Glenn Beck—slave to stagecraft, groupie of the greasepaint—saw Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark, and despite what the mainstream media has been reporting so far about its muddled script, ponderous music, and potential to maim, Beck wants you to know he absolutely adored it. Beck took time out of his radio show yesterday to defend the unfairly criticized yet already extremely successful musical, calling it not only better than Wicked (which we thought box-office grosses had already decided?), but nothing less than a history-making, 21st-century equivalent of The Phantom Of The Opera:
After you couldn’t get a ticket to ‘Spider-Man’ and you’ve offered a kidney for it, go see ‘Wicked.’ I mean, you’ve got two kidneys. Don’t give both kidneys up — go see ‘Wicked’ before you give both kidneys. But give a kidney to go see ‘Spider-Man.’ I’m telling you, mark my words, it’s being panned right now, nobody’s saying good stuff about it. I’m telling you, you go buy your ticket — you buy your ticket now, if you’re thinking about coming to New York, because when this thing opens and it’s starting to run, you will not be able to get tickets to this for a year. This is one of those shows, this is the ‘Phantom’ of the 21st century. This is history of Broadway being made. I sat next to the casting director, by chance, and I said, ‘You, sir, are part of history.’”
Beck also praised the show for its “kooky portrayal of scientists who are preoccupied with global warming," and in addressing those who have “panned” it, Beck adopted a mock French accent—the better to deride them as snobs who refuse, on snobby principle, to recognize a show featuring rock music (much like the way they snubbed American Idiot, Rent, Jersey Boys, Spring Awakening, Jesus Christ Superstar, etc.) about a comic-book character that further “cheapen[s] the theater by spending $50 million” as "real theater." In other words, “all the snotty stuff that regular Americans won’t understand.” (So, this premature harping about how Spider-Man sacrifices the safety of its performers to feed its over-budget corporate machine… Broadway blood libel?) We can't wait to hear Beck's review of The Book Of Mormon.