Hawkeye‘s Musical Mystery Solved: Who Knew All Those Avengers Details?
As fun as the lyrics to Rogers: The Musical — the Broadway show within Disney+’s Hawkeye — are, they do invite the question: What layman lyricist possibly knew that Steve Rogers was known to say, “I could do this all day,” or that the team inhaled some shawarma following the Battle of New York?
On the latter matter, I for one assumed that the shopkeeper we saw in the background of The Avengers‘ shawarma scene simply ran to Page Six once the dust literary settled, to drum up business with tales of their “super” customers. But we have only seen Cap boast, “I could do this all day” in the company of, like, one other person or so each time — and in one of those instances, he was with himself!
Lucky for us, the folks over at Inverse ran this question by Broadway vet Marc Shaiman, who with co-lyrcist Scott Wittman put all that insider info into the Rogers: The Musical characters’ mouths.
“We talked about that with [Hawkeye showrunner] Rhys Thomas,” Shaiman said. “We just figured in the universe, people writing a musical or writing a book or writing a magazine article would’ve done their due diligence and homework and interviewed people who had been there.”
Shaiman also posited that an Avenger him/herself might have “post mortemed” their epic clashes, for the press.
“Perhaps, even in things that we’ve never seen, members of the Avengers had actually given interviews about this or that,” Shaiman said. “Natasha in some interview on CNN might have said, ‘Oh, you know this guy — he’s always like, ‘I could do this all day.’” It could have come up somehow.
“The same thing applies to including lyrics about ‘getting some shawarma when we’re done,” he added. “[W]e just figured that they don’t say these things in a total vacuum.”
Shaiman said that the presumptive approach that he and Wittman took passed muster at Marvel, which is always careful to control messaging. “From [Marvel Studios boss] Kevin Feige on down, they were like, ‘This is good.'”
And as for the one thing that they got “wrong” — including an Ant-Man character on-stage, even though, as theatergoer Clint grumbled, he wasn’t even on hand for the BoNY — Shaiman says, “That came from [showrunner] Rhys and Marvel, as something to further aggravate Hawkeye as he watched the show, and also as a comment on how movies and articles and people always get something wrong.”
“Thanos was right”. Well, about that musical, he was.
It was a tricky balance to strike, making a musical that is deliberately cringey while still seeming like it could plausibly have become successful on Broadway.
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And as for the logic of the lines, Tony and Steve were both very public figures who would have given countless interviews/press conferences after the fact. I have no trouble believing they would have told those stories ad nauseam in every magazine and talk show on Earth.
I mean, Cats ran for a very long time. 😉
Really it’s just an off joke musical number thing, it’s really not even worth talking about. They likey got this information from interviews with the hulk that seem really public or from interviews with the other avengers….
A whole article focused on the worst part of that fun series. Interesting choice…
In your opinion.
Seems like a lot of people agree, no one wants one another marvel musical number…
I want more musical numbers. “Agatha All along” was fantastic.
Seems like you’re the only one who agrees with yourself. Sorry little man.
Speak for yourself. It was hilarious and a highlight of the entire series.
I mean, technically, Ant-Man was there during the Time Heist, so there’s that… *laughs*
Lol, you’re right- in the rewritten timeline, he did make a cameo appearance!
The song also doesn’t introduce Hawkeye when it goes through the line up of Avengers, emphasizing the point he repeatedly makes to Kate that he’s always attempted to stay out of the public eye. It’s an in joke that Hawkeye is the forgotten Avenger who never got his own movie, but he’s also typically played the sniper/spy role and stayed in the background or on a rooftop. Whereas Antman is also Giantman, which probably grabbed the public’s attention. Tony Stark’s major contribution and near death also seem to be downplayed in favor of Steve’s street level rescues, which would have driven him crazy.
What are you talk about? Clint was in the line up.
“Hawkeye seems cool. Like a really nice guy. He just wished that New York wasn’t a battle ground.”
In the actual episode, it cuts away before it gets to his line. And the actual line itself definitely emphasizes the point that people don’t really know or care very much about him.
There’s also a fun mention in interview how they cut out a part when the press agent comes out to meet him and he’s expecting all the other Avengers to show up, and none of them come.
Steve Rogers was one the greatest, most visible heroes of WWII, and his legend only grew after he vanished saving New York from a vengeance weapon. Can you imagine how many books were written about him? Just think about how many people knew him in WWII, the entire Super-Soldier team, his USO troop, the soldiers he rescued, the Howling Commandos. . . all of them would have been pumped for information about the Star-Spangled Man.
That “I can do this all day” was something he said on a fairly regular basis probably meant it was a well-known feature of his life.
Yeah, if you look at the Captain America museum wing that is show in multiple movies and TV shows there’s all sort of info and imagery from the movies that no one was taking pictures of at the time. If they can gather all that info how simple was it to expect that after Cap “passed” that in the tributes to him someone talked to his ex-teammates and one joked, “yeah, you could never keep Cap down…he used to say all the time….” I mean, they were remaking the Statue of Liberty for him. I’m sure they covered everything.
1) They were pretty public with the shawarma, it’d be more unrealistic to assume nobody saw them there even during the aftermath/cleanup.
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2) Those are the times *we* saw Steve say it. How many times might he have said it during WW2 surrounded by the Howling Commandos, or during all the times he goes into action that didn’t make it into a movie, with who knows around him?
Perhaps it was also a catch phrase used in the movies he made, prior to actually participating in WWII battles. It would be known to a wide audience in that case.
I like to think that The Waitress, played by Ashley Johnson, having been saved by Captain America goes on to write the Battle of New York musical.
Scott WAS in New York during the battle — and Steve and Tony left him there for their side-trip to 1970. He may have had a hand in saving some people before returning to 2023; maybe not Andrew Lloyd Webber or Stephen Sondheim, but who knows what Broadway tunesmith might have needed saving from the Chitauri invasion? Scott may have altered the timeline ever so slightly — and altered himself into the musical entirely by accident.
You’ll have to ask the Time Variance Authority if that was duly approved…
I know how exactly how a musical was done with so many details: its because this is all fiction. It came about because its all made up and the writers thought it would be fun(ny) to make a musical number out of it. So there is your answer. Its fiction and not actually a real topic to debate.
I mean, that’s literally true of everything in every show and movie ever made. So don’t ever discuss any of it? Time to close down the website? Yet you’re here….