100 Favorite Shows: #74 — Galavant
“Way back in days of olde, there was a legend told about a hero known as Galavant!”
When the Disney fantasy series, Once Upon a Time, stormed to popularity on ABC, the network decided to double dip into the whimsical genre with a mid-season replacement in January 2015 for its aforementioned hit. This was Galavant, a musical farce and satire of the fantasy genre, created by Dan Fogelman and with music scored by Alan Menken. In that first month of 2015, Galavant’s ratings were abysmal (for the time) and resulted in one of the lowest-rated series across network television. Yet, critical warmth and a devoted fan group willed a second Galavant season into existence for January 2016. It was a magical renewal, even if a third season never did materialize. Galavant told the story of the brave knight, Gary Galavant (Joshua Sasse), preparing to battle King Richard (Timothy Omundson) for the love of Queen Madalena (Mallory Jansen), who had been kidnapped. His musical journey and rescue hits a few snags along the way, though, as the world of Galavant was never quite as medieval as it was deliriously modern.
(No one knows Galavant spoilers quite like this essay about Galavant.)
Galavant was not the first story to satirize the tropes of the fantasy genre. The Princess Bride is hilarious, Monty Python and the Holy Grail has etched itself into comedy history, and even Shrek refreshed fairy tale archetypes for my generation. Even watching some episodes of Galavant can evoke memories of these prior stories. The Forest of Coincidence moniker resembles Rodents of Unusual Size. The peasant farmers on Galavant debating ownership over their chickens and eggs embodies the same cyclical diatribes that colored Latin conjugation lessons in Life of Brian. (Hell, season two even levies out winking allusions to White Walkers, incest, forthcoming winter, and characters learning to read, as if Galavant was keen on being the first to send-up Game of Thrones. Modernity was prevalent on Galavant. Just ask John Stamos’ Sir Jean Hamm character.) Yet, even though it wasn’t first, Galavant always managed to keep the focus on fun — that’s what helped set it apart.
Galavant exuded charm and was so eager to please that any occasional missteps or derivations of jokes that had been done earlier and better were swiftly forgiven. Not only was the writing of Galavant so endearing, but the cast were filled with charisma and it was impossible to root against Galavant. Even if one didn’t watch it, they’d have to admit that a two-season order for an unpopular, niche series on ABC was a brief miracle.
In season one’s sixth episode, “Dungeons and Dragon Lady,” Galavant’s trope-based parody of fantasy series manifested in the form of numerous modern archetypes transposed into a medieval world. Already in the series, Madalena had proven to be a subversive character by rebuking the behavior of a damsel and prioritizing King Richard’s materialistic wish fulfillment over Galavant’s dashing savior persona. In turn, though, Galavant took on the role of a submissive, headstrong boy toy who was unflinchingly lovestruck by Madalena. Just because she wanted nothing to do with him outside of sex doesn’t mean that he isn’t still thinking about the tales of olde that instilled the idea of heroic knights saving fair maidens within him.
Likewise, “Dungeons and Dragon Lady” also reveals a select few details about King Richard’s own upbringing. It’s unearthed that the motivation for his malice is rooted in a sibling feud with Kingsley (Rutger Hauer) and the feeling King Richard had that he always had to live up to impossible, refutable standards. And, of course, the most prominent example of a modern archetype in an archaic world comes in the form of Xanax (Ricky Gervais), a magician capable of immaculate mental wonder, who lives with his mother and his “lap toad” (Rob Crouch, emanating grouchy ribbits).
These moments and characters were not rip-roaring in their hilarity, but they were pleasantly funny with more of an emphasis on being entertaining than logical. After all, Galavant frequently made sure to prioritize the writing of the songs over the writing of the episode’s scripts (not that this was a bad thing; we need more musically-oriented television series). One of the great musicians of the modern era, Alan Menken, lent his talents to the series and few figures are as purely entertaining across the Disneyfied genres of fantasy and musical as Menken has been since his entrance into the fold during the Disney Renaissance. (I mean, the song, “A Day in Richard’s Life,” rhymes “Petrificus totalus” with “chalice.” Come on.) I’m reminded of Rachel McAdams’ Eurovision movie on Netflix, which was never all that humorous, but was profoundly earnest and delightful to watch.
That’s not to say Galavant couldn’t be funny, though. Often, it was giddily silly. From the series’ tongue-in-cheek sidekicks (Gareth (Vinnie Jones), Sid (Luke Youngblood), Chef (Darren Evans)) to the sincerity of a “dragon” (who does end up being a dragon) named Tad Cooper whom King Richard “super believes” in, if Galavant had been given a fair shake (perhaps debuting a few years later?), it stood a good chance to be as oft-referenced as something like Arrested Development or 30 Rock. Even a flashback to Gareth’s youth, in which he is named to the king’s guard is a stupid, incredibly deadpan moment that serves only to make us giggle. (“You shall be the king’s guard,” Gareth is told. To this, he replies, “I’m only ten, but alright.”)
There is also a dumb-funny moment at the end of “Dungeons and Dragon Lady” when Galavant and Isabella (Karen David, in a performance that should have been star-making for her) profess their love for one another in song (it’s more cinematic this way). It is a genuinely sweet moment, but it’s immediately played against the realization that Galavant and Isabella do not have to die for usurping crown. However, they’re not spared because their love transcended capital punishment. Rather, they’re spared because the king’s guard inadvertently left their cells unlocked.
Arguably, season two was an even funnier arc for Galavant than its first, as if Dan Fogelman knew he wouldn’t get a third shot at the series and was determined to deliver all the wacky fantasy fever dreams he’d concocted over the course of the show’s development. Isabella observes wryly that love should be about more than rehearsal dinners, King Richard dismisses a pirate’s death as “what pirates do,” and he refers to a man named as his “Uncle Keith,” simply because he was “always around.” Not to mention, each of these very fun jokes occur only in the first half of the first episode from season two, “A New Season aka Suck It Cancellation Bear.” The whole arc was like this.
Before unpacking that absurd, meta title, I want to first remark about how delightful the fantasy subversion continued to be throughout the second season. With the characters paired off in new and engaging ways (Gareth teams with Madelana, King Richard and Galavant embark together), the journeys they venture on are exceedingly different from those typically associated with myths and legends.
For example, King Richard and Galavant, aiming to understand their identities and reasons for quests better, make a stop at the Enchanted Forest. The only catch is that, in Galavant’s world, the Enchanted Forest is a medieval gay bar for “bears,” complete with slushie machines. (In a fun turn, Galavant proves to be a genuinely able bartender.) Elsewhere, Chef, a self-proclaimed feminist, turns off Isabella by citing the fact that he kept one of his daughters, instead of throwing all of them out, as an example of his progressivism. Obviously, these wouldn’t be the sorts of adventures and conversations of those who were major players in the 1400s, but on Galavant, they were part of the fun of an anachronistic world that seemed to take many cues from the 2010s.
After all, Galavant was always comfortable in meta territory. The aforementioned episode, “A New Season aka Suck It Cancellation Bear,” makes direct reference to the Cancellation Bear, which strives to predict which network shows will be renewed and which will be cancelled. (Clearly, it said Galavant would get the guillotine.)
The jokes don’t stop with the title, though. The opening number of the series, “A New Season” makes numerous references to the fact that they’re all in a new season of television. They allude to the fortunes of ABC resulting in good fortune for them and they make a plea to viewers to DVR the show if they insist on giving ratings solely to The Bachelorette.
Furthermore, “A New Season” attacks the initial shortsightedness of Galavant by addressing the previous season’s cliffhanger and even revealing the eventual climax of season two. (Maybe it was an instance of Galavant showing the entire story in the form of song to its viewers, just in case the series was pulled after a couple episodes with another cliffhanger left behind.) In a melody that is just as catchy as the initial theme song of Galavant, Sid sings,
And the whole entire season ends with armies from
Valencia, Hortensia, and Richard’s land in one ginormous battle
to decide who’s gonna be the one true king to rule the whole
entire…
It’s a pretty perfect moment on Galavant and, arguably, the show’s apex (few meta stories have managed to strike as perfect a tone as Galavant did in “A New Season”) because it exemplified what Galavant was always about. Earnest storytelling, subversively smart humor, and a sense of kinship with the audience. Galavant may have been short-lived and short-shrifted, but for those in the know, it was a nice, little January treat. Television was all the better for it.
(There will be no new essay on Thursday or Friday. Happy Holidays!)
