SINGING MORMONS (NO, NOT THOSE SINGING MORMONS)

Schmigadoon!’s send-up of musical theater is both wholesome and really, really funny.

- CHRIS NORRIS

FOR A STRETCH of the early aughts, screenwriting partners Ken Daurio and Cinco Paul struggled to sell scripts. It was an effort made no easier by their unorthodox style of pitching to executives. They’d go into a chilly glass office, explain the premise and characters, outline story beats, and start to sing. Daurio insists this wasn’t as weird as it sounds.

“In comedy, the big set pieces are often linked to music,” he explains. “Or something funny happening around music.”

“We’d just perform that moment,” says Paul. “Singing those parts in harmony.”

“Sometimes it was really awkward,” Daurio says. “You’d see people, like”—he mimes leaning away, palms up, looking worried—“Uhhhhh …” Sometimes the duo delighted their audience; sometimes they finished to crickets. Once, after pitching the head of Warner Bros., the hard no went simply, “Well, that was loud.”

“To be fair, we were really loud,” Paul says. “We sing all the time.” On drives, in public, in the office. “We kept getting kicked out of offices for noise complaints.”

What began in surreal pitch meetings is now coming to surreal prestige TV. In July, Apple TV+ will begin airing