Track Recap - Apocalyptour Live

Apocalytour Live's album cover

The album by Team Starkid, a musical theater company, is a live recording of their concert tour "Apocalyptour", and I cannot stop listening to it. It features songs from their past shows, Little White Lie, A Very Potter Musical, Me and My Dick, A Very Potter Sequel, Starship and Holy Musical B@man!. Most performers from these shows are in Apocalyptour, with the exception of Darren Criss, who was probably too busy filming Glee at the time. Besides that, many of the same actors appear performing the role that they did in the original production.

It begins with the title track from their 2009 show Me and My Dick, introducing two Starkid veterans, Joey Richter and Joseph Walker, singing all about how they are best friends and will never leave each other. How cute. After that it goes to another song from MAMD, "Ready To Go", which introduces every other performer in the show, creating a play on the lines from the song, "But I just tell 'em, hey, it's me and my dick!", replacing the word dick with the name of the next actor or actress.

The plot of the tour then starts with them explaining that they've decided to give up singing and dancing to pursue their real passion in life, archaeological digs. The group find a strange tablet in some ancient Mayan ruins that tells them that a group of performers, named the Dikrats, will find that very tablet and upon reading it out loud will summon the Mayan god of chaos and death, Ma'au Guurit (pronounced Margaret). Ma'au Guurit (played by Jim Povolo) then appears (Dikrats backwards is Starkid so like, yeah), ready to bring upon the apocalypse, when one of Starkid's reveals that Ma'au Guurit is also the Mayan god of musical theater, so that if they perform a show for her, featuring their greatest hits from past shows, he may not destroy the world.

Ma'au Guurit gives the group an audience to perform the show to, and leaves the stage for a bit to destroy Paris. The group begins with the song "Get Back Up" (Starship), an anthem sung by Lauren Lopez to give Walker inspiration that they will be able to stop Ma'au Guurit from destroying the world. Afterwards Brian Holden wonders to himself if their singing powers will be enough to truly defeat Ma'au Guurit, only for Richter to yell at him for being such an idiot. This leads Holden to sing a jazzy rendition of "Guys Like Potter" (A Very Potter Sequel), featuring four other male Starkids as background singers, and adding an extra verse exclusive to Apocalyptour.

Dylan Saunders and Meredith Stepien enter the stage and sing the love song "The Way I Do" (Starship), joined by Richter and Jaime Lyn Beatty, all singing as their original parts from the show. Rosenthal and Walker find themselves lost, unable to find their friends that are backstage, and sing a song about their friendship, "Different As Can Be" (A Very Potter Musical). They eventually find the rest, who are discussing new ways they can beat Ma'au Guurit instead of "all this loathsome singing and dancing". Holden is made fun of again for his idea of reversing the god's molecular structure, and begins "Not Over Yet" (AVPS), giving the group inspiration to defeat Ma'au Guurit, and Saunders sings about how they have to "Kick It Up a Notch" (Starship) in order to succeed. The whole cast then sings "Rogues Are We" (Holy Musical B@man) as they scheme, only for Ma'au Guurit to reappear.

The god says he is not impressed and calls the group Team Fartkid. They then resort to human sacrifice to appease Ma'au Guurit, choosing Richter to be killed and take out his heart. His Heart (Brian Rosenthal) then sings to him about how he can come back to life in "Listen to Your Heart" (MAMD). Richter comes back to life just in time for Ma'au Guurit to say that he loved that last song, and the group decides to sing more of their unknown hits, like the next four songs they sing that are all from their short-lived 2007 online series Little White Lie ("Caught in the Lie", "Boy Toy", "Fancy Machine", "Love Grenade"). 

Both Brian's enter the stage and lament about their experiences of the past few hours in "Missing You" (AVPM), and then Saunders and Beatty sing "Sami" and "Harry" (from LWL and AVPM respectively), because they're basically the same song Starkid recycled and changed a few words here and there. Richter and Lopez fight over a girl they both like in "Granger Danger" (AVPM), and Walker sings about how lonely he is in "Dark, Sad, Lonely Knight" (HMB). Beatty rejuvenates the three by singing "Not Alone" (AVPM), and Ma'au Guurit comes back for the group.

He says that their performance was incredible, but still says he has to destroy the world in order to keep his job. Suddenly, Ma'au Guurit's boss calls and tells him he's fired, because the apocalypse was supposed to be months ago, but the ancient Mayan's didn't account for leap years when creating their calendar. Left without a job and stripped of his god powers, Ma'au Guurit is invited to join the Starkid's archaeological dig, because they had an empty bunk from when their friend Jim Povolo went missing after the meet-and-greet. The whole cast then sings the finales from A Very Potter Sequel, A Very Potter Musical, and Me and My Dick ("Days of Summer", "Goin' Back To Hogwarts" and "Heaven").

After coming back for an encore by explaining that they've decided to go back to musical theater in the song "To Dance Again" (HMB). Stepien stays behind on stage as the rest leave and sings "The Coolest Girl" (AVPS), talking about how, well, she is the coolest girl in the world. The whole cast then comes back and sings "Super Friends" (HMB), about how they will always be friends, even if they have to save the world from destruction a hundred more times, and the show finally ends, leaving Starkid to create new musicals for idiots like me to enjoy.

The Great Mario Debate

Hello everybody, and Happy Groundhog Day, my name is Joseph Cater, the leader of this hilarious blog, and I’m here with my two “best” pals: Ricky & Genesis.

Hi, my name is Genesis Stephens, and I am the writer for the Opinions of a Young Critic blog. I have no personal input to add to the subject of MARIO, but, I can be an unbiased commenter on the topic.

Hello my fellow gamer chaps my name is Ricky Rodas Munoz and i run the blog It’s Rewind Time. I am here to give contextual background about Mario.

Yeah, Mario is a cool dude. Now let’s get to the first question: Does Mario vape? I say yes. Thoughts?

Maybe Mario isn’t in the Mushroom Kingdom at all and it's just his shroom hallucination. This guy does literally eat shrooms to grow big, with flowers to throw fireballs. Mario does not vape but does take questionable substances that gain him strange powers. Such as a the tanooki suit that puts him in a fursuit. He also wears a a frog suit that let him gains the powers if a frog, no surprise there. This man eats many things and doesn’t seem to have no bad side effect.

In my opinion, Mario does not vape, but he in fact, is, a druggie. As Ricky pointed out, Mario constantly munches on those dotted red mushrooms, and he constantly needs those substances to continue on his trippy journey. His journey is filled with a crazy, inhuman landscape and monsters that only psychedelics can imagine. Mario and his brother are the only human-like creatures, besides the princesses, who could just be regular humans in Mario’s life that he imagines in this fictional world. The princesses are most likely girls that Mario has/had a crush on. I would also like propose that he is in a coma, and he is imagining this storyline to cope with the loss of time in reality.

Mario is a real silly man, but I can’t believe y’all actually don’t think he vapes HARD. That great jumping man needs his high, and you think he’s going to use mushrooms to get down on that? No, he eats mushrooms for class, and he does no other recreational drugs. It doesn’t matter that he does mushrooms, he’s already gotten an immunity to them, and he does it to show off to Luigi. He vapes because he needs it. I respect y’all’s opinion but you’re wrong.

Is Luigi really jealous of his brother Mario?  

This is a tough one, but I’d have to go with a hard no. Luigi is obviously a much greater figure in the Mushroom Kingdom than Mario, he just pretends that Mario is the superior brother. You may believe that Mario always “wins the kart races” or “is better than Luigi in every way”, but that’s clearly wrong. If you truly think about it, Luigi has much more money than Mario (as shown in Luigi’s Mansion), he has a cooler girlfriend than mario (Daisy is better than Peach), and he’s more powerful (have you ever played Smash Bros?) I rest my case.

Luigi seems like a chill guy. Luigi probably munches on the shrooms with Mario and chills out. Luigi does not have the pressure to save the day like Mario, but when he feels heroic/helpful he gets to help out his brother. Along with him barely helping Mario, he gets to reap the benefits as well. Luigi gets a hot girlfriend (Daisy), and he gets free shrooms and a mansion. Luigi is also the taller one, which helps him get the ladies. Luigi is tall and not as plump. Luigi has the looks, money, fame, and he lives a drama-free lifestyle. I believe that Mario is jealous of Luigi, the better brother.

I think Luigi has had his fair share of fame, he had multiple games about him. Such as “Luigi's Mansion” The game was a big hit and respectively deserved it, he also saved his big bro Mario. Luigi seems like a scaredy cat either way in any of the game series. Luigi was introduced into the game “Super Mario Bros” I mean why can’t you just says “ Super Bros” At least put Luigi's name into the title out of respect for him.

Which princess is classier: Princess Peach or Princess Daisy?

Now, when you think about it, is a princess really too classy? I don’t think so. These princesses are cool and all, but I wouldn’t call them classy. They are both rulers in a place called the “Mushroom Kingdom”. Change the name and I might respect you as a ruler. But anyways, on the subject of who I like more, It’d have to be Daisy, because she is cooler than the beige wall that is Peach. Daisy is also cooler because she’s better at tennis, and tennis is the only thing that helps you in the Mushroom Kingdom. AND DAISY DOESN’T EVEN RULE THE MUSHROOM KINGDOM. She rules Sarasaland, a much cooler place.

Well since you put it like that, i mean thats a tuff one. Honestly i think Princess Peach  is the classier one to be more exact. I’ve seen more of her appearances then Daisy and Peach is more elegant. When she’s captured by Bowser she seems to keep her cool, when it happens. The way she floats down and her pasture, just shows she's really a princess. She does follow the stereotype by needing a big strong man for everything.  

Personally, I like Daisy more. Daisy rocks the orange/yellow aesthetic, and Princess Peach just wears a boring shade of pink. I would love to be best friends with Daisy and Luigi, and we could be an iconic trio. Princess Peach cannot save herself, and depends too much on Mario to save her own life. I just wish she would gain the guts to be an independent woman. Daisy is an independent woman who don’t need no man!

Musicians