BALLS: The Monster-Catchin' Musical Comédy — Finally, a Show With Balls

On the 21st of June, I was invited out to CAVEAT, a cabaret comedy theatre in New York City, to witness what was potentially the greatest Pokémon parody musical I will ever see. Now, I mostly say this because I don’t expect to get invited to any other Pokémon parody musicals, but also because this one, BALLS: The Monster-Catchin’ Musical Comédy, was genuinely a load of fun.

Created by Brandon Zelman and Harrison Bryan, BALLS follows the Professor (played by Broadway actor Stuart Zagnit, also known as the original English voice actor for Pokémon’s Professor Oak), a man who invented the titular monster-catching balls that every 10-year-old uses to capture as many incredibly strange Collectabuddies as they can. The show begins as any Pokémon story would (only as a musical number), with a young 10-year-old meeting the Professor to be given a Collectabuddy and begin their journey — in this case, that “10-year-old” was a member of the audience.

A major part of BALLS is audience participation, with the characters jumping off the stage and into the seats, speaking directly to a handful of people, and overall treating them like a part of the show. Even the intermission kept the audience engaged with an extended trading joke where you could exchange items with a cast member. I wound up with a Ricola cough drop of all things! Sidebar: if you’re reading this and you wanted your Ricola back, I am so sorry, but I’m actually eating it as I write this.

Another big (and hilarious) example of this is how that first intrepid “10-year-old” gets to pick what the Professor’s grandson’s name is, in clear reference to how you could name your rival in the Pokémon games. At the performance I saw, his name was Ryan (played by Teresa Attridge), a former champion who “caught them all”, lost a fight, and gave up on doing anything more with his life at the age of 11, all of which is set up in BALLS’ second number, a rap by the name of “Piece of Shit”.

Attridge and Zagnit are joined by an ensemble cast who fill a variety of roles, though typically as different Collectabuddies: Kurt Cruz, Katie Luke, co-creator Harrison Bryan, and a recently added Rachel Parker. Every one of them adds a great amount of energy to the show and brings the already funny script to new heights. Zagnit’s skills as a performer here go far beyond merely sounding like Professor Oak, and he shows off some excellent comedic timing. However, Attridge stole the show, disappearing into the Rival, delivering excellent vocals, and coming away as the heart of the story.

That story was no slouch either, seeing the Professor and Ryan, the Rival, scrambling to “catch ‘em all” all over again after an accident with a mysterious turtle gang releases all the balls storing every 10-year-old’s beloved pets. All the while, the Professor tries to impart his wisdom to Ryan, and Ryan tries to unstick the Professor from his stubborn ways. Along the way, they meet a variety of Collectabuddies, from helpful friends to roadblocks to the vicious Warlordturtle coming after them.

Many parodies seem to think they can get away with loosely copying a plot from their source material or trying to tie together random juvenile toilet humour, but BALLS was remarkably internally consistent. As much as the show is constantly poking fun at Pokémon, every major part of it still works if you somehow know nothing about the highest grossing media franchise in the world. Each character is easy to understand and a joy to watch bound about on stage trying to make the best of their past mistakes, or trying their hardest to ignore them and the consequences chasing them everywhere they go.

Now, when I said all that, I may have given you the impression that BALLS: The Monster-Catchin’ Musical Comédy did not feature any juvenile toilet humour or other crude jokes. This is very much not the case, and while I don’t normally go for that style of comedy, it works in the show’s favour most of the time. A handful of moments went a little far, but every memorable joke stuck the landing, even when it bordered on tastelessness. For instance, referring to the Pokémon mascot itself, Pikachu, as “PEEPEEPOO” at one point works well, coming in at a moment to cement a character’s childishness and resentment at the world.

Other gags are similarly layered, with one moment seeing the Professor bumbling his way through a conversation, insulting and repeatedly angering an insect-looking Collectabuddy until the creature repeatedly “transmogrifies” (instead of evolves) into larger and scarier threats. At the start, he very confidently claims he knows how to deal with the Collectabuddy before immediately referring to the creature not by name but as simply “Roach.”

At the time, the joke was funny enough, but a few scenes later, there’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment where the “Pocket-Pedia” shows off nearly every single Collectabuddy Type (during the song “Not Normal”, sung when the Professor and Ryan are trying to clear a Snorlax-look-alike away from a path) and one of them is, in fact, “Roach”. In retrospect, it’s both hilarious and entirely sensible that the Professor, who has been studying these creatures for years without ever actually going out into the world to interact with them on their own terms, would see this Collectabuddy first as his own chosen term to classify these beings.

The set and costuming design also show a lot of careful thought and art direction, even as they maintain a cheap appearance, looking easy to tear down. People are dressed in bold reds, blues, and greens, with similar colours coating the blocks they use onstage to denote different locales. The titular balls are represented by large white-and-red beach balls that are safe to toss around, always remaining visually recognisable. Heck, I even got to hold one of them for a while and, though I’ve held beach balls before, it was cool to get to do so as part of the audience.

The real stars, however, were the puppets that represented most of the Collectabuddies. Some, like Warlordturtle or Spittle, are hand puppets of varying complexity. Others are larger and more like costume pieces, including one snake made out of cans that rested on the shoulders, but could be further moved around. The largest I saw was the Snorlax look-alike, made up of the set blocks and three large puppet pieces that represented the head and hands.

For the most part, it seemed these Collectabuddies were made to look as cheap as possible (with the exception of Warlordturtle, who looks endlessly expressive, cute, and evil to boot) while still being easy to read on-stage. For the sheer variety of puppets and other Collectabuddies (some of whom are represented by cardboard), this style really works, especially considering this is a parody show with tickets costing roughly $30 to see in person.

That cheap price is another thing that works in BALLS’ favour, as I have paid much more for shows that I’ve enjoyed far less. BALLS may only put on a couple of performances a month, but it’s absolutely worth that $30 to have a great night or afternoon. If you’re willing to shell out a little more, there are splash zone tickets up for grabs at $45, where you can enjoy getting soaked by your favourite Fish-type Collectabuddy. Even if you can’t make it to New York City, you can still enjoy the show for a $15 livestream ticket.

All in all, BALLS: The Monster-Catchin’ Musical Comédy is a very good musical that should make any fan of the Pokémon anime very happy and delight anyone else watching with even a passing familiarity with Pokémon. They even have a “Collectabuddy Rap” at the end to show off all of the great designs. The show never rests on its source material’s laurels or faults, and it looks incredibly fun to be a part of. I can’t recommend it enough, and I hope I get the opportunity to see it again. I give BALLS as many thumbs up as I have on me.

If you would like to catch a performance of BALLS, then you can go see the show when it comes back to CAVEAT NYC on Friday the 18th and Saturday the 19th of July. If you miss that, there will be another show there on Tuesday the 5th of August.