Lin-Manuel Miranda aids Desus and Mero's EGOT quest with Babe Ruth: The Musical
Desus Nice and The Kid Mero have been using their rapidly expanding Showtime talk show platform to scan the horizon for more worlds to conquer. Specifically, the rarified air of the planet EGOT, as the duo have used Desus & Mero to rope various award-winning guests into assisting them in their quest for glory. In the past, they’ve pitched Oscar-bait to Oscar-winner Jordan Peele (money’s on that Back To The Future remake), and actual EGOT possessor John Legend (look for their collaboration “Chocolate Galaxy” to sweep next year’s Grammys), so those two letters are accounted for. Next up for the Bodega Boys is that pesky Tony. Luckily for them, future EGOT-winner Lin-Manuel Miranda was in the house for Monday’s show.
First seen tinkling the keys for his own proposed Total Recall musical (“Consider this a divoooorce!”), the Hamilton impresario welcomed Desus and Mero to Broadway. Talking about filming the In The Heights movie on location in Manhattan’s titular Washington Heights, Miranda spoke feelingly about filming “a love letter to the neighborhood,” before the now-trio got down to business. That being Desus and Mero’s proposed Babe Ruth musical, a grand theatrical bio of the legendary Yankee slugger and first Dominican superstar in the all-white national pastime. Assuring the skeptical Miranda that Ruth (sorry, Bebé Ruth) was indeed passing in whiteface throughout his entire career (he was traded from the notoriously racist Boston franchise pretty abruptly), fellow Dominican Mero essayed the role with glee—and the inspirational help of Desus’ Jackie Robinson. (Just go with it.) With the pair enduring being pelted with plantains by a pair of sneering Yankee “white power hitters,” the defiant Bebé (accompanied by Miranda at the piano in full catcher’s gear and the seemingly time-lost Robinson) crooned about his dream of being the first Dominican-American (but in whiteface) baseball star. As a teary Miranda pronounced at the conclusion, “I taught them everything they know.” Which, admittedly, seems like not very much.