While Netflix has left a big cultural footprint in its recent efforts to revive the romantic comedy, it’s just one area in which the streamer is providing a wealth of creative opportunity that’s running dry elsewhere in the entertainment landscape. The downside of the Netflix model is the company can ax things it claims aren’t making an impact—while keeping all that mysterious viewership data for its programming in-house. But that’s an easy compromise to make in exchange for what might be the closest thing in Hollywood to a blank check. That power and creative leeway is something that, later this year, will allow Martin Scorsese to drop a gangster epic centered on Frank Sheeran and Jimmy Hoffa. It’s also how the Lonely Island can drop a 30-minute “visual poem” about former Oakland Athletics superstars José Canseco and Mark McGwire’s secretly recording a rap album in 1988.
You read that correctly. After the Lonely Island offered a cryptic teaser Wednesday about a stealth launch on Netflix at midnight, many made guesses on what it’d be about, but I don’t think anyone saw this coming. The Lonely Island Presents: The Unauthorized Bash Brothers Experience is deliriously random content; the only possible link between the Lonely Island and Canseco and McGwire is that its members—Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, and Jorma Taccone—were all raised in the Oakland area, and presumably watched the players growing up. (And eventually bore witness to Canseco and McGwire’s dramatic fall from grace as two of the most prominent stars tarnished by Major League Baseball’s steroid era.)
But—and I can’t believe I’m typing this—you don’t need any context on the MLB steroid scandal or the disgraced careers of McGwire (played by Schaffer) and Canseco (Samberg) to enjoy this 30-minute “visual poem.” Like the viral videos of the group’s heydey on Saturday Night Live, it’s best to let this weird thing wash over you, enjoy the abundance of cameos (in here: Sia, Haim, Maya Rudolph, Jenny Slate, Stephanie Beatriz, and Sterling K. Brown) and appreciate the fact this group can flex something so beguiling on Netflix in the first place.
What is The Unauthorized Bash Brothers Experience actually like? Presumably it’s what Buster Olney’s mind would look like after ingesting ayahuasca. The primary influences are Beyonce’s Lemonade—like Bey’s own “visual album,” the actual songs from the Lonely Island are available to stream online—and Terrence Malick. You don’t know you need Samberg-as-Canseco saying, “Where do the animals go when the soil has run dry? Where will we hide from the sun when all the trees are dead?” interwoven with meditative shots of a forest until you see it.
As for the music, The Unauthorized Bash Brothers Experience has a couple of stand-out hits, including “IHOP Parking Lot,” where the likes of Rudolph and Haim pressure McGwire and Canseco to shake their butts, the tenor of the requests becoming increasingly demonic to reflect the pressures of fame both players faced at the height of their careers. There’s also “Daddy,” which posits that both players were tempted into butt injections so that they could mash even more dingers and finally earn the approval of their fathers. This is definitely reading way too much into The Unauthorized Bash Brothers Experience—and, again, none of this matters if all you wanna do is just luxuriate in Sterling K. Brown doing bicep curls in a kimono.
As a cinematic companion to an actual album, it’s unclear whether the Lonely Island have any plans to continue their partnership with Netflix—or whether The Unauthorized Bash Brothers Experience is a one-time deal. It’s the group’s first album since the companion album for their 2016 film Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, so the fact we’re getting any new Lonely Island material is a blessing in and of itself. The trio, one of the most influential groups in the era of internet comedy, have always stood out because they embrace the weird and serendipitous. And a Lemonade spoof about two baseball players you probably haven’t thought of in ages—unless you follow Canseco’s ramblings on Twitter—is definitely on-brand.
Aside from the tantalizing prospect of Canseco’s addressing The Unauthorized Bash Brothers Experience on Twitter, hopefully Netflix and the Lonely Island can continue this association. Popstar bombed at the box office (though it’s since achieved a cultlike status), and perhaps in part due to Samberg’s lead role on Brooklyn Nine-Nine, the Lonely Island has been tragically quiet in recent years. This is a—to say the least—unique way to return to the zeitgeist, but it’s on a digital platform that has the impact and freedom to streamline the group’s niche interests. The Unauthorized Bash Brothers Experience is a weird flex, but we’d be more than OK if the Lonely Island gave us more stuff like this, on a streamer that’s clearly content to let them do whatever the hell they want.
