Trivia / Little White Lie

• Blooper: Matt, Nick and Brian have joked about the number of Orange Juliuses on the tray Sami's dad is holding suddenly multiplying from two to three between cuts as their finest moment as filmmakers.
• Breakaway Pop Hit: "Sami" was considered good enough to be put on Darren Criss's Human EP, leading his fans to speculate who "Sami" was. Also, StarKid fans seem to see "Boy Toy" as this in a So Bad, It's Good way, judging by the requests for the concert tours.
• Creator Backlash: Although none of the people who worked on Little White Lie hate the finished product, there's a lot about it they say they find embarrassing. More importantly, Matt and Nick Lang have described how absolutely grueling and demoralizing the process of making Little White Lie was, which, combined with the disappointing lack of notice it got when first created, permanently turned both of them off of making "real" TV as opposed to the live theatre productions they're now known for.
• Creator-Driven Successor: Coming in June 2020 is a comedy series titled Royalties on the new streaming platform Quibi, which is similar in many ways to the idea Team Starkid had when making this show (a sitcom-style format in a contemporary setting focused on the music industry), starring Darren Criss and with the Lang Brothers involved as writers behind the scenes. Darren has talked about it as a long-delayed culmination of their original plans in college.
• The Danza: Jim Povolo and Meredith Stepien. Jim is even consistently referred to by his full name, "Jim Povolo".
• Dawson Casting: As is usual for a high school show, though not as bad as it often is since almost all the actors were in college together at the time. The fact that the average age of Team Starkid is now way older has been cited as a major reason Season 2 isn't happening, though. (Notably, Chris Allen, who played major character Duder, now looks totally different than he did in 2007.)
• Hostility on the Set: According to Eric Kahn Gale, the original composer for the show, Grant Anderson, got upset when Darren Criss joined the team after the project already started, with everyone immediately recognizing Criss was the stronger songwriter and performer. Anderson's music is still in the show, but mostly as the signature songs of the "bad" other bands on the show. It took some time for Anderson to accept that Criss' involvement was the best thing for the show.
  • Became majorly Harsher in Hindsight after Anderson's near-fatal car accident during production.
• Irony as She Is Cast: For any fans of StarKid, Lauren Lopez taking an early role where she plays a character who's Hollywood Tone-Deaf and has no sense of rhythm or stage presence is certainly this. For that matter, so is having her play a Girly Girl Alpha Bitch who relentlessly mocks Sami for being "masculine", when she became famous for playing boys.
  • Extra extra ironic when Tanya spreads the cruel rumor that Sami plans to transition, which only leads to all the other popular girls speculating about how hot Sami would be as a Bishounen and how it makes them question their own sexuality. This is pretty much the fandom's reaction to Lauren Lopez's many such roles.
  • A lesser example, since his character is also a skilled musician, but fans find it amusing to watch Darren Criss fumble with the chords and lyrics for songs he wrote and made famous, especially since Kevin's original recordings on the show are also performed by Criss (with the pitch digitally altered).
• Life Imitates Art: Elona Finlay finds the gag with Tanya baking herself "Welcome Tanya cookies" when she joins the band Hilarious in Hindsight because Lauren Lopez baked her cookies in real life to welcome her to the cast when she drove in from Canada to replace Lauren as Sami.
• Missing Episode: For whatever reason, Lauren Lopez and Brian Holden's cover of "It's Over Now" from the SPACE Tour is the only performance from that concert not available on the official tour CD, and can only be heard in low-quality bootlegs on YouTube.
  • Doubly a shame because it's an amazing Hilarious in Hindsight moment when, after all the drama over Tanya being unable even to stay on tune as a backup singer for "It's Over Now" on the show, Lauren singing as herself arguably does a better job with the song than Elona Finlay did in the original.
  • Darren Criss also made a surprise appearance at the Los Angeles stop of the Apocalyptour introducing himself by playing "It's Over Now", which also wasn't on the album. The song seems to be officially reserved as Bonus Material for attendees of the live concerts.
• Non-Singing Voice: Kevin (Nick Lang) sings the demo version of "It's Over Now", and Duder (Chris Allen) sings backup on Little White Lie's version. In both cases, Darren Criss provides their singing.
• Playing Against Type: See Typecasting below. Eric Kahn Gale's previous short films had Chris Allen as a Jerkass victimizing Nick Lang's character; this time he's the innocent Woobie dragged into it by his sister.
  • On a more superficial note, Starkid fans used to Allen as the chubby comic relief might find it jarring that in college he was a Mr. Fanservice heartthrob.
• Real-Life Relative: Viewers trying to spot bloopers often think they see Kevin in the crowd of extras at the battle of the bands even though he's supposed to be in a coma; that's actually director Matt Lang, Nick Lang's brother, helping fill in the crowd. (Darren Criss is, however, in the crowd watching himself in a conspicuous hoodie and sunglasses.) Eric Kahn Gale's sister Alyssa also served as an extra in this scene.
  • Most of the incidental music that wasn't performed by Darren Criss as part of Kevin's catalogue was instead performed by his brother Chuck (of the band Freelance Whales).
• Technology Marches On: Zach complains that it takes 30-40 minutes to burn each one of Little White Lie's merch CDs, which only have one track ("It's Over Now"). Also, there's a nailbiting Race Against the Clock to see whether Tanya can finish downloading "It's Over Now" from Kevin's website before it goes down, a process that takes several minutes (as opposed to seconds).
  • Everything about Kevin's website, which seemed retro even for when the show was made in 2007. (Possibly intentional, since Kevin is a huge dork who's supposedly had this website for years.) In particular, the idea of a website with a memorable but "secret" URL makes much less sense than an unlisted YouTube channel, which would've made the plot of that episode impossible.
• The Other Darrin: The actors who play the assorted bands seen throughout the series are constantly changing. Love Grenade manages to keep the same lineup through the whole series, but the Hunkytonks, Ex-Boyfriends, and Hot Girls never stay completely consistent.
• Troubled Production: Eric Kahn Gale gave a postmortem detailing this when explaining why Season 2 was unlikely to ever happen. Much of the footage from when they were first learning to film was unusable, explaining why the first three episodes had to be heavily reworked (turning them into three very long multi-part episodes), and why a ton of dialogue had to be ADRed. This required Elona Finlay especially to spend a ton of time looping new lines, and Eric, Nick and Brian syncing the edits took over a year after shooting wrapped. Gale and the Langs describe it as "the most work we've ever done in our lives" and an experience they were loath to return to.
• Typecasting:
  • Even though he would go on to play characters as diverse as Remus Lupin, an Expy of Burke from Aliens, Jar-Jar Binks and even Superman, Brian Holden's characters all seem to share Zach's basic nature as a loser who tries too hard to be liked and therefore fails. Lampshaded by Lauren Lopez poking fun at him for this on the SPACE Tour.
  • The funding for Little White Lie was secured by proto-Team Starkid winning a contest on the strength of two short films they'd made, Night Call and The Harder They Fall. Both of them feature Nick Lang as a young innocent Nice Guy and massive Woobie, much as he is in this show. (The latter even has Chris Allen stealing and profiting from his work.) Nick would go on to play a grossly exaggerated version of this character type as Robin.
  • This show begins the longstanding tradition of Meredith Stepien appearing as Ms. Fanservice in Starkid productions (though her roles quickly become more substantial).
  • And of course LWL also starts the tradition of Jim Povolo appearing as a Comically Serious Big Guy Ensemble Dark Horse.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The role of Sami was originally written for Lauren Lopez. Lopez never gelled with Sami's character and Eric Kahn Gale was so impressed when she tried reading for Tanya instead he completely rewrote Tanya's character to fit her performance. Sami was the only character they ended up having to cast from outside their group of friends, and Elona Finlay being based in Canada was a major obstacle to Season 2 ever getting off the ground.
  • Eric Kahn Gale briefly posted a synopsis of the planned Season 2 of Little White Lie on his Tumblr (which has since been removed). The high points:
    • Kevin wakes up from his coma and is mostly okay except for many missing patches in his memory, including of the day of his accident.
    • Tanya, overcome with guilt, gets closer to Kevin, and ends up going on a date with him but he still only has eyes for Sami. Duder, still being a spy, sees them going out and is heartbroken.
    • Everything falls apart when Kevin hears one of his songs being played by Little White Lie and suddenly regains his memory in full. He confronts the members of Little White Lie, and demands that Sami break up with Toby and kick him out of the band in return for him joining the band, rather than exposing their secret.
    • Having apparently gotten everything he wanted, Kevin eventually realizes Sami was never the person he thought he loved, and dejectedly decides to quit the band; Duder, seeing how unforgivable their actions have been, quits too in disgust. Kevin's last words to Sami are a promise that her secret is safe.
      “The songs are yours to use if you want. They’re all about you anyway, and they don’t mean anything to me anymore."
    • Finally achieving fame and fortune with Little White Lie as a solo act, Sami is performing on national TV when she comes to the same realization Kevin did, that everything she now has is a meaningless illusion. She confesses everything that happened on live TV, and lets Kevin have the career that was always rightfully his.
    • The series ends with Sami, Duder and Toby performing as "Reese's Pieces" once more in their freshman year of college, content with making music for its own sake as long as it's genuinely theirs.
  • Eric Kahn Gale claimed there were other elements they planned to add in Season 2 as it developed, such as revealing Tanya's Spear Counterpart, a Pretty Boy brother played by Joe Walker.
  • Darren Criss wrote the song "Days of Summer" as a signature song for Season 2 the way "It's Over Now" was for Season 1. Finding another place to recycle it became a Running Gag among Team Starkid until it finally became the grand finale number of A Very Potter Sequel.
  • Darren Criss wrote a lot of still unheard music for this show, including a different signature song for Hunkytonk ("Piece of My Heart") that was rejected for relying too much on risqué Double Entendre humor for a family friendly series. (This is major Irony given the kind of humor the Starkid brand later became famous for.)
  • In a meta way, this whole show is one for Team Starkid. This show was funded by winning a Disney contest intended to help develop new properties for their Soapnet channel — the creators all got jobs at Soapnet while trying to make this happen, but their bosses apparently didn't like what they saw. If this show had taken off it would've set the stage for their career in TV, and A Very Potter Musical and "Starkid Productions" as we know it would not exist. It's fascinating to realize that Disney recognized Team Starkid's talents long before the rest of the world did and actually had several of them on its payroll before letting them go to become an indie troupe who parody Disney and other big media franchises.
• Word of God: Eric Kahn Gale says that the sequel to The Bully Book will tie back into Little White Lie. He implied that Tanya was one of the readers of the Bully Book who used its advice to become popular, and Kevin one of the "Grunts".
• Word of Saint Paul: Lauren Lopez and Brian Holden had fun with this on the SPACE Tour, such as bickering over whether Little White Lie qualifies as a Starkid or "pre-Starkid" production. Notably, Lauren claimed that Tanya is the "tragically misunderstood real heroine" of the story, a position often shared by fans. Brian went on to claim that his character was a similarly complex troubled soul, only for Lauren to point out that he's simply mistaken himself for Darren Criss.

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