The Evil League of Evil
The main plot of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog—the online musical webseries created by Joss Whedon and members of his family—centers on the title character’s attempts to join the Evil League of Evil, a collection of super villains led by the “Thoroughbred of Sin,” Bad Horse. Although armed with a “letter of condemnation from the deputy mayor” and plans to build both freeze and death rays, Dr. Horrible’s efforts are continually thwarted by Captain Hammer throughout the narrative until it reaches a tragic climax. In the final scene, Dr. Horrible finally achieves his goal and is allowed entry into the allusive organization, albeit at a very steep price.
The brief meeting at the end—when Dr. Horrible is lead into a conference room where his new cohorts await—intrigued fans of the musical and speculation immediately began about the identities of the costume-wearing super villains who make up the Evil League of Evil. The end-credits listed their names as well as the actors who portrayed them, which included television writers who have worked with Whedon in the past. Fortunately the Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog DVD contains a brief interview with the group, hidden as an Easter Egg, which provides details about their evil personas. The members include:
—Tie-Die, who “got sick of all the happy people” while mixing patchouli and ylang-ylang oils at the Saturday Markets.
—Fake Thomas Jefferson, who insists that he is the real Thomas Jefferson and has “the strength of five men, or three slaves, depending on your unit of measurement.”
—Fury Leika, who was “shat on by a radioactive dove” when she was left at the altar during her wedding at Three Mile Island.
—Professor Normal, who is “completely normal” but has plans to turn himself into a cyborg.
—Dead Bowie, who claims to be the actual David Bowie but was murdered in 1980, “so everything after ’80 was this other guy.”
During the summer of 2008, the official Evil League of Evil website posted a call for submissions for new members into the organization. “The rumblings you’ve been hearing in the criminal underground since July are true,” the site declared at the time. “At long last, we are seeking new applicants to the League.” Fans of the webseries were encouraged to film their own three-minute videos detailing why they should be accepted into the Evil League of Evil and the best were subsequently included on the DVD release of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog.
The ten videos that were successful in their endeavor have a comic flair about them, and while not all have musical elements, the majority of them do. “Mister Terrible” (Mark Blasco), for example, features one long song throughout its duration, even when he is interrupted by a phone call from his mother. “Yes I’m coming to dinner on Thursday,” Mister Terrible sings before reaching the crescendo: “It’s pork-chop night, my favorite night of the week!”
“The Reverend,” performed by Dr. Vincent Ervig-Lindquest, is also sung in its entirety but features a Sesame Street-type psychotic puppet as the main antagonist. Another non-human entry, “Duchess of Defeet” (Nir Idan), is a talking chair leg that “defeats feet” by having people accidentally bang their toes against it. Special effects are also present in “Calamitous Orphan” (Efehan Elbi), who can control the weather, albeit with the side effect of having his hair spontaneously catch on fire.
“Princess Zombie” (Brynna Campbell) and “L’Enfant Terrible” (Julie Caccavo) both feature amusing introductions that could fit in nicely with a stand-up comedy routine before launching into songs that further their applications into the Evil League of Evil. Princess Zombie, for instance, talks about how “it’s so much easier to control people who aren’t, you know, alive,” before breaking into an entertaining pop-rock song about zombies, while the infant L’Enfant Terrible belts out “I’m Smarter Than You” with both sass and vigor.
“Movie Monkey” (Nicolas Kral), meanwhile, is an animated clay monkey obsessed with Dr. Horrible actress Felicia Day, and “Lord Stabbington” (Oscar Sharp and Stephen Follows) is the reluctant heir in a long line of British members of the Evil League of Evil.
Then there’s “Miss Broadway Dork” (Alexandra Heinen) who believes that show tunes can actually be used for evil. “Have you ever gone out in the middle of a crowded street and just started singing at the top of your lungs?” she asks. “People stop. People stare. People look at you like you are horrible and done the worst thing in the world.” She goes on to explain that the distraction can be used to perform actual acts of evil doings.
Arguably the most popular of all the Evil League of Evil applicants is Tur-Mohel (Jeremy Dubin and Ryan Lewis) who is a practicing mohel, a Jewish rabbi who performs circumcisions. His proposed evil plans include “a scheme to remove the foreskin from the statue of David and hold it for ransom” as well as blowing off the tip of the Washington Monument. Tur-Mohel has taken his acceptance into the Evil League of Evil further than the other applicants by creating his own website which features a “one-year-later” performance review video. “We had our best summer yet at ‘Tur-Mohel’s Evil Overnight Camp for Jew-venile Delinquents,’” the criminal mastermind declares. “Enrollment was up, which is pretty good considering most parents are looking for a non-evil Jewish camp experience for their child.”
While the success of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog is easy to quantify given its rankings on iTunes, where it is available for purchase, and its release on DVD (not only online but also at brick-and-mortar establishments like Best Buy), its cultural impact is equally impressive. Almost immediately after its initial release, calls for a sequel sprang up not just from amongst fans but by media giants like The Hollywood Reporter and Entertainment Weekly as well. During the 2009 Emmy Awards, which were hosted by Neil Patrick Harris—the actor who portrays the title character—a short video involving the main cast “interrupted” the proceeding. “I have hacked into your broadcast to tell you that television is dead,” Dr. Horrible declares. “The future of home entertainment is the Internet.”
Even the moniker “Evil League of Evil” has entered the cultural vernacular, as evidenced by a January 2010 article on TV Squad regarding the Jay Leno/Conan O’Brien Tonight Show debacle that took place that month. In regards to the NBC executives responsible for the mess, TV Squad wrote, “Jeff Zucker and company are the Evil League of Evil of all of television who seek to express their disdain for all of humanity through their thoughts, words and deeds—minus the tight fitting spandex uniforms.”
The Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog DVD lists almost six-hundred video applications that were submitted by fans from around the world for the Evil League of Evil contest, a remarkable achievement. Given the success of the musical webseries, it is apparent that despite the best efforts of Captain Hammer both Dr. Horrible and the League are here to stay.
Anthony Letizia (February 1, 2010)
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