Given the success of "Glee," could a "Cop Rock" reboot work?

As a straight, single man, I have seen about a grand total of 5 minutes of “Glee,” not counting commercials. It’s not the musical aspect I object to; I have nothing against them. It’s the HS setting I object to.

Not only “Glee,” but many sitcoms have done musical episodes since “Cop Rock.”

While I try to avoid shows about teens in my old age, I do like gritty cop shows.I don’t mind musicals. I am just uncertain whether it work well on a more serious show enough to last. What do you think?

oh, hell no.

Not a chance.

For one, Glee uses (mostly) very recognizable pop tunes, not really shitty original music.

Secondly, the high school setting allows it to connect better with a large chunk of it’s audience. I’m not saying that that most of Glee watchers are in high school, but a bunch are, and a bunch more are in their early 20’s and therefore had a similar HS experience (ie, having cellphones, everyone having to be “PC,” etc…)

And thirdly, how they incorporate the music is key. 90% of it is under the guise of the glee club rehearsing or performing. Only on a few occasions do you have people just randomly burst into song, so in that way it differs from a standard “musical.” It makes it slightly more believable.

Even when they do randomly burst into song, I often get the feeling that it’s as much fantasy as reality. Walking down the corridor with other students choreographed behind them isn’t reality.

Fantasy doesn’t work with a gritty cop show, it works with angsty teenagers, and their wacky, juvenile teachers.

I admit I’ve never seen an episode, but when people explained it my first thought was that they were trying to piggy-back off the success of the High School Musical movies.

it’s a HS glee club so they have an excuse to sing. a cop show would be a full out musical where people sing for no reason.

This. Glee rode in at a time when the format had made huge comeback via High School Musical.
At the time CopRock premiered (don’t know the exact date, but seem to recall it was in the early '90s), the musical, at least in film and television, had been dead for years. There really wasn’t much of a market for it, and just the concept of it provoked a lot of WTF responses.
So, if it premiered today, people might be willing to approach it with a more open mind. However, I seem to recall another gritty cop show a few years back (Viva Laughlin, perhaps) that tried out the musical format, but failed miserably.

Here’s the thing: Musicals are inherently stupid and ridiculous. Thus, the more over-the-top the underlying premise or format is, the better it works. When you try to set a musical in world which is not inherently absurd and played for laughs, it just falls flat, because no one bursts randomly into song in the real world; the singing element flatly contradicts the real-world element, making neither at all believable. Thus “Glee”, yes it works; all-musical episode of “Scrubs,” yes it worked; all-musical and possibly 80s-cartoon-themed episode of “psych,” I could see it working; Cop Rock, oh hell no.

But “Scrubs” would not have worked if EVERY episode was a musical episode. “My Musical” worked because it was a novelty even within the bounds of the show.

“Glee” works, I believe, for one primary reason: it’s not original music. bouv nailed it in one. If you want to make a two or three hour musical stage production, or one musical episode of a TV show, you can probably come up with enough good original music to make it work, and the subject doesn’t have to be flighty and silly, like high school. “Scrubs,” after all, wasn’t aimed at children, and musicals have been made from serious topics like the Vietnam War, the 1832 Revolution, the sinking of the Titanic, and stuff like that.

But if you’re going to hit people with this shit every week, there is absolutely no way in hell you’re going to hold their attention through that much music. You’d have to write fifty new songs a season; eventually they’ll either become insanely crappy, repetitive, or both.

By using pop staples, “Glee” can have its cast pump out quality music every episode, music that people already know and love. And after the show took hold, the type of music used in an episode can become a part of the show’s marketing in and of itself; it’s the Madonna episode! It’s the Rocky Horror Glee Club Show episode! It’s the… the band that did Don’t Stop Believing episode!

While “Glee” is often said to be taken from “High School Musical,” I think this really started with “Moulin Rouge!”, which precedes “HSM” by five years. The use of popular music instead of original music was shockingly original at the time and… to my eyes, anyway… absolutely fascinating. After that film my then-wife actually said, I swear to God, “If you wanted to make an immensely popular TV show, just have a simple show, like in a high school or something, and the cast sings popular music.” It’s too bad she wasn’t a TV exec.

I don’t believe Moulin Rouge was innovative. Off the top of my head, I can name the Bee Gees 1978 musical of Sgt. Pepper, and several disco themed movies of the same era like Xanadu. There likely were a few others that came before Moulin Rouge. The previous musicals weren’t hugely successful though. As was said, the musical genre had become almost exclusive to Broadway until the turn of the century.

Timing is everything, and the recent success of Mamma Mia and High School Musical show that people are receptive to the idea again. It may be because of the ready access of videotape. Children’s films are often musicals, but older generations didn’t have the opportunity to watch our favorites repeatedly. the Wizard Of Oz is the only one that I can recall seeing more than a half dozen times.
Frequent viewings/listening of favorites can allow a genre to worm into our brain, which is one explanation for the number of fifty year old heavy metal aficionados

Thinking back to the Fifties, I can’t recall any TV shows based on the musical format except for Cop Rock and Glee. As was also said, the need to come up with forty new songs for a 13 show season almost guarantees that thirty-eight of them will be horrible. I don’t think Cop Rock would succeed today.