History YMMV / AvenueQ

* BrokenAesop: the theme of "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist". The message is that [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin everyone's a little bit racist,]] but certain lines come off less as "everyone makes incorrect assumptions about other based on race" and more as "AtLeastIAdmitIt." For example, Kate, Princeton, and Gary laughing at Christmas Eve's accent, then telling Brian to "come off it" when he defends her, is more than a "little" racist.

* HarsherInHindsight: In the early 00's, fraught with political correctness and debates about the same, "Everyone's A Little Bit Racist" was a funny reminder of our common, misanthropic humanity. One would be hard pressed to find the song landing the same way today.

** A [[https://youtu.be/cNARJPNz2CA fan video]] from 2007 combined Sesame Street clips with the song, and has Prairie Dawn in the part of Kate. Her performer, Stephanie D'Abruzzo, would take over as Prairie Dawn less than a decade later .
** Nicky and Gary simultaneously listing, "watching actors never reach the ending of their Oscar speech" as a source of schadenfreude might have gained some hilarity after Robert Lopez won the Best Song Oscar for ''WesternAnimation/{{Coco}}'', and successfully ''thwarted'' an attempt to cut short his speech.

* {{Wangst}}: Some people find Kate's part of "It Sucks to Be Me" this, since she claims her problems are worse than Brian's. To clarify, Brian just got laid off and doesn't have an income, while Kate's problem is... she doesn't have a boyfriend. Probably intentional since the entire musical is populated by characters who thrive on making their problems seem worse than they really are. Just after Kate's verse in "It Sucks To Be Me" when she tries to get Rod and Nicky to decide if her or Brian are worse off, Rod and Nicky then declare that [[TakeAThirdOption their lives are the worst]] because...they don't like each other as flatmates. And Princeton is arguably a ball of {{Wangst}} in a felt covering.

** How badly off is Gary Coleman? Everyone admits that his life sucks the most because he's a FormerChildStar whose parents stole all his money from him, and he serves as the superintendent and landlord for Avenue Q to pay the bills. Thing is, owning an apartment building in New York City is like owning a goldmine, and Kate Monster says he supplements that income by selling his old merchandise. Gary is also the OnlySaneMan in the dysfunctional cast; rather than kick Princeton out on learning he lost his job and thus can't pay rent, he gives him the advice to take the time to be introspective before searching for another position in a hurry. Gary also stays out of most of the drama that goes on between his tenants because he aptly points out it's none of his business; the exceptions are the racism song and "The Internet Is For Porn". It says something that a homeless Nicky concedes to Gary that it's mean how the latter enjoys his suffering but is correct that everyone revels in others' pain.
*** Is Gary actually the landlord, or is he just the superintendent? I only remember the word "superintendent", which is simply an employee of the landlord who collects bills and such on the landlord's behalf. In that case, Gary doesn't own the building.

** "I'm Not Wearing Underwear Today." While it ''does'' show how truly horribly unfunny Brian is, his unfunniness was already established.
** "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist." The set-up is plot relevant for establishing Kate's dream and the racism monsters face, but the song itself is just a parody of ''Sesame Street'''s {{Educational Song}}s that doesn't actually forward the plot or establish anything new about the characters. This doesn't stop it from being one of the most memorable songs of the show, though.

** The Bad Idea Bears [[spoiler:converting to Scientology at the end makes perfect sense for them. Until then, they could only get unemployed schlubs to do their bidding. Now they can benefit off the bad ideas of obscenely rich celebrities.]]

* {{Wangst}}: Some people find Kate's part of "It Sucks to Be Me" this, since she claims her problems are worse than Brian's. To clarify, Brian just got laid off and doesn't have an income, while Kate's problem is... she doesn't have a boyfriend. Probably intentional since the entire musical is populated by characters who thrive on making their problems seem worse than they really are. As an example, just after Kate's verse in "It Sucks To Be Me", Rod and Nicky then declare that their lives are the worst because...they don't like each other as flatmates. And Princeton is arguably a ball of {{Wangst}} in a felt covering.
* WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids: Don't let the Sesame Street-style puppetry and lighthearted musical numbers fool you. This play is not for children.

** The Hungarian production of the show is considered the best Hungarian localization of any work in recent years. The most significant change was the replacement of Gary Coleman with Music/MichaelJackson; this was in part because Gary is all but unknown in the country, and mostly because Hungary has almost no black population and thus no one to play the role. In the original book, Jacko ended up on Avenue Q after two six-year-olds sued him for his entire estate; after the Pop King's death it was adjusted to say that he faked his own death to escape from his creditors.

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* CrossesTheLineTwice: Some productions attempt to [[InvokedTrope invoke]] this by having Gary Coleman die at the end like his real life counterpart. Most people think these attempts all failed due to how bad in taste it was.

*** On another note, a [[https://youtu.be/cNARJPNz2CA fan video]] from 2007 combined Sesame Street clips with the song, and has Prairie Dawn in the part of Kate. Her performer, Stephanie D'Abruzzo, would take over as Prairie Dawn less than a decade later .