Ever since John Hancock broke into song after signing the Declaration of Independence, American politics and musicals have been inextricably linked. From Alexander Hamilton’s jazz hands, to Chester A. Arthur’s oboe operas, to Newt Gingrich’s off-Broadway sexscapade, You, Me, and My Moon Colony Mistress Makes Three, government and musical theater have joined forces to document our nation’s long history of freedom, partisanship, and dancers on roller skates pretending to be choo choo trains.
To celebrate this grand union of entrenched bureaucracy and song, the patriots at McSweeney’s Internet Tendency (“The Iowa Caucus of humor websites”) offer this riotous collection (peacefully assembled!) of monologues, charts, scripts, lists, diatribes, AND musicals written by the noted fake-musical lyricist, Ben Greenman. On the agenda are . . .
Fragments from PALIN! THE MUSICAL
Barack Obama’s Undersold 2012 Campaign Slogans
Atlas Shrugged Updated for the Financial Crisis
Your Attempts to Legislate Hunting Man for Sport Reek of Class Warfare
A 1980s Teen Sex Comedy Becomes Politically Uncomfortable
Donald Rumsfeld Memoir Chapter Title Or German Heavy Metal Song?
Noises Political Pundits Would Make If They Were Wild Animals and Not Political Pundits
Ron Paul Gives a Guided Tour of His Navajo Art Collection
Classic Nursery Rhymes, Updated and Revamped for the Recession, As Told to Me By My Father
And much more!
QUICK VIEW
