Schmigadoon! Creator Reveals Lineup for Scrapped Third Season: Into the Schmoods

Schmigadoon! cocreator Cinco Paul revealed the lineup of shows and films that the now-scrapped third season of the series would have intended to parody.

Subtitled Into the Schmoods, season three of Schmigadoon! would have riffed on the shows of the 1980s and 1990s, including Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats, Sunset Boulevard, Starlight Express, Evita, and The Phantom of the Opera; Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods, Assassins, Sunday in the Park With George, Merrily We Roll Along, and Dick Tracy; Boublil and Schönberg’s Les Misérables; Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, Hercules, Aladdin, and The Little Mermaid; as well as Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Rent, City of Angels, Side Show, The Wiz, and others.

“The season is written (including 25 new songs), but we unfortunately won’t be making it,” Paul previously said on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter). “It’s a miracle we even got two seasons, honestly, and I’m so grateful we did…This was tough news to get, but the optimist in me is convinced it’s not the end of Schmigadoon…and maybe it’s even a happy beginning.”

A parody of Golden Age musicals, Schmigadoon! stars Cecily Strong and Keegan-Michael Key as Melissa and Josh, a cuple on a backpacking trip designed to reinvigorate their relationship, who discover a magical town living in a 1940s musical. As they explore the town, they learn that they can’t leave until they find “true love.” After they do find true love, season two lands Josh and Melissa in Schmicago, the darker world of ’60s and ’70s musicals.

Schmigadoon! is co-created by Cinco Paul, who also wrote all of the original songs, and Ken Daurio. Lorne Michaels and Andrew Singer executive-produce. Recurring cast members across the two seasons included Jane Krakowski, Aaron Tveit, Ann Harada, Alan Cumming, Kristin Chenoweth, Dove Cameron, Ariana DeBose, Tituss Burgess, Jaime Camil, Patrick Page, and Martin Short.

A stage version of the original Schmigadoon! season will premiere this winter at the Kennedy Center.