the progression of glee

And that's what you REALLY missed podcast - season one

Ryan Murphy

Kevin said they're gonna talk about everything

Kevin & Jenna agreed there was so much joy and obv the bad which they will talk about everything

they're getting deep into things

Ryan Murphy guest

talked to Ryan for almost 3 hours

Ryan said glee was the beginning of a lot of things and the end of a lot of things

"this is like a therapy session, I have my Kleenex by me" - Ryan Murphy

at one point it was gonna be a Dracula musical

Ian's script was a dark comedy

Mr. Schue was originally a crystal meth addict and touched children

...

Ryan loved the idea of kids in high school

after nip/tuck and pretty handsome Ryan wanted something bright and colorful

took six months to write the glee pilot

the script — they said there's not bad person, Ryan said to Ian bad cheerleading coach "Jane lynch like"

Ryan felt in his element creating glee bc he felt he had lived it, he felt personal to all of the parts they were writing

they made the pilot and turned it in

did test audiences and it got the worst scores and bombed. in the end of it, people didn't realize it was a musical. nobody in the 36 people thought it was a musical but a lot thought it was a satire (which Ryan said "it kind of was")

the version of the test was the long one that had the disco dancing of Mr Schue

made the first 13 eps in a bubble bc no one had even seen it yet

Ryan had no expectations, but after the pilot the headlines were good

he knew if it got picked up he'd do a Madonna ep

Ryan remembers getting the cast together and giving a speech about staying close and being in it for the work and cried (Kevin said he did that a couple times)

Kevin was always reporting back to the cast what the ratings were and how the music was doing

Ryan said it was "the best of times and worst of times"

Ryan picked most of the songs for the first three seasons (Brad was Springsteen and REO Speedwagon songs)

Glee had the record on the music charts until Drake took it over

Ryan has some regrets over what they did and what he agreed to

everything was so instant and overnight

none of them knew how to say no

in the middle of the 3rd season they wanted to do a darren criss and warblers spin-off and Ryan said no but now looking back he wishes he did "it would've been great and would've solved a lot of problems"

Ryan said when Naya passed away everyone was brought back together for a while in grief and really got to talk about how everyone really felt about certain aspects. Ryan said he turned into an absentee father as time passed on and the cast felt that he hated them suddenly. He wishes he was more present and said he fucked it up.

Ryan said he was never and has never been close to a cast like he was with the glee cast

"for every bad moment, there were, like, 100 great moments" - Ryan