A Glorious Geeky Gospel-Infused Pop Culture Collision
Thursday, March 26, 2015 at 8:00PM 
Grant Gustin & Jesse L Martin in "The Flash"I wasn't aware that Jesse L Martin, one of the best singing actors, was hoping to finance a musical short for himself but he is. The world collectively fell for his voice on the Original Cast Recording of "Rent." David E Kelley let him sing fairly regularly on "Ally McBeal" (those bar scenes made full use of the many musical alums in Ally McBeal's cast) and then he reprised his star-making role for the ill-conceived Rent movie. Since then he tends to be cast in non-singing roles -- even in musical shows like "Smash"! He's currently the adoptive father / police detective hero on CW's hit "The Flash" and he doesn't get to sing on that show either.
But listen to this -- here he is with two of his current co-stars on "The Flash" (Carlos Valdes and Rick Cosnett) to sing the theme song for Joss Whedon's "Firefly" It's a thank you to Joss who donated to their collective kickstarter project. A fourth co-star is also involved in this would be short (Patrick Sabongui who plays the incidentally gay police captain boss on the series) but he's not in this thank you video. Maybe he sings, too?
Let this double as a cry for action aimed at the CW writers room: The Flash obviously and desperately needs a musical episode. Make it happen in Season 2. To its very entertaining credit your show already embraces "anything can happen" insanity (Gorilla Grodd, hi!) so if Grant Gustin can't sing, just give the other guys all the songs. Make it work.
UPDATE: Grant Gustin can very much sing. (Sorry, I stopped watching "Glee" before he arrived and have never regretted the decision). A musical episode must happen.
Why are actors always so multi-talented? It's unfair. And wonderful.
Reader Comments (9)
Grant Gustin singing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNRrPLyTy_s
Perhaps the best musical theatre song of the past 15 years, fwiw.
I don't watch The Flash, but the first thing I saw Grant Gustin on was Glee. I don't know how likely a musical episode would be, but the cast definitely seems up to the challenge.
I don't watch "The Flash" but I love watching musical episodes. I am still hoping that "The Good Wife" will give us one sometime.
Arkaan: thanks for the link, a very pretty song.
I totally teared up. What a beautiful performance! Time to watch Firefly again.
A The Flash musical episode is all I need and never knew I wanted. Andy Mientus as the Pied Piper could be the villain of the episode.
Nathaniel--this post is why your site is fantastic. Totally random weird and delightful stuff colliding and you bring it to us! Thank you!
I randomly flipped to Glee after I also had given up on it and came across a scene with Gustin trying to be seductive. I had to turn it off after 30 seconds of hearing him talk. His non-stop vocal fry is INSANE. All I saw was an amateur actor with a forced, affected way of trying to sound sexy. You can kind of hear it at the beginning of the song in this video so apparently he still hasn't developed past it yet, which makes me glad I'm not watching him in The Flash.
But hey, his singing voice is very nice.
And Jesse L. Martin! Ooof. I could listen to that man sing anything, anytime, anywhere. So overlooked in "Rent," even though the movie as a whole was meh.
LadyEdith, track down Michael Arden's version. Very swoonworthy. I really do love this song beyond all reason.
I'd just like to pass on another way to help spread the gospel and it's simply this:-
Include a link to an online gospel tract (e.g. www.freecartoontract.com/animation) as part of your email signature.
An email signature is a piece of customizable HTML or text that most email programs will allow you to add to all your outgoing emails. For example, it commonly contains name and contact details - but it could also (of course) contain a link to a gospel tract.
For example, it might say something like, "p.s. you might like this gospel cartoon ..." or "p.s. have you seen this?".