers everybody

Flare TheGunCalamity

Spoilers for NPMD - I really love Nightmare Time, but I also haven't seen a lot of other horror stuff, so it feels new to me. I watched NPMD on the digital ticket, and I just ended up feeling disappointed? I really loved Max in the first half and I really just wanna listen to Literal Monster over and over when it comes out, but that's technically a reprise when he starts singing? There's so much cool stuff they could have done with the deaths too. I did really like Pete and Steph's almost resolution for the end, but I don't know. I also feel like if he had actually acted on his very explicit feelings toward Grace and tied that closer to her, it might have seemed more intentional. Like Grace is THE Nerdy Prude according to Starkid logic and her spiral while great, feels kinda out of left field? Like he has one seen where he confronts her, but from then on they kinda freak out separately about different things like they're separated from some sort of wall, only to be directly compared in the end.

Kira JG

I think that this is a great study piece in how the pandemic affected media. Theater in particular (both movies and in-person) suffered greatly and had to find new ways to adapt, overcome, and continue to release content. I'd love to see the original drafts for NPMD

OK-MK

I love the epithet audio book listened to it about 4 times since I bought it.

Drednot

I'm very glad this exists because I always wanted to get around to watching the Nightmare Time specials, but the amount of content was too much to watch. This separates them and fills me in on the bad ones. Good stuff!

Act One

so weirdly the night after listening to this, I had a dream about auditioning for a play, but Jello and Siv were the ones casting it. I ended up not getting cast and I managed to catch Jello while walking out of the theatre and ask him why i wasn't cast. he basically told me it was cause i couldn't do the dance stuff needed but reassured me that I had the skills, it would jsut take practice. Part of this was because i auditioned for my first musical and I don't know if i got cast yet but am terrified, but to say a dream version of JelloApocolypse eased my anxiety is the most bizarre thing I've had happen to me in a while. soooo take it as a complement i guess.

Crimson Citizen

Just going to put my thoughts out here, Jello probably already knows all this but it might be nice to hear a rando bring it up: The addition of soundclips is fantastic from a review standpoint (especially when used to make a point or set a tone) - the title-card bits where he played a snippet of the title song before going into each piece were cute and added flavour to the review, but are expendible if the effort to include them exceeds the flavor and tone they add. The used-as-example clips are more essential - I'm reminded of the Infinity Train review where Jello had to link to a one-minute clip to illustrate bad dialogue, and am imagining how if Jello had decided to do the same here, it would either be like seven links or him spending minutes reenacting/describing what could be shown in a few seconds of inserted audioclips. The only downsides I can see are A: Effort to input the clips into the recording, and B: Copyright. To my knowledge, Patreon doesn't have anywhere close to the same crackdown audio-scrolling bots that Youtube and Twitch use, but it's not a guarantee they won't adopt such a system in the future. I suppose Jello will just have to decide whether to brave that risk or not. Anyway. Tl;dr, lovely addition, glad you included them here with the safe bet of Starkid not likely coming after you, would love to see the practice continue, but only if you deem the effort and risk worth it. Also I'd be surprised based on the music streams if there wasn't a larger crossover between the Starkid audience and your own than you think, since I don't recall chat ever not getting a Starkid song rather quickly (including obscure ones like Me and My Dick, IIRC). But that might be my memory being wrong. *shrug*

Finn Underwood

Owl House definitely loses a lot if you've been spoiled but I'd say the Hatchetfield musicals have a lot to offer even after listening to this.

JelloApocalypse

So um hi… I’m the one Patreon subscriber who’s knee deep in the Hatchettverse. I’ve watched every single production day one on YouTube including TGWDLM Christmas Day 2017. I honestly thought there’d be more crossover between your audience and theirs.

Rheamena

I remember you recommending the guy who didn't like musicals on one of your sing streams, so I went and watched it and had a great time with it and have gotten more into musicals in general.

Ignis Astrorum

Having finished this now- after this and the Owl House review, I have *got* to actually stop listening when you say "okay, spoilers start here, stop listening and watch the thing", because at that point I'm always like "huh, sounds interesting I guess, but realistically I got a lot on my plate and I probably won't get around to it, so I'll just keep listening" and by the end of it I'm like, "crap, this sounds really fascinating and now I want to check it out! but i've been spoiled on the cool parts already!". Still gonna check out that Killer Track thing despite having been spoiled on the ending, though, that sounds cool.

Benedict Ide

Thanks for recommending The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals! I ended up really liking it, so I'll have to check out The Toxic Avenger as well.

WireMouse

"This is a weird thing to say after 'cool and hot', but- Ms. Frizzle-" -hey! Hey. Dude. What're you tryna say here? You tryna say Ms. Frizzle isn't cool and hot? You really gonna disrespect Ms. Frizzle like that?

Benedict Ide

The soundbites are real neat

Jesper Van Miert