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Mothers Against the Future are responsible for Schmigadoon's supernatural properties.
There can be no guessing that Schmigadoon is supernatural, their town capable of functioning with no contact with the outside world, and their weird anachronistic society existing with no one wiser. Mothers Against the Future are derisively referred to as witches by the other townsfolk, but what if they are witches? What if all of the town's weirdness (the singing and dancing, the infinitely looping bridge, etc.) is due to their machinations?

How they accomplished this and why are both suspected? Odds are the Martin Short-Leprechaun has something to do with it, having enslaved him to create their Hidden Elf Village or had angered him in some way, Schmigadoon's weird reality an Ironic Hell he devised. Perhaps they did this out of a desire to "preserve" what they think of as a "pure" society, keeping everyone under an elaborate Lotus-Eater Machine and actively pruning anything they see as deviant in any way. They are literally against the future and they will destroy anything they think represents it.

  • Jossed.

When Danny punches Josh for "stealing his girl", he means Emma, not Melissa.

Josh and Melissa barely interact after breaking up, and the townspeople are well aware of their split. It's implied at the beginning of Episode 5 that enough time has passed for them to genuinely be dating Doc Lopez and Emma, and could have been noticed by the townspeople. Emma appears determined to raise Carson alone, and never reveals any details about who his father is when retelling their story to Josh as if avoiding the subject of him altogether, and implies that she only came to live in Schmigadoon in the last few years. Outside of his flirtation with Melissa, Danny's reputation is largely an Informed Attribute, and after they spend the night together, he immediately assumes that she's pregnant and worries about not being able to provide for his hypothetical child—as if he's been in the situation before. Danny, being a carnival worker, could have met her at some point before either of them came to town, and their relationship ended when she went to the "wayward girls' home". They both ended up in town and may have attempted a relationship (he's seen doing maintenance on some carnival rides—he could've been the old handyman Josh is replacing), but circumstances or Emma's desire to raise Carson alone forced them apart, or at least pushed Danny away until he's able to be a provider.

Should all of the above be true, the two will reconcile at the end of the series in the tradition of Last Minute Pair the Spares seen in classic musicals, with them and Carson living as a family, and finally being accepted by the town.

  • Confirmed...to be a What Could Have Been storyline.
    A second tossed storyline involving Danny amounted to a throwaway line — but one that would have completely upended Emma and Carson’s lives. “There was serious discussion that [Danny’s confession in the finale] was that he was Carson’s dad,” Paul said. “But ultimately it made him too much of a jerk and we loved Emma and Carson too much as their own unit.” (Instead, the carnival barker revealed that the ring toss is completely rigged.)

Everyone in Schmigadoon is a former lovelorn hiker.

Everyone in Schmigadoon ended up there for the same reason Josh and Melissa did: they were unhappy in life and love. Notably, for all its small-town idyll, no one appears to be in a happy romantic relationship: the Menloves is in a bearding situation, Mildred keeps the Reverend on a tight leash, and there are a ton of single women who are all too happy to try and date Josh. No one ever leaves because no one has found true love.

Perhaps when someone does leave, the jig is up, and that may be why Mildred tries to make things hard for Josh and Melissa.

  • Love this one

Possible future musical locations.

Season 2 has Josh and Melissa go to a new town based on a different era of musicals. This could mean that there are countless other worlds out there that are also based on other eras. So, place your bets on what else might exist.

  • A town based on shows the likes of Hairspray and Grease.
  • A town based on historical musicals like Hamilton, Six, and The King and I.
  • The first season was a pastiche of the hits of the 1940s and 1950s. The second was the 1960s and 1970s. I'd say you should expect to see the 1980s and 1990s, next. So, Cats.
    • Scmanadu. Everyone's on roller skates and humans in leotards and whiskers prowl around like alley cats scaring the crap out of Josh.
    • Yes, obviously the next destination must be the '90s pop megamusical. Cats, Les Miserables, Miss Saigon, Phantom of the Opera, Chess, etc.

Schmicago's narrator is a gig that Tituss from UKS got

Tituss from Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt was an aspiring actor, he was camp gay, and he was prone to taking very offbeat jobs. Breaking character at the very close of the musical seems like something Titus would do. The narrator also seemed kind of distractable when he was with hippies seeking Josh to be their leader. He jumped into their group.

Josh and Melissa could have left Schmicago any time they wanted

Josh and Melissa never attempted to cross the bridge. That combined with the people begging them to stay signifies that Schmicago didn't have the same method of keeping them in.

  • They actually attempted to cross the bridge twice, and failed both times. The first time is in episode 1, running from the murder scene, after hearing the "happy ending" condition from the leprechaun (despite not feeling happy in the slightest), and they end up right where they started with the cops pointing guns at them; the second time is in episode 4 after Josh was exonerated and they figured that was the required happy ending, and again they end up where they started and the Narrator taunts them that it wasn't enough. They very clearly could not have just left whenever.

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