How Nickelodeon's Henry Danger Hooked My Daughter Onto Musicals

Greg Ehrhardt, OnStage Blog Editorial Staff

One of the 21st century Broadway trends I absolutely loathe is the continued adaptations of classic American movies into stage productions.

Sure, some have worked, but the trend just reeks of laziness and short-term thinking, especially when most of the audience are foreign tourists and generally affluent white Americans.

I might be reconsidering this after my 8-year-old daughter just got hooked on the “Henry Danger The Musical” (which can be viewed on Paramount+ for those streaming at home)

She was not so much a fan of Broadway show musicals up until this point. We showed her Hamilton on Disney+ after she heard the soundtrack played in our house a bunch of times, and she was bored after about 10 minutes. I don’t blame her, it’s a show for adults! But it underscored a larger point for me, which is we need more musicals geared specifically for kids to better hook them into the world of musicals.

The Henry Danger Musical was specifically a stand-alone episode in season 5 of the hit show, it wasn’t made for any type of stage. Cleverly, they released it as a soundtrack of its own which can be heard on Spotify or wherever you listen to online music these days, and that’s how my daughter has been listening to it multiple times a day over the last 3 weeks.

Here’s the thing: even though Henry Danger is a show meant for kids, objectively, it is not a bad musical! It sounds a lot like what’s currently on Broadway that’s marketed to mainstream audiences, and the only reason it doesn’t work as a stand alone musical is that it was made to fit into a 40-minute episode.

Also, the musical is surprisingly witty for a Henry Danger material, poking fun at musicals while embracing the format. Heart, pre-teen humor, and peppy musical numbers with good hooks. What more could a newcomer to musicals want?

I think about this as I contemplate how to grow the Broadway audience. You can certainly get hooked onto musicals as an adult, but it is so much easier when you’re hooked as a kid.

Musicals based on famous Disney IP could work, but the problem is Disney IP caters to adults as much as kids these days, which is going to drive ticket prices up.

You also don’t want to make a musical that’s clearly meant for little kids, with songs that sound like nursery rhymes; that wouldn’t serve as a sufficient gateway to traditional Broadway musicals. The musical needs to be targeted to kids aged 8-13, and specifically, only that age range. This is where Disney properties like Descendants and Zombies could come more into play, but again, those shows have a wierd appeal for adults as well as kids.

Unfortunately, shows like Henry Danger represents the sweet spot for pre-teens: old enough to not appear to be for babies, but young enough that adults won’t be interested.

Now, I have no delusions that Broadway is going to start financing big productions with a limited target audience, but, there is precedent for this; after all, there was a Winnie The Pooh musical this year with a younger target audience.

Most Broadway Musicals are traditional in their song structure, and that song structure has appeal to adults since that is what they grew up on. For kids, with music the way it is today, getting them hooked on it is fighting an uphill, upriver battle. Using fun IP like Henry Danger with unique appeal to kids to introduce them to the world of musicals is a great introduction to them.

I don’t know if my daughter will be forever hooked on musicals, but I do know that she’s had more fun with the Henry Danger musical as any Disney movie musical she has ever watched.

That by itself is a goal worth trying to scale for all kids worldwide.