While some of you may recognize Rachel Bloom from her racy YouTube music videos, she is probably a new face to most. The only thing we can guarantee, though, is that you will definitely be seeing her face more often after you fall in love with the CW's new show "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend."
Bloom, 28, is bringing a whole new form of comedy to this show by proving that stalking and being obsessed are two totally different things when it comes to love. In the musical comedy, which premieres tonight on The CW, Bloom plays Rebecca Bunch, a high-powered New York lawyer who ends up dropping everything to move to California in hopes of rekindling the flame with a high school lover. Bringing music and comedy together is something we haven't seen in a while, but Bloom promises it will be worth a watch.
"Bloom's brand of comedy is one part raunch, one part Jewish neurosis and another part inversion of musical theater's often saccharine sensibility," according to Time. "As she describes it, 'doing the genre so hard that you're parodying the genre.'"
Before you decide to add this new show to your must-watch list, here are a few things you should know about Bloom and why you're going to fall in love with her humor.
1. She Started On YouTube
Five years ago, Bloom rose to Internet fame with her music video "F--k Me, Ray Bradbury" in which she sings about all the sexual things she'd like the sci-fi writer to do to her. It completely started off her career and is one of her biggest hits to date with over 2 million views, according to Refinery 29. Because of this video and several other NSFW comedy clips — including "You Can Touch My Boobies" and "Pictures Of Your D--k" — Bloom became known for her way out there, honest humor. As someone who went to school for musical theater, she wanted to bring a little of that to TV, but in a way only she can. "This could be the Cali native's major breakout role, transitioning her from the computer screen to the silver screen and bringing her own unique and unapologetically truthful brand of musical theater to a platform much bigger than any stage," explained Refinery 29.
2. She Has No Filter And Says What She Really Means
If you couldn't already tell by the titles of her YouTube videos and the language within them, Bloom has absolutely no shame in saying what's on her mind, no matter how dirty or sexual that thought may be. "The shows an f'ed up romantic comedy," she told the Wrap, while also telling Refinery 29 that it's all about "giving up everything for love, when it's in fact the wrong decision."
As for her plans to bring dirty comedy to TV without being too dirty, she plans to post the explicit versions of the songs on YouTube so she doesn't "feel limited," she told Time. "There are ways to be dirty without using the language. As long as the joke is a hard joke, as long as it's not innuendo, as long as it's not coy — because that's the death of laugh-out-loud humor, coyness. Kind of like, 'I'm saying the thing but not really saying the thing.' That's what I try to avoid."
3. She's A Writer
Not only has she written for Adult Swim's "Robot Chicken," but she is also is co-writing the new show. "I co-wrote with Alnie Brosh McKenna, my co-creator, episodes one, two and three," she told the Wrap. "And I have a heavy hand in most of the songs, most of the music videos and as much as I can... I'm going to be as involved as I humanly can. Probably between every take I'm going to be reading scripts, giving notes, writing on the weekends."
As for working with McKenna, who wrote "The Devil Wears Prada," she was stoked. "She's truly brilliant," she told Time. "And our sensibilities are different. We like the same thing, but we come from two different backgrounds. So the way we wrote the first three episodes was just improvising in a room... We created a tone together that I don't think either of us would have created on our own."
4. She Was One Of Cosmopolitan's 2014 Comics To Watch
"Pulling together musical talent, edgy humor, well-produced videos and a critical eye for the messed-up sexual and cultural norms in today's society," said Cosmo about the comedian. They praised her for her videos, her singing and all she's done for shows like "Robot Chicken" and "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend."
5. She's Happy Showtime Decided To Drop The Show
The half-hour pilot was originally pitched to Showtime, but they decided to pass because they "felt it wasn't right for them," according to Variety. CW president Mark Pedowitz thinks it's the perfect fit for his network, though. "Rachel Bloom is a breakout. The last time I felt this was last year with Gina Rodriquez [of 'Jane The Virgin']," said Pedowitz. "We're going to take chances. Unfortunately, we have to tone it down a little bit, because we're a broadcaster and not pay cable. There are certain words we can't use."
Bloom agrees with Pedowitz and is overall happy that Showtime ended up dropping it. "I was ecstatic. I was so so excited," she told the Wrap about The CW picking it up. "We thought the show was dead, and then I heard that someone wanted to revive it and kind of change it in a great way. It gives us more time to explore all the characters and really, like, live in the space."
She then went on to explain how they did have to make some changes, but that this was okay. "Obviously, the language has to change, and there's a pretty explicit scene in the original pilot where I'm doing things to a man that will now be changed to doing less things to a man, but still doing things to said man. But you know other than, like, the surface of things of like you can't show certain sexual things, you can't say certain words; the tone of the show has not really changed cause the show's not about sex. It's not about boobs. It's not about the f-word. It's about obsession. And that's something that you can show on broadcast, and CW has been so game for this crazy-pants show. It really has not changed that much, and I love that we now have the time to really live in each episode."
