YMMV / Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

• Accidental Aesop: Don't play favourites with your children, or else they might sell said favourite into slavery. In all fairness, Joseph was being somewhat of a dick about being the favorite son, among twelve.
  Brothers: Not only is he tactless, but he's also rather dim. For there's eleven of us, and there's only one of him.
• Adorkable: The Narrator's sheer enthusiasm for the story and songs has made her quite popular.
• Awesome Music:
  • The reprise of "Any Dream Will Do" is a fittingly epic ending.
  • "Close Every Door” is incredibly epic.
  • "Joseph's Coat". The harmonies are absolutely beautiful.
  • As exposition songs go, "Jacob & Sons" is incredibly catchy.
  • The "Prologue" song and "Pharaoh Story" have a dreamily gentle, warm-hearted optimism.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
  • One minute Joseph is sitting hopelessly alone in his cell, the next he's suddenly surrounded by colorfully dressed children, bright flashing colors, women singing how great he will one day become, men in white leather jock straps with close ups on their crotches, and Father Time wearing sunglasses and a lei. Suddenly he's sitting around alone in his cell again.
  • Also, Pharaoh Elvis, who sings one song (and its reprise) that, while incredibly catchy and setting up for Joseph becoming Prime Minister of Egypt, is otherwise never referenced or mentioned again afterward.
  • "Benjamin Calypso". A tearful plea to not let their youngest brother become a slave, proof that the older brothers have changed... set as a faux-Hawaiian luau with grass hulu skirts and cheerful music? What?!
• Can't Un-Hear It: Say what you want about Donny Osmond, but there's no denying that he is the iconic version of Joseph.
• Ending Fatigue: The finale as written consists of the cast padding the show's running time with another ten or fifteen minutes' worth of reprises of the show's major numbers (some of which had multiple encores the first time). About half of productions are merciful and dispense with the reprises.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Several of the brothers can get this treatment, but the Pharaoh is especially popular despite his short stage-time.
• Epic Riff: There are quite a few throughout the show, but the very first (and the one which signals in the movie the movement from a silly low-budget school play led by a clumsy teacher to something truly awesome that will inspire the audience of students) appears at the very end of the Narrator's introductory song, when she strides down the aisle to let Joseph in for "Any Dream Will Do" and the special effects first start manifesting.
• Esoteric Happy Ending: The musical ends with Joseph and his family reunited and happily settled in Egypt. All is well and good for them, but anyone who knows The Bible knows that eventually their descendants will be enslaved by the Egyptians, leading to the story of Moses and the Exodus.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Jacob, played in the film version by Richard Attenborough, spends most of the story mourning his son Joseph's "death." In 2004, Attenborough really did face that kind of loss, as his eldest daughter and granddaughter were killed in a Thailand tsunami.
  • Try to watch the "One More Angel in Heaven" scenario of the film adaptation after you've played through Red Dead Redemption 2 and the plight of Arthur Morgan and his tuberculosis, especially in High Honor mode.
  • The harshness in hindsight of “One More Angel in Heaven,” which revolves around lying to a father that his son is is dead, has increased as of March 25, 2023, when Andrew Lloyd Webber’s own son Nicholas died of cancer.
• Heartwarming Moments: Joseph's reunion with his brothers, and especially the hug he gives Benjamin when he runs into his arms. Also, his reunion with Jacob.
• Moral Event Horizon: How does Potiphar's wife respond to Joseph's exasperation with her advances and her idea of love? She tells him, "Pity...", and proceeds to sexually assault him offscreen while the other servants hold him down (the actual assault is depicted as "a mighty ruckus clattering above [Potiphar]" while he's "counting shekels in his den below the bedroom" onscreen).
• Retroactive Recognition: For the film, try watching The Suite Life of Zack & Cody after giving it a view and not picture the boys' father, Kurt, as the Pharaoh.
• Tear Jerker:
  • "Close Every Door, especially as some of the lyrics ("Just give me a number instead of my name") seem to reference The Holocaust.
  • "Those Canaan Days": While the song is supposed to be a parody of French ballads complete with them speaking in bad French accents , the fact that they Joseph's brothers and Jacob are singing about how the famine has affected them as well as the brother's regret over selling Joseph into slavery might make it more sad than funny.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: The brothers, to some. Not that selling your brother into slavery is excusable, but they do have a solid Freudian Excuse with Jacob so obviously favoring Joseph over them, and Joseph's own bragging twists the knife.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Joseph can come off as this in productions that attempt to play the story completely straight. It's hard not to cringe as he casually belittles his brothers and rubs their father's favouritism in their faces. But whether or not this is "unintentional" can be debated: his subsequent traumas and struggles teach him humility to the point that he sings "I do not matter, I'm only one person" in prison. Most productions nowadays avoid this trope by playing up his boasting for laughs and making the brothers slightly more sympathetic.
• Values Dissonance:
  • A few recent production reviews have called out the culturally appropriative aspect of "Benjamin Calypso," being performed with fake Trinidad accents by (in most productions) a mostly white cast. At least the role of the song's soloist, Judah, is usually cast with a black actor.
  • Portraying Potiphar's wife as a lying villain is much more controversial in the wake of the #MeToo movement.
    • However, it's still relatively toned down in the musical (what with it having to be child-friendly and all) ^note In the Bible, she flat-out claims Joseph raped her to the point where she doesn't so much lie as not bother to correct her husband's assumption as to what was going on. (Hell, it didn't even necessarily look like Joseph tried to rape her, so there's no reason Potiphar would've assumed that the affair wasn't consensual on his wife's part.) In fact, dissonance is arguably inherent in the scene and hits when you watch it once you're old enough to actually fully understand what's going on.
    • Since the #MeToo movement involves male victims as well as female victims revealing their sexual abuse stories and demanding they be taken seriously, the fact that the whole scene is played for laughs is harder to stomach.

---