The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Fanon: Pairings Leaf/Logainne and Chip/Marcy. As they only have brief exchanges during the play, they're also Ships That Pass in the Night.
  • Tear Jerker: "The I Love You Song." Especially to tropers who grew up with divorced parents:

Olive: I think Dad is angry, Ma / And I do not know what to do ...I think he takes out on me / What he wants to take out on you

    • On the topic of Olive, her original segment of the Where Are They Now? Epilogue definitely counts: "Olive Ostrovsky went home to an empty house, an uncertain future, and a well-worn dictionary - but a strange new conviction that she would be able to face all three." Note that this also would have been the last line of the play. Fortunately, this was soon changed to a much, much more upbeat segment in which Olive reenacts the bee for her dad during the car ride home.
      • IMO, this is not an improvement. I like the twinge of depression, and you can't even call it exceptionally dark-it's still hopeful.
    • Also, Logainne's Dark Reprise.
    • Barfee has quite a few lines in "Second" that bring on the tears. The saddest ones: "People are scared of me and no one really likes me" and "Would I be happy second forever ever ever ever, to be always stuck in second."
  • Mary Sue: Marcy Park is this. Much to her chagrin.
  • What Do You Mean It's Not for Kids?: Any number of school productions don't seem to grasp that, if they need to Bowdlerize an entire musical number, they may have picked the wrong play.
  • The Woobie: Try to name one character who doesn't have at least shades of this. Hint: This is not possible.
    • Wanna bet?
      • Considering that the audience spellers are given new words if they spell theirs right, and that the remaining spellers cheer when the last of them is eliminated, they should probably count too.
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