Netflix's new animated movie Thelma the unicorn is full of soulful rock music, but one track stands out like a neon-colored sore thumb: “Here Comes the Cud.” And that is deliberate. Bret McKenzie of Flight of the Conchords designed “Here Comes the Cud” to be as sickeningly catchy and synthetic as possible. Creating a viral sensation (or at least, a number that can pass for a viral sensation within the fictional world of a film) is a difficult task. telma directors Jared Hess (Napoleon dynamite) and Lynn Wang (Cartoon Network UniKitty! series) spoke to Polygon about how they conceived and planned it.
As Thelma (Brittany Howard), a pony dressed as a unicorn, chases fame, her manager Vic Diamond (McKenzie's Flight of the Conchords partner Jemaine Clement) puts her in touch with popular social media influencer Danny Stallion (Fred Armisen). ). whose only trick is to regurgitate food for his followers.
Wang says the filmmakers looked at real-world online behavior to shape the character. “Danny was kind of an amalgamation of all kinds of over-the-top influencers,” she says.
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Image: Netflix
Thelma and Danny pretend to be in a relationship for PR value, just to generate some intrigue and romance for their fans, and Vic decides they should collaborate on a song. At first, Thelma is anxious and presents a portfolio of songs close to the power rock ballads she sings at the beginning of the film. But Vic says superstars don't write their own songs: “The Algorithm” does it for them.
He puts a request into a machine called “Bridget” and spits out “Here Comes the Cud,” a song with a catchy but soulless beat, simplistic lyrics, and an over-the-top music video set on a yacht. . It's incredibly catchy, but its lyrics are about cutting up partially digested food and are punctuated by burps and other body noises. It's a far cry from the emotional, more personal songs Thelma sings in a barn at the beginning of the film. For fans of Flight of the Conchords, her no-nonsense humor, synthy music, and rap beats will also be distinctly familiar.
“We had to establish Thelma's type of music and what type of music was true to her and that came naturally from her, and then show how fame and stardom corrupts her,” Hess says. “So it was fun to be able to show that contrast. Once she gets to ‘Here comes the Cud,’ it all goes downhill.”
The difference between the music Thelma writes for herself and the music made by the biggest stars in the world was very clearly defined. Wang and Hess collaborated with the film's composers and music producers to chart how that dynamic influenced Thelma's arc.
“Taura Stinson“Bret McKenzie and all of our songwriters really understood Thelma's journey and what really needed to be included in all the lyrics to really help drive that emotional journey of hers,” says Wang. “But also make it really fun at the same time. Bret really brought the humor. “It was really good.”
Thelma the unicorn is streaming on Netflix now.
