TV shows that did musical episodes

By Jessica Wedemeyer 6:11am PST, Jan 13, 2017

The "musical episode" is practically a rite of passage for television shows. Almost all of our favorite series have done it — from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Xena: Warrior Princess" to "Scrubs" and "Grey's Anatomy." And now the stars of "Pretty Little Liars" are set to break into song on an upcoming episode of the beloved series. "All of [the cast members] have incredible hidden talents and singing happens to be one of them," said Oliver Goldstick, one of the show's executive producers. "I thought it was a shame that we didn't utilize that, and we found a way to platform it in one of the episodes in the last 10 [episodes of the series]." In honor of the upcoming "PLL" episode, Wonderwall.com rounded up more shows that have gotten the musical treatment over the years. Keep reading to take a look back!

During Season 6 of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," a demon named Sweet places a spell on the people (and monsters) of Sunnydale that forces them to express themselves solely through song. The 2001 episode titled "Once More, with Feeling," which features all original music, is so popular among fans of the seminal series that there are sing-alongs of it at Comic-Con International every year.

During Season 6 of "Scrubs," a patient interprets speech as song due to an aneurysm in her temporal lobe. Thanks to her condition in the 2007 episode of the sitcom, which features all original music, we now have the song "Everything Comes Down to Poo" as performed by Zach Braff's J.D. and Donald Faison's Turk.

In 2002 during the fourth season of "That '70s Show," the gang covered songs like "The Joker," "Love Hurts" and "Shake Your Groove Thing" as part of fantasy sequences dreamed up by Fez as he prepares to star in the school musical as part of the sitcom's 100th episode.

During Season 7 of "Grey's Anatomy," Sara Ramirez's Callie Torres hallucinates her Seattle Grace colleagues singing after she's involved in a car accident with girlfriend Arizona Robbins. Throughout the 2011 episode, "Song Beneath the Song," the cast performs covers of songs like The Fray's "How to Save a Life" and Snow Patrol's "Chasing Cars."

The stars of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" have broken into song on more than one occasion on the sitcom. During 2008's "The Nightman Cometh," the final episode of the fourth season, the gang stages a disastrous rock opera featuring all original songs. And during the premiere of Season 12, "The Gang Turns Black," which just aired in January 2017, they're transported into the Old Black Man's dream, which is inspired by "The Wiz" and features several musical numbers.

The producers of "Xena: Warrior Princess" did not let star Lucy Lawless's singing talents go to waste. During the Season 3 episode "The Bitter Suite" in 1998, the stars of the show inexplicably express themselves through all original songs while venturing through a region called Illusia. Two years later, during the Season 5 episode "Lyre, Lyre, Hearts on Fire," the heroes attempt to win the Golden Lyre in a battle of the bands at Melodia, the fictional musical capital of Greece. The episode features covers of popular songs like "War," "Dancing in the Moonlight," "Sisters are Doing It For Themselves" and "Always Something There to Remind Me."

During the 2016 "Gilmore Girls" reboot, Sutton Foster's Violet stages "Stars Hollow: The Musical," which chronicles the history of the fictional town. The production is beloved by everyone in the audience except for Lauren Graham's Lorelai Gilmore.

During Season 3 of "Community," the study group begrudgingly puts on a Christmas pageant after members of the glee club are hospitalized. The episode, which is titled "Regional Holiday Music," features original songs performed by the cast.

During the Season 7 episode of "The Office" titled "Andy's Play," Ed Helms' Andy Bernard invites his co-workers to see him in a community theater production of "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street." Several songs from the Stephen Sondheim musical — in which Andy portrays sailor Anthony Hope — are featured in the 2010 episode.

The two-hour special "Psych: The Musical" aired in 2013 as part of Season 7 of the crime dramedy. The special, which centers around Gus and Shawn's attempts to track down a criminally insane playwright named Z, features all original songs performed by the cast.

Several member of the cast of "Fringe" performed musical numbers during the Season 2 episode titled "Brown Betty." During the 2010 episode, John Noble's Dr. Walter Bishop tells Olivia's niece Ella a detective noir story featuring renditions of songs from musicals like "A Chorus Line" and "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory." Anna Torv also performs Stevie Wonder's "For Once in My Life" as her alter ego, Olivia.

"How I Met Your Mother" earned an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics for the song "Nothing Suits Me Like A Suit" from its 100th episode, "Girls Versus Suits." The episode, which first aired in 2010, culminated with Neil Patrick Harris's Barney Stinson breaking into song when he's forced to choose between his collection of suits and an attractive bartender played by Stacy Keibler. (That was hardly the only musical moment in the sitcom's nine-season run, though — thanks to a certain former Canadian pop star named Robin Sparkles.)

In 2005 during the Season 9 Valentine's Day episode of "7th Heaven" titled "Red Socks," members of the Camden family get into the holiday spirit by singing numbers from classical musicals like "Of Thee I Sing" and "The Broadway Melody." A critic at the A.V. Club called the episode "one of the weirdest, wildest, worst things I've ever seen on TV."