Trivia / Galavant

• Ability over Appearance: Isabella is played by a Chinese-Indian-Jewish actress. Both of the character's parents are white.
• Adored by the Network: The higher-ups at ABC have said in interviews that they like this show and hope to find a way to let it continue. A run on Broadway has been openly mulled. But then a corporate reshuffle resulted in Galavant's biggest advocates being forced out…
• Author's Saving Throw: Before the second season premiered, the producers announced that they'd decided not to tempt the cancellation gods again, and while the season would leave the door open for more stories, it wouldn't be as absurdly open-ended as the first and allow the audience some level of closure in case this turned out to be it.
• Corpsing: At the time that the "Enchanted Forest" scene was filmed, Joshua Sasse and Kylie Minogue had just started dating. If you look at Galavant carefully, there are several shots where he is trying his hardest NOT to giggle out loud.
• Cut Song:
  • The scene where Gareth tries to start a bar fight with Your Mom insults was going to feature a song, but the ABC execs rejected Menken's work as too dirty. Considering the dialogue that they allowed to go on air, how dirty could the song have been? To start off, it was titled "Your Mother Is A Whore". It featured 57 total bleeps and that number is actually deceptively low since toward the end it's bleeping out entire verses at a time. Have a listen here. NSFW, obviously.
  • The scene with Garreth teaching Richard proper macho behavior had a song written for it called "Manlyology." Much of it was converted into normal dialogue. Like the above, it's on the complete version of the soundtrack.
  • Press screeners for "Joust Friends" had an "Eye of the Tiger" parody used for the training montage rather than "Stand Up." It was not released on any of the soundtracks.
• Dawson Casting: Isabella states she is about ten years older than her eleven-year-old cousin (she's later definitively stated to be 25), while her actress was 35.
  • In an inversion, Galavant is implied to be in his late thirties based on a season one flashback that takes place "thirty winters ago" and features an approximately eight-years-old Galavant. Joshua Sasse, however, was only 26 during the filming of season one.
• Dyeing for Your Art: Timothy Omundson really did grow out his hair and beard to play Richard. Conversely, Vinnie Jones shaved his head to play Gareth.
• Executive Meddling: Timothy Omundson was always Dan Fogelman's first choice to play Richard, but network executives kept wanting a big-name British movie star (may or may not have been Kenneth Branagh) for the role. Fogelman had to run constant interference until the network's preferred choice officially declined, allowing Omundson to take up the part.
• Fake Nationality: While they don English accents, Mallory Jansen is Australian and Timothy Omundson's American. Omundson noticeably drops his accent for the line in the Season 2 finale, "You may have killed one dragon, but you've awoken another."
• Looping Lines: Inverted. The cast recorded their vocal tracks prior to shooting, but also sang live on set. The producers often chose to mix in the on-set vocals with the prerecorded ones, which resulted in fluctuating audio quality during songs.
• Network to the Rescue: The show's ratings were decent, but not stellar, and steadily dropped but ABC gave it a surprise renewal. Unfortunately, this is suspected to be a major factor in the network's president getting fired a few months later when Season 2's ratings had a big drop.
• No Export for You: Despite being filmed in Britain and having many cast members who UK viewers have no trouble recognising, guess where it has yet to be shown in any form (even despite an appearance by Kylie Minogue)? In a strange turn the soundtrack is available in the UK.
• The Other Darrin: A rather brief flashback in Season 1 has Anthony Stewart Head playing Galavant's father. In Season 2 Galavant reconnects with his father, only now Galavant's father is being played by Greg Wise.
• Romance on the Set: The show booked Kylie Minogue for a guest appearance, she hit it off with Joshua Sasse, got engaged, but broke up in February 2017. Try re-watching "Off With His Shirt", knowing that they were together. Oof.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The first look trailer has an alternate version of the opening and closing song, with some different lyrics and vocals that were changed by the time the show went to air.
  • Joshua Sasse had been cast in another show so there were plans to shift focus to a cousin of Galavant in Season 3 should Sasse be unable to return. Galavant was cancelled not long after this, though, rendering the contingency moot.
  • The next season also would have had to deal with Richard's absence after Timothy Omundson suffered a stroke. So it probably is for the best they didn't have to try.

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