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Dory Bavarsky is our bandleader on The Perfect Parfait, and he’s also been one of my closest friends for over 30 years. So when I tell you this performance is the one I’m proudest of from the whole season, that’s not a producer talking. That’s just true.
“Someday I’ll Be a Frog” is an original song Dory wrote, and he performed it live at the Parfait Palace in front of Nick Thune, Hunter Cope, and chef David Codney during Nick’s episode. It was billed as a surprise opener, and it turned into the moment the whole backyard stopped. The song is genuinely beautiful and thought-provoking — funny on the surface the way a lot of Dory’s writing is, and then it sneaks up on you. Everyone went quiet watching him play it. Not staged quiet — actual, nobody-wants-to-be-the-one-who-breaks-this quiet.
Part of what makes it land is exactly the thing that makes it hard to describe: it’s a song with a ridiculous title, played straight, by someone who’s clearly not performing sincerity as a bit. Dory’s whole musical persona on this show has lived in that gap between absurd and earnest, and “Someday I’ll Be a Frog” is the moment where the earnest side wins out completely. Nick Thune, who is not an easy laugh to silence, went quiet along with everyone else. That’s the tell that it wasn’t a stunt.
That chemistry between Dory, Nick, Hunter, and David is exactly what this show is built around, and it’s part of why this clip has taken off the way it has. Between YouTube and Instagram, “Someday I’ll Be a Frog” has pulled in close to 800,000 views combined, with some of the best engagement of anything we’ve posted this season. For a song that wasn’t the headline of its episode, that’s a real number, and it tells me people are feeling the same thing I felt standing there watching him play it.
Dory shows up all over Season 2 leading segments like Theme Dream Machine with Reggie Watts, holding the music together behind almost every guest but this is the one where he steps all the way into the spotlight by himself. We shot it the same way we shoot every live set at the Palace: minimal setup, natural light, get out of the way and let the take breathe. No re-takes on a moment like that. You get it once, live, or you don’t get it.
Thirty years of friendship, and he still finds ways to surprise me on camera. That’s not something I say about many people I work with, and it’s exactly why he’s the bandleader and not just a guy we hire per episode.
The Perfect Parfait is shot and produced by Broken Dove Productions in Santa Monica, CA.
New episodes: youtube.com/@perfectparfaitshow
Danny Simmons — danny@brokendove.com — +1 (310) 579-5074