Michael Shannon Is Ringo Starr, Jason Segel Turns Into a Penguin, and More in ‘Strangest Things: The Golden Mysteries’ — Watch
As IndieWire’s TV team is painfully aware, now is the time of year — Upfronts — when television networks present their fall lineups. Stephen Colbert got in on the action during last night’s episode of “The Late Show,” consulting a think tank made up of small children to pitch new shows. (In other news, that isn’t actually how networks decide which new series to produce.)
Following the success of their “Teenage War,” which starred John Malkovich, the Kids Pitch gang came up with “Strangest Things: The Golden Mysteries.”
After pointing out that “Game of Thrones” is based on a series of novels, Colbert asks the kiddos whether they have a favorite book of their work. Following a brief tangent about one kid’s near-encyclopedic knowledge of the Beatles, the group eventually settle on a basic premise: A boy and a girl, aided by a good witch, go on a search for gold hidden in a secret drawer in an apartment in Florida; should they fail in that quest, an evil witch will curse them, turning them into penguins at night. Eventually, the Beatles and a rap-battling alien get involved.
“Strangest Things” has quite the cast: Brooke Shields (as herself), Jason Segel (as Jeff Daniels), Kathryn Hahn (as the evil witch), Willem Dafoe (as the rap-battling alien), Whoopi Goldberg (as the good witch), plus Michael Shannon, Hugh Laurie, John Oliver, David, and Tennant as the Beatles. Watch the full segment below.
