"all puppets should just be muppets" SO TRUE, YOU GET ME

I sort of agree with the “all puppets should be muppets”, but I would also argue that Starship by Starkid has excellent puppetry that can emote surprisingly well.

Really can’t get enough of Nemo looking like a haunted little Victorian child

11:56 I hate how prepared I was to just accept that the vine boom was just part of the actual sounds of the show

“Go with the flow” has been one of my go to audition songs since I was 12 and every director always asks where the song is from and I’m like finding Nemo the musical

EPCOT cast member here! A nice conversation piece when someone hands you their Disney ID to use their discount is, “so where do you make magic?” Last month, while I was ringing up a guest and applying their discount, I asked, and he said he’s one of the puppeteers for Crush in the musical! Has to be the coolest response I’ve gotten by far.

I am obsessed with how uncanny the puppets look haha. Another musical you should check out is Turnabout: An Ace Attorney Musical! It's an original musical made entirely by strangers on the internet over 15 years and came out earlier this year!

A Turning Red musical would actually be really interesting because they could potentially mix musicals elements with the early 2000s boy band vibes from 4TOWN. Part of why people love the movie so much is the band so it would make sense

0:29 I love how even though you can clearly see him pulling the trigger, that puppet’s lips are barely moving. Like, forget about making a clear picture for the back row, the first row can’t even see it.

to me the meme has two important factors - 1. the intensity of the puppet and the song paired with the stripped down casual context of the actor. 2. the childhood nostalgia and feelings that should be irrelevant for adults/millenials but in their simplicity strike an emotion that speaks to a universal experience but are able to be transformed into self-mockery when combined with the absurdity of point 1 hope this helps!

you just unlocked my memory of seeing this eight years ago. somehow I didn't remember it was a musical, i just remembered the puppets.

I went to Disneyworld around 2016. My family saw this musical in its original form, and we all loved it! The Bruce, Crush and Nigel puppets are now core memories. After the show was over me and my siblings asked if we could see it again (we didn't) but our mom realized how much we loved the show and bought us the cast recording. That C.D. was the only C.D. we had in our car for years so we would listen to it on repeat. At this point, I basically have the entire show memorized. This all came full circle when me and my sisters performed in Finding Nemo Jr. I play Bloat the pufferfish, one of my sisters was Nigel, and the other was in a ton of ensembles parts. I know this show is flawed but I deeply love the musical and the movie.

i love that giant pelican puppet so so much but you KNOW several kids have screamed in terror at it. I want it in my house.

Another musical you might wanna get on your radar is Death Note: The Musical. Yes, really, I’m not kidding. Need convincing? The music is by Frank Wildhorn. Yes, THAT ONE. Not only that, but an actual English production of the show (originally only performed in Japan and South Korea) is set to debut in London very soon. It’s amazing and I cannot WAIT to see how it’s official English debut turns out.

Props to the man who does Marlin’s part as he works basically EVERY show and same with Dory! They all have such good acting! I love these puppets but the reason is because it’s not about the puppets. You’re supposed to also watch the expressions of the humans! They emote in the puppets but the actual actors have the actual expressions. Also Crush’s huge puppet and the bike for the teacher sting ray are SO cool! I love this show so much. It’s so good! It makes me miss the little mermaid one. The building got molded so they don’t open it anymore :( Edit: I mentioned the Nigel puppet as I saw it as a kid but yeah they got rid of it 😭 I think it was destroyed in storage :(

Starship by starkid is one of my favorite musicals with puppets. They do a pretty good job of translating emotion through the actors and the puppets

Forgive me if I’m repeating this, I haven’t seen anyone mention it yet from my brief look at the comments… From the end clip; the excessive narration by the feminine voice is actually an accommodation for the blind/difficulty seeing 😅 (Disney parks really get into accessibility) They have a very similar narration if you turn that feature on when streaming the movie, but it’s with a more monotone voice.

One of my favorite parts of the finding Nemo movie is when the main shark smells some blood and his friends scream “intervention” it was so funny to me😂

man I LOVE weird puppets like this. I remember almost seeing it at the parks but we decided to wait around to catch the Kevin puppet instead (also made by the same designer! and she's a beautiful bird holy shit) if you're looking for weird musicals to cover, I think you're really enjoy the strangeness that was the short-lived Broadway run of the Raggedy Ann musical. it got a lot of attention early on from parents for being too dark and traumatizing their kids, so you know it's gonna be fun.

Finding Nemo? More like... Finding EMO! This video has already made me cry, piss, and shit my pants. Well done Max, you've done it again!

When my school got the rights to this show last year instead of using puppets we kinda did what SpongeBob the musical did where we were the characters and it actually came out really well!

I know one of the old actors for crush (not the one in the video you watched) and he was able to take us backstage after the show to meet all the cast and see the puppets up close. It was a really cool experience and I'm still in contact with him now and he's an amazing singer and actor.

this is such a deeply niche topic and i adore this

I really agree with him that LED screens ruin the set. Not long ago I watched an amazing production of "The sounds of music" and the set was mostly a screen and it just felt cheap for the high tickets price.

I first saw the Finding Nemo musical in the park the year it came out because I thought it was such a strange idea that I needed to watch it. And because it was such a higher quality than most other musicals in the parks with completely original music and weird little puppets, I ended up falling love with it. Anytime I’d go to Disney with May family, seeing the show was on my must do list. And then I saw it this past year. They absolutely destroyed my strange little play to cut costs and the cast. It kind of feels like they’re dragging around the corpse of the old musical like it’s weekend at Bernie’s but there’s a lot more flashing LED screens that are meant to distract you from the murder they committed.

Ok I think the meme isn’t because of the kid but it’s more the “where’s my dad I’m all alone” is set in front of things like “me trying to call the dr to make an appointment”

Them changing the original version of this show will forever be my villain arc

great video dude! really glad I stumbled on your channel. One of my professors, Skip Mercier, actually did the set design for this show. He passed a few years ago, but how he spoke about his process for this show really stuck with me. He knew it was a fun show for kids, but in one of his initial sketches he dug into the grief that Marlin experiences in the prologue. Apparently that sketch really struck the director and ended up framed in his office. He was a great guy that cared a lot about his students, and I think it says a lot about him that he talked more about his time on this show for a theme park than he did for shows he did with like Julie Taymor.

I love the setpieces so much like the coral?? gorgeous!! I think making the fish more like muppets would just be *chefs kiss*

Once you’re deep enough in the whole Disney Parks fandom you know people who have capital O Opinions on this musical so I went in pretty much expecting this video to go one certain way. These shows that stand out (or at least are decent enough and attached to one of the more timeless movies) enough to camp out in a theater for as long as Nemo did build a lot of following. When COVID hit and the live actor collection of cast members were dropped from furlough and the show came back abridged, I knew a lot of people really mourning the loss. The Dory actress and Crush actor (they both had their roles for a majority of the run) in particular were crushing blows. We were very worried in my Discord groups about what else wouldn’t come back. (Edit to say: I didn’t creep to know who the actors were, when the show got canned the actors at the end, who again were often actors for most/all of its run, made Instagram posts saying goodbye and having a hashtag together and all sorts of things. It’s very easily Google-able)

It’s always a good day when Max uploads

I was in this musical! We didn't have the budget or skill for puppets. I watched the three iterations of the "Where's My Dad" song (Not My Dad, That's My Dad, and Where's My Dad(which was extra weird, since I was playing the dad) every day for a week. Everyone in the cast kind of bonded over the fact that we were forced into being in a fish musical (we auditioned without knowing what it was) I can never see fish the same.

As someone who watched the movie about 50 times as a child and had every line permanently ingrained into my brain, it hurt when they said lines that were *almost* the same as the movie but not lol…

Finding Nemo meant a lot to me as a kid who had a fucked up tiny arm from a stroke. I kinda forgot about it though I should watch it again.

Of COURSE I just saw a local production of Finding Nemo Jr and enjoyed it so much, I wanted to see what other productions on KZfaq looked like... and somehow I ended up here lol. I have to say I loved the musical the way it was performed in my local theater! No puppets and VERY low budget, which actually made it more relatable and gave the actors more freedom to dance around and fully inhabit the characters. Everyone in the theater was laughing and (I'll admit) I shed a few tears. Marlin being reunited with Nemo was done completely differently than in the theme park version; more realistically, but still rushed. That said, I truly wish that they would've created an expanded edition. For example, the whale scene in the movie is one of my favorites, and I truly believe a theatrical take would have been epic - high or low budget.

wow the bear in the big blue house is such a nastolgic trip back!!!

I’m always scared my director will choose this as our next musical since the rights were released-

This is SO my niche and I love it I LOVE the shows at theme parks! I love finding nemo the musical and the beauty and the beast show over in hollywood studios and idk if it’s my nostalgia for the music but that show ALWAYS gives me chills and belle’s performance blows me away every time

I haven't finished the vid yet so forgive me if you mention this, but it's honestly worth checking out a youth production of this show if there's one in your area. From what I can tell, it's fleshed out a bit more than the parks version (the one I saw ran a little over an hour). The annoying parts of kids shows are really avoided in how cute this one is. Also the one I saw had some super fun ways of handling costuming. The main actors were just dressed as their characters but the jellyfish were translucent umbrellas with streamers, squad of silver fish that gives directions was made of shiny silver oven mitts used as hand puppets, stuff like that. Low-budget but weirdly effective.

I would LOVE to see you talk about "Disney's Aladdin - A Musical Spectacular" - the Aladdin musical that Disney California Adventure had for a while - just to see and hear your opinion about it. It's one of my fav things Disney has ever done, so much heart and passion into this short simple little musical! (I've never seen it live myself because I live in Ikea land - aka Sweden - but I've seen about every recording I can find of it, I love it.)

This show was my childhood. My parents have always been Disney parks kinds of people, and this show in particular always grabbed the whole family with how magical it is. I still haven’t seen the post closure version but even just hearing what was cut left me heartbroken. (I’m technically leaving this video halfway through to sleep so I’m gonna continue with my full thoughts in the morning)

I adore how the characters are both the puppets and the actors, like nemos mom putting her real hand over the eggs

I love the Finding Nemo musical and I'm so mad that Disney cut and altered it down from its original run

that day TMBG delayed all their concerts is a day that will live in infamy for the rest of my life

15:23 that legit sounds like the songs you sing with the people on stage at the Hills church

My family knows someone who used to act as crush in this show. They’re in an a cappella group as the higher voice. Also, I danced on this stage as Disney’s “Dance the Magic” program with my dance studio

This muppets enthusiasm makes me incredibly happy. GIVE THE MUPPETS MORE REAL ESTATE IN THE PARKS, DISNEY.

This brought me back to when I first saw that show with my aunt about 2 years ago at Animal Kingdom. It just feels a bit off seeing a stage show of a movie you grew up with being trimmed down to 15 or 30 minutes. But the songs were well made, with the Go with the Flow song and Big Blue World being my favorites. ITs nice when things that were not originally musicals being turned into musicals is interesting, and the same could also be said for musicals that add original songs in with the pre-existing songs.

The Impending Doom one actually looks like a pretty cool show. Speaking of musicals set underwater, I recently saw the SpongeBob musical and it was awesome!

I was in this play about two weeks ago! I played the Vacationer, who wasn’t in the Disney version. I got chased around by the seagulls and had three scenes all to myself. I had one line, and yet I was the audience favorite. It was actually a really good show! We didn’t use puppets though. It’s a really good show without the puppets. The puppets are scary. It was SO. FUN. We also had a great director. Somehow the show is so much better when you have little kids playing the roles. And also some teenagers (like myself) doing roles like Crush, Gil, the Vacationer, etc.

I was in finding nemo jr this year at my highschool, and I thought it was gonna suck, but really it wasn't that bad. we didn't have goofy ass puppets, just fish themed costume-things. still was somewhat cringe-worthy, yes, but i'm so glad that it wasn't like the weird pandemic ones 😭

This musical was always a highlight during my visits to animal kingdom. Nice to hear someone else talk about it in a way that respects it but also admits it’s silliness lol.

i was in finding nemo jr this summer and i had to sing "they're eggs on a beach, then COO COO CACHOO"

I grew up going to Disney world bc I had family in Florida (I’m from NY). I’ve seen Finding Nemo the musical multiple times and ngl it was the one show I would sit down and watch bc it was so good. To me shows at a theme park just get in the way of ride time but when you throw an actual musical in the park the theater nerd in me has to appreciate that

34:24 I like how you were thinking about animal related Disney movies to make into musicals and forgot Zootopia exists 💀

This is the perfect crossover of my two favorite things: musical theater… AND STUPID INTERNET CLIPS… mixed with my childhood nostalgia for all of the things you talked about

I love shows at theme parks because they give me a fun way to sit and relax as a break. All the walking in the heat at a theme parks can be exhausting lol

31:31 I'm about to direct Finding Nemo Jr. with a bunch of elementary students. If you want to come, I will comp your ticket 😂

Crush's actor in that bootleg is absolutely SLAYING I'M SHOOK

i had the pleasure of being a part of a kickoff showcase of the junior version of this show, and i was so surprised to hear this was a musical! i think a show like nemo could have been a really culturally relevant thing if it were made more as a piece of art than a theme park attraction. that’s what gives me the most hope about the junior version-because of the length of the original show, it mostly keeps the spirit of the original, and the context of smaller theaters doing this show provides a lot of opportunities for innovation (for example: we didn’t use puppets!) there are so many directions to grow with a show like this, and i think it’s really fun to watch that happen:)

The meme is mostly the internet “evolving” the lyrics of the song to basically joke about “abandoned dad” tropes. (I.e. Me when I have to change a flat tire…). I don’t think anyone is making fun of the kid singing 😊

the cast and set design was fantastic. the puppets needed work and the lyrics were god awful, but like you said, the spectacle of it all was what sold it. im kind of sad that it was ruined like this and i have this weird obsession with knowing every detail about the production

this video is so personal to ME i regularly wax poetic about finding nemo the musical, it was my favorite thing in the parks and i saw it every time i was there. and now all my friends have to hear me yell about how the new version sucks 😭😭 the screens and lack of sets/puppets is of course devastating but to ME the greatest loss was the net scene at the end, bc it had the payoff of “you think that you can do these things but….. i know you can” from the dropoff scene in the beginning. that and getting rid of the opening scene with pearls death really just said screw marlin’s character development

Nah, the music is so good though. Also, my high school is doing it as our children’s musical AND WE ARE PUMPED

Loving the Tom Leher at the ending monologue. The ephemeral nature of theatre is critical to it's impact. However, I had not considered it in regards to all art. Perhaps Plato's Meno was dead on in the statement that a statue is nothing without it's creator. Thanks for the passionate analysis!

When I clicked on this video, for some reason I was thinking that you were about to rant about how bad the original was and how much better the new one is. Thankfully that was not the case lol. Finding Nemo the Musical was outstanding for a Theme Park show. They had Pyrotechnics, Flying, Giant Puppets, Beautiful sets, and so much more. In the new version they got rid of all of that. They cut it down so much it's not worth your 25 Minutes. Before, it was worth those 35 Minutes. In the old version, there was *some* emotional connection to the characters (Not much but at least some). In the new version there's nothing. I hope soon we get something new at the Theater In the Wild though.

My husband and I saw this show in august while at animal kingdom for our honeymoon. It had been many years since I last saw the show, but I knew upon rewatch something was…off. Now I know, everything was just worse, and now I’m really sad 😢

One of the best, potentially NSFW puppets to come out of Australia is randy feltface. There's a show called randy writes a novel, its about an hour and a half maybe? A shorter excerpt is randy buys a bookshelf. Its a story of hum buying a bookshop off gumtree (the aussie craigslist) and the shenanigans that ensue when he gets there. You forget he is a puppet after a while. There is a lot more out there, but this is a good introduction. He and his puppeteer heath mcivor is what puppets CAN be.

i watched this in one year and my sister was crying during it 💀

I was actually in Finding Nemo (Jr, some things were different and braces girl wasn't in it lol) recently as professor ray but without the puppets. First thing, crush was cast as a girl and it felt so much more right than hearing the guy cast in this one. Second thing, everyone, yes even the director and production team, didn't like the puppets, so we didn't have them and I think it was slightly better. Third thing, we had aerialists and I got to throw the silks while almost hitting the guy cast as Marlin with them. Fourth and final thing, it was actually a little longer probably because we had a few younger people in the cast (Nemo and most of the tank gang were younger and so were the MOONFISH. YES. WE HAD THE MOONFISH. IN THE JR VERSION.) Okay one more thing, the Jr version is probably a smidge better than the abomination version. (EDIT: a musical that I think is pretty funky as a concept is Honk! Yes it has an exclamation point with it, it is the story of the ugly duckling in musical form)

When my family went to Animal Kingdom during our vacation to Disney World when I was 7, I _dragged_ my parents into going to see the Finding Nemo show because it was a big part of my childhood. None of us liked it at all, the moving mouths on the puppets made me uncomfortable, and the only song that stuck with me was the one where the puffer fish sings about poop.

Okay, the puppets were WAY cooler than I expected, especially that Crush puppet, that was amazing. Edit, because I watched further: OOOOOOOH, THE JELLYFIIIIISH!!

34:34 ... so who's going to tell him that the frozen show already exists??😂

Really well put-together video essay!! Your content keeps improving I love seeing what you have to say on weird musical theater happenings, haha

omg I get so excited when u post!! I love ur videos and you are so funny!! I love theater and commentary. you’re a gem ❤️❤️

I was watching this video then went down to comment then saw the views... how does this only have 7.2k views??? It's insanely good.

If you want another Disney theme park musical that would benefit if it was longer, I suggest Rogers the Musical. The songs are really good, and really could benefited if it was 2 acts

i'm about half a year late but i literally just finished doing mic tech work on a pretty high end version of the jr. version tonight and you answered a lot of the questions i had about this musical, so thank you for that!! as i said, the production i just finished was pretty high end (even though it was kinder thru 5th grade kids) so the real spectacle was the costumes, which were fantastic and glittery and definitely brought that wow factor that the musical needs to keep attention. also i feel like a decent amount of the (very understandable) pacing issues you have with the show are helped a lot by expanding it to about an hour, where it's still a bit rushed but definitely allows for more character development. overall, i think this show really works as a jr musical, since a lot of people are just there to see their kids perform and it's pretty accessible for the kids to wrap their heads around as performers, and since i'm a big softie that gives the musical some merit for me. (also i love your music taste, the tmbg and ben folds in the bg of this video and the hall & oates and men at work cargo in your hamilton video made me smile :D)

I would like to see an Encanto show with all the song (+turn it down become omg that’s the best fan song of encanto) and I think it might be possible because they are going to turn the Dinoland USA into an Encanto/Indiana Jones land (maybe based in South America)

19:02 They’ve made it into a meme from a relatability factor, most of them probably don’t know it’s from FN The Musical. There’s so many show tunes that have become trends on TikTok and hardly ever do the people doing those trends even acknowledge where the songs are from. Their ignorance is a bliss for us theatre fans, cause if they knew they’d probably never even use those songs just cause “they wouldn’t work without context” or “musicals are so childish” and nonsense like that.

i'd give anything for this to go on broadway, with a full two act run and more emotional songs!

this show holds so much to me 😭 my theater company did the east coast premiere of finding nemo jr and i saw it there first lmao..it was very good, and was an hour long. then a few months later, i saw it at animal kingdom and i was not highly impressed..this musical is just so cute tho :,)

ngl if i was at disney world and i wanted a break from the sunny chaos outside, watching a 35 minute musical adaptation of nemo in a dimly-lit, air conditioned room would sound like an absolute treat. i love it

You’ll have to cage fight Hank Green for that pelican puppet😂

I loved this video my school is doing the junior version and I immediately looked it up and was super happy to see that you posted a vid about it 😁

Had to stop this video several days ago when you said "a few accounts of accidents" happend in Tarzan Rocks. I saw so many accidents in that show there is ZERO chance the comments of the videos from people who remember it did not mention how often the bladers wiped on those ramps and you really believed it was alleged....In fact the main reason to going to see that show were the stunts: because everyone knew they would wipe. I'm certain I have video evidence of it since my dad use to tape everything in the parks from the years 1992-2002. It was a thing in my family, "Let's go see Tarzan rocks so mom can enjoy the music and the rest of us can enjoy them falling so much they had to start wearing pads". [Yes, they use to not wear pads so the costumes would be visible and yes: I did in fact see some seriously painful looking wipeouts to the point this one guy was covered up with a board that had trees on it since they were really STRUGGLING to get back up. Most of them just got right back up.] By the end of the show's life span, there were barely any people visiting the shows because the bladers had gotten so good/they had probably cut out the more difficult tricks that no one really fell during the last couple of years. So most of the videos online don't really capture what a spectacle, and super impressive when someone did not wipe, the show use to be. It also wasn't just about Rent in terms of how the set was designed: the stunts being on blades was said to have been inspired by how big Tony Hawk/skateboarding was at the time as well. It's very much a time capsule of a show and I love it for all of that.

love your video & subscribed !

I watched this right after waking up and somehow even with just the clips you showed it managed to make me cry lol I gotta watch this thing

Those penguins who can’t fly were always my favorite! :,( I was sad to see them executed with the “oh no it’s much worse” reboot

"All puppets should be muppets" Muppets on strings would be muppiets

have you heard of Starkid Productions? they make some great musicals. Starship is also a puppet musical. their musicals are also free to watch on youtube :)

I love finding Nemo,it came out the year I was born and is probably a reason why I love sea creatures LOL and it was the only movie I saw re released in theaters a few years back and this musical is honestly so cute!! I've been wanting to see the Jr version for the longest time which is basically the same original show, but with a few elements for a theatrical setting

My school did a Nemo musical but it was for the elementary

This is so niche I love it. Now I NEED you to cover “Beauty and the Beast: Live on Stage” at Hollywood Studios

Help I was in finding Nemo the musical jr. I was chum the shark. My shark costume was the mommy shark Halloween costume. Fish are friends not food. Tbh it was really fun to perform, thank god we didn’t use puppets but um Nemo had 2 heads. But overall not the best show

this video made me realize that i have literally seen the finding nemo musical and i completely forgot! it would have completely left my mind forever if this video hadn’t reminded me of its existence. the lifeless eyes of the puppets were hilarious to me as a kid.

I've seen this show at Animal Kingdom over and over because its a great show with performance layers where you can watch the puppets, OR the performers, OR both and how they interact building the character through puppetry and human acting all at once. I see it every time I go. Oh yeah, and I remember the Tarzan musical, though for some reason I remember it being at a theater in Disney's Hollywood Studios over by Tower of Terror. I loved that one too and miss it dearly. I'm honestly bummed I missed the Junglebook one, I'm a 90s kid and loved the movie so much I pretended to be the characters even when everyone else was pretending to be mommies and army men. Not only that, but cursed heavy-costumed stage shows are very much a special interest of mine. Due to the fact they can't stop me, I'll be going to make a supercut of the Finding Nemo show on video tape by watching it over and over next time I go before they put a Rocket Raccoon show or whatever in. (I will scream if its not finally something for Zootopia in Animal Kingdom, though I also would be all-for an Oliver & Company show using fursuits)

Bestie the meme is that the puppet in the TikTok clip looked fucked up

LOVE THE BEN FOLDS FIVE RECORD IN THE BACKGROUND

incredible video, Max! definitely going into my rotation of comfort videos by you 😊 the love for the puppets was super appreciated!!!! justice for Nigel and justice for the muppets!!! looking forward to whatever comes next