The one that grabbed him was ‘Frankly Franklin,’ which was a rip-off of ‘Hamilton, about Benjamin Franklin. She put together a whole series of plays and Rian loved them. Angela Parrish is an incredibly funny writer. My suggestion was to bring in a songwriter. “We had an interesting and unique situation where we had a montage that was going to be all these famous musical numbers from ‘The Wiz’ and ‘Cats.’ Clearing those songs is obscenely expensive and we would need a grant of rights from the writers of those musicals. “The Frankly Franklin Medley” by Angela Parrish Who would have thought that would be the song to put in there? There’s a beautiful raw genius to it.” It’s another example of why Rian is such a joy to work with. They’re so charming and so fun, and it feels random, but it feels great. The trickiest one, that I have a personal soft spot for, is Ngozi Family’s ‘Hold On,’ which shows up twice in the episode and closes it out. “The episode’s editor, Shaheed Qaasim and Rian filled ‘Time of the Monkey’ with Rian’s favorite obscure songs.
