YMMV / Starlight Express

• Americans Hate Tingle: While it was successful in the West End and especially Germany, it was a Box Office Bomb on Broadway, and didn't leave any more of a lasting impression with its United States tours. In WaitInTheWing's retrospective, he attributes this not only to market cannibalization with the creator's other shows,^note Cats and The Phantom of the Opera for Andrew Lloyd Webber; Les Misérables for Trevor Nunn, John Napier, and David Hersey. but the availability of adrenaline-pumping activities across the country: why watch a show about people going fast on rollerskates, when you could experience these thrills yourself on a roller coaster? The only reason why Americans now know about this show at all is because of a Cutaway Gag on Family Guy poking fun at the show.
• Cargo Ship: Technically, all the relationships in the show. They are toy trains.
• Cult Classic: The dedication exhibited by this show's small group of fans (when compared to the likes of The Phantom of the Opera, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, The Wizard of Oz, or even Cats) is of Rocky Horror-esque proportions.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Electra's components.
  • CB/Caboose also to an extent, for being a brutal psychopath in the shape of an innocent-looking red caboose.
• Evil Is Cool: C.B. is a universally popular character because he's just so delightfully villainous. He crashes trains, but he's so brilliant and entertaining that it's impossible not to like him.
• Fanon: In many of the show's fanfics, the train yard in which the show is set is called the Apollo Victoria train yard, after the West End theatre that originally housed the show. Also, Purse is often seen with green hair in fanart, despite that never being the case in the show itself.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Germans indeed- Starlight is so popular in Germany, it has a theater built specifically for it in Bochum, where it's been playing continuously since 1988!
• Nightmare Fuel: C.B., once you figure out that he's a goddamn serial killer who hasn't ever been caught.
• Parody Displacement: Mention this show to people by name and chances are they'll immediately start quoting the Family Guy Cutaway Gag of Peter being the only actor in a revival of the show consisting of him just saying "Starlight Express!" over and over until he gets fed up and leaves.
• Retroactive Recognition: A recording of The New Starlight Express starred Marc Cohn as Greaseball, a few years before he would release his quintessential 90s One-Hit Wonder, "Walking In Memphis."
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: A common opinion about many changes introduced after the original 1984 production. Most notably panned is Electra's Villainous Breakdown being replaced with him sharing in Greaseball and CB's comeuppance.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: From the unique rollerskating to the innovative set design with race tracks laid out around the stage and the auditorium. All of this makes Starlight Express an unforgettable experience.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: Depending on the incarnation, the musical includes hate-motivated beatings, a Serial Killer villain, Domestic Abuse, marital infidelity, a young woman singing a solo about her favorite sexual experience, a retired prostitute, a character who maintains an equal-opportunity harem, an ocean's worth of sexual innuendo in general, and references to smoking, alcohol, and drugs. The show manages to get away with all these elements because the characters are anthropomorphic toy trains. The Las Vegas version of the musical, which featured the main female characters in showgirl costumes, actually wasn't intended for kids, but attracted family audiences regardless.
• Why Would Anyone Take Him Back?: Dinah accepts Greaseball, who's cheated on her and is implied to beat her, back into her life at the first opportunity. (One might also think the same thing about Rusty accepting Pearl's apology...)
  • This is further played on by the fact that Dinah's solo song is wholly dedicated to how sad she is about her and Greaseball's initial break-up, and how she doesn't want to get back with him in the future.
    Dinah: He'll come crawling back one day, and I'll turn to him and say: go away, you B.A.S.T.A.R.D!

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