Malcolm In The Middle Boss, Bryan Cranston On Revival Premiere's Delightful Musical Number: 'We Knew If We Could Get This, It Was Going To Be Fun'

Spoilers ahead for the premiere of "Malcolm in the Middle: Life's Still Unfair!"

The cast of "Malcolm in the Middle" is back with a four-episode revival that's full of zany antics, sibling rivalry, and some seriously wicked dance moves.

It's been 20 years since we last saw the family and Lois is planning a big 40th anniversary party for her and Hal. While she runs herself ragged with preparations, she makes a deal with her kooky husband: He can showcase his love for her in any way he wants to before and after the party. But the actual day of the event? It's hers and hers alone! 

So Hal does what he always does: He releases doves! He nearly buries her alive with roses! He overshares their bedroom behavior in a public declaration of love! But the best bit of Hal we see in this premiere? He and his poker friends perform a fully choreographed rendition of Bruno Mars' "Locked Out of Heaven" — in the middle of a big-box retailer — with matching red suits, balloons, toilet wands, macaroni and cheese, and open cereal boxes that they shake and spill all over the floor. (Cleanup in Aisle 9!)

"It was challenging because you want to get it right," Bryan Cranston tells TVLine. "We did all the singing beforehand and recorded it back in Los Angeles. [A majority of the series was filmed in Vancouver.] I had to work on that to get the voice to that ability, as modest as that was. Then, to be able to learn this choreography with the group of us? All of us are either in our late 60s or 70s, so it took some time for all these codgers to be able to get it together and rehearse it, but we knew that if we could get this, it was going to be really fun."

For creator Linwood Boomer, bringing back Hal's poker buddies — which includes Abe Kenarban (played by Gary Anthony Williams), Trey (Alex Morris), Steve (Jonathan Craig Williams), and more — was one of his favorite parts of filming. 

"They're just so f—king funny and they're so positive," says Boomer. "They always have good ideas and they bring this great energy to the show." 

The entire performance took weeks to nail down, and was crafted and overseen by two on-set choreographers. Whenever the "Malcolm" team tackles a music sequence (think Season 1's "Rollerskates" and Season 2's "New Neighbors" with that "Candy Man" performance), the goal, Boomer says, is to "have it be stupid, but precisely performed. A technically accomplished version of something really stupid."

That's exactly how the revival approaches Hal and the poker guys' slick Bruno Mars showing in the "Life's Still Unfair" premiere. 

"It was just such a delight," says Boomer. "I knew that I wanted some song where it got inappropriate. It started out very sweet and then got inappropriately sexy for a public thing, and we found the Bruno Mars song. We went through a lot of songs because some things were way too sexy at the top, and some things just never got weird. ["Locked Out of Heaven"] had the perfect combo and the perfect arc. [It] starts out just so loving and sort of theatrically romantic, and then goes to, 'Your sex takes me to paradise,' and if you just hit the word 'sex' a little harder than it's supposed to be, it turns very quickly. I just thought that was really funny." (Read more from our interview with Boomer here.) 

Executive producer Tracy Katsky Boomer recalls watching one rehearsal where it donned on them to make one significant alteration to the performance space. 

"We went in to watch them do it for the first time and they did everything. Then we said, 'What if we just push the aisles closer together?' Originally they had more room," she says. "And then when they were all squished together, it just made it so much... like, why are they doing this in a big box store anyway? Why in the middle of the squished up aisle?" she asks with a laugh.

Even Cranston's screen partner Jane Kaczmarek couldn't get over how funny the whole bit turned out — and how specific it was to shoot. 

"You've got a camera and you've got six people," she says. "You've got to have your head between these two people's heads, right? The placement of everyone in a song and dance number, to be seen in a camera over and over and over, making adjustments, coming up between [Cranston's] legs, that's really hard work. It's one thing to do a dance number, but to do a dance number where everyone is seen on camera is a real challenge. It was great fun to watch them do this." 

Thoughts on the "Malcolm in the Middle" revival so far? Grade the premiere, then hit the comments!