The Wiz Live!, NBC’s singing and dancing special based on The Wiz (which itself was adapted from that HBO series, I think), was a huge success. The Twitter response was generally positive, and over 11 million viewers tuned in. That’s much higher than last year’s mockable-yet-still-boring Peter Pan. As pointed out by Variety, “The Wiz Live! fared especially well in markets with large African-American populations,” including Baltimore and Atlanta. It’s almost as if people like entertainment that isn’t the whitest thing ever.
There were a few dumb-dumbs who didn’t appreciate the all-black cast, though, including one Twitter user who wrote, “So @nbc show #TheWizLive has an all black cast. There sure would be quite an uproar if it was an all-white cast,” and another, “I just learned there is a black version of The Wizard of Oz called The Wiz – how is this not racist?” Maybe they’ll enjoy SNL‘s version, where Ryan Gosling’s stumbling Scarecrow finds himself in East Oz.
Gosling gives a fantastically committed performance — his Ray Bolger impression is really something — which almost makes up for the mediocrity of the jokes. (Sasheer Zamata telling Gosling “DON’T” when he tries to touch her hair was the best moment.) I would, however, be totally fine with SNL ending more sketches with everyone singing “Ease on Down the Road.”
