‘Schmigadoon!’: Mayor Menlove and Reverend Layton Share Special Moment in Apple TV+ Exclusive Clip

The fourth episode of Schmigadoon! will premiere on Apple TV+ Friday, and two of the main characters in the series share a special moment. In an exclusive clip for PopCulture.com, Mayor Aloysius Menlove (Alan Cumming) runs into Reverend Howard Layton (Fred Armisen) who is selling baked goods. Layton tells Menlove that he made rhubarb squares, but nobody is interested in them. Menlove mentions that he loves rhubarb squares and buys two of them. He then offers Layton one of them to eat, but Layton’s wife Mildred (Kristin Chenoweth) takes it from him because she tells him that’s he’s on a diet.

Menlove and Layton seem to like each other despite both of them being married. That storyline is one of the reasons why Schmigadoon! has received its share of strong reviews since premiering earlier this month. The six-episode series stars Keegan-Michael Key and Cecily Strong who is also a producer. During a press junket, Strong talked about her love for theatre as Schimgadoon pays homage to some of the most recognizable musicals in history.

“I absolutely was a fan,” Strong told PopCulture in a roundtable interview when asked about being a fan of musicals. “My grandma would bring me VHS. She’d give me some, we’d rent them from the movie store, was VHS when I was little. I watched Oliver. I loved South Pacific. I think I watched My Fair Lady, West Side Story. And then I remember, as I got older, then it was like, I have the Once on This Island soundtrack that I listened to every day in sixth grade. And then, I mean, I was a theater nerd from very young.”

Schimigadoon! is directed by Barry Sonnefeld, and he explained to PopCulture.com why working on the series was not challenging. “It was pretty easy because the secret to directing is having really good scripts and then casting it properly,” Sonnenfeld said to PopCulture. “So, we had great scripts, and we casted properly. For me, it was pretty easy. You would think that the song and dance numbers would be challenging, but we did so many rehearsals and pre-production that we would photograph on.

“The choreographer would photograph on his iPhone. We’d get the results. I’d make some suggestions. He’d re-choreograph it. I’d make new suggestions. So by the time we got on the set, every single angle was planned out, and with lenses and the angle, it’s very easy to shoot those scenes. It was harder to actually shooting some of the dialogue things.”

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