By Clint McElroy
HQ 94 | SUMMER 2016
“I’m writing a musical about the Federalist Papers.” You know me – I’m a halfway decent actor. But when the young man standing in front of me told me his latest idea for a Broadway show, my thespian skills let me down. I probably looked like Mr. Spock with one eyebrow raised and my mouth slightly agape, unable to say anything. Seeing my reaction, the young man raised a hand and said: “I know, I know.” I glanced at his wife by his side, hoping for a stifled grin, a muffled laugh, something to cue me that her husband was putting me on. Didn’t happen. Instead, she looked at me and said, “It’s going to be awesome.”
Despite skepticism, wife Vanessa Nadal was spot on. That musical about the Federalist Papers ended up being called Hamilton, and it rocketed past “awesome” and careened into “life-changing” in less than three years.
Hamilton was written by Lin-Manuel Miranda. Newly crowned in June with 11 Tony Awards, touching the lives of everyone from punks to presidents, from grade-schoolers to grandparents, the musical has brought life and vitality to Broadway. The response has been phenomenal.
If you were to Google Lin-Manuel Miranda, you would find that he is a 36-year-old American actor, composer, rapper and writer who has already won a Pulitzer Prize, two Grammys, an Emmy and a boatload of Tonys.
My conversation with Lin took place in 2013 in the lobby of The People’s Improv Theater in New York City. Lin and Vanessa were there for the same reason I was there – the sold-out live performance of My Brother, My Brother and Me.
My Brother, My Brother and Me (henceforth referred to by my tired fingers as MBMBaM) is the wildly popular podcast created by my three sons – Justin, Travis, and Griffin McElroy. Started in 2010 it’s a weekly hourlong show that offers bad advice to questions submitted by listeners from all over the world. To put it another way, it’s three brothers – one in Los Angeles, one in Austin, Texas, and one right here in good ol’ Huntington – getting on Skype and trying to crack each other up, just like they’ve been doing at the McElroy dining room table for the last 30 years.
After just one year on the air, the show was consistently listed among the top 10 comedy podcasts on iTunes. At last count it was averaging millions of downloads each year, had spawned 19 different podcasts and video channels (see www.mcelroyshows.com), a card game, comic books and coming in 2017 a television show on NBC/Universal’s Seeso Channel.
So why on earth was the man with the hottest show on Broadway attending a live taping of the show? Well, it turns out that he was (and still is) a fan of my sons’ podcast! In fact, over the last three years my sons have become good friends with Lin. He has been a “guestpert” on the show many times and even immortalized MBMBaM on his Twitter page.
“Unless…unless…” is one of the catchphrases from MBMBaM. How sweet is that?
Almost as sweet as the post-show news conference following the 2016 Tony Awards last month. After pocketing 11 Tonys for Hamilton, Lin was asked about “the weirdest place” he drew inspiration from for the musical:
“There’s a podcast I love from three brothers in Huntington, West Virginia, called My Brother, My Brother and Me. Great job! And they’re hilarious. So one day I found myself writing ‘Unless…unless’ in their exact vocal cadence. And so to Travis and Griffin and Justin: Great job!”
“Great job” is another MBMBaM catchphrase!
When Lin found out recently that my son Griffin and his wife Rachel were expecting a child, he began posting Facebook videos of different celebrities telling Griffin “Great job,” including Tyra Banks, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and RuPaul. Even Scott Bakula volunteered to “quantum leap” into Rachel to have her baby for her.
The support and kindness that Lin and his wife Vanessa have shown my boys and me has been amazing. We have broken bread with them several times, and whenever we do it feels like we’re back at the old McElroy dining room table – the sense of humor, the boundless pop culture knowledge, the keen power of observation. Lin would have made a great McElroy. (I would include Vanessa, but she is WAY out of our league when it comes to brains and charm.) You know that “dad” feeling when you see your kids interacting with someone who “gets” them? That’s what I see when my guys are with Lin. It’s very cool.
But there’s more than just the funny stuff underpinning the friendship between my boys and Lin. He cares about bigger issues like introducing children to theater and inclusivity and diversity in the arts. He cares about the crushing debt crisis in his parents’ native home of Puerto Rico. He’s using his current time in the spotlight as a chance to shine light on these important issues and more. Giving back to the community is something my boys learned from their mom, Leslie. From me they only got Super Nintendo, comic books, and Mystery Science Theater 3000.
The most significant thing this Tony/Emmy/Grammy/Pulitzer prize-winning hyphenate has done for me? He’s the one who suggested the name that my grandchildren should use for me – Peepums!
Hey, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Peepums says, “Great job!”
