Very few TV shows have had as much impact on pop culture, or at least, a very specific subsection of pop culture, asGleehas. It has spawned countless memes over the years, and recently has had a bit of a renaissance with people on TikTok posting clips of the show and reminiscing about it - both the highs and the more…wacky elements. It’s safe to say thatGleeleft its stamp on the cultural zeitgeist, since it’s something that so many people still care about to this day, even all these years after the show has ended.
Jenna Ushkowitz and Kevin McHale, who played Tina Cohen-Chang and Artie Abrams respectively on the show, decided to take the Internet’s revivedGleeobsession and run with it. In their new podcast,And That’s What You Really Missed, Kevin and Jenna go throughGleeepisode-by-episode, sharing behind-the-scenes stories and interviewing cast and crew tofinally tell the real storyof what working on the set of such a huge show was like.
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TV recap podcasts hosted by people who actually worked on the show in question have become more popular in recent years. Other examples includeOffice Ladies, where Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey ofThe Officerecap the show together, orAvatar: Braving the Elements, where Janet Varney and Dante Basco (who both lent their voices to big characters in theAvataruniverse) break the show down episode-by-episode. There’s something inherently more interesting about listening to someone whoactually has insider knowledgetalk about the piece of media they were involved in.
And That’s What You Really Misseddoes this well; they go through the episodes and discuss behind-the-scenes stories that have never been publicly shared, and this knowledge can definitely enhance a fan’s enjoyment. But what’s really interesting about the show isn’t just the knowledge of how the show was made or what kinds of preparation went into various musical numbers on the show, what’s interesting is hearing the cast members talk aboutwhat the show meant to them personally, and how their lives have been shaped by the connections they made with their cast mates on the set.
The discussion aroundGleehas always had this air of scandal around it, and has been plagued by the idea that the show itself, or anyone who worked on it, was slightly “cursed”. Multiple cast members tragically passed away either during the course of the show or after, and controversies about certain stars, like Lea Michele, have come out in the years since. It was easy to attach this “curse” narrative to the show, since Glee itself hadsuch a wacky, comedic tone, and a lot of the jokes they got away with when it first started were the kinds of things that wouldn’t get greenlit today.
However, Jenna and Kevin have set out to set the record straight with their podcast, not just to quell rumors about things like the cast secretly hating each other, or Lea Michele not being able to read, but to prove that the show was really important to the people who worked on it and that for the most part, the actors allreally bonded over their time on the show. The point of the podcast isn’t to be salacious and focus solely on the rumors that have since circulated aboutGlee, but to talk about the genuine human experience that Jenna, Kevin, and their fellow cast mates experienced.
It’s a refreshing take, especially when the internet is so focused on trying to draw out the newest scandal or look back on a piece of media that everyone loved and explain why it was actually bad and how the people who worked on it all hated each other. TheGleecast members who appear on the podcast have quite the opposite take, while there were moments (especially later on in the show) that they findcringe-worthy in hindsight, most saw their characters and their experience on the show as something that was really important to their lives. In one interview on the podcast, Chris Colfer discussed the importance of his character Kurt being one of the few openly gay teenage characters on television at the time, and how Kurt’s struggles mirrored some of his own experiences.
There were ways in which the show was harmful, of course; Chris Colfer also opened up about how playing Kurt forced him to come out to the public before he was truly ready to, at a fairly young age. But overall, the cast seems to mark the whole thing, despite their long hours of rehearsals and filming and touring, as a positive experience in their lives. They also acknowledge how the show was important to a lot of the viewership, especially those in the LGBTQIA+ community, as it was one of the few shows at the time thatwasn’t afraid to showcase queer relationshipsand storylines.
To Jenna Ushkowitz and Kevin McHale, despite its problems and elements that wouldn’t fly on TV today,Gleewas a show that shaped media going forward. While there’s plenty to joke and meme about the show, there is also a lot of good that it did, both for the audience and the cast. With their podcast, they want to be able to explore the show with this nuance in mind, and perhaps get the internet to seeGleeas more than just the butt of their joke. They found the perfect way to acknowledge all of the weird and wacky baggage that came with the show while also being sure to remind people that it meant a lot to a lot of people, and thatGlee, its characters,and its musicwere able to bring people together, at least for a little while.
