‘The Wire: The Musical’ gets thumbs up from David Simon

“The Wire”may have earned plenty of honors during its five-season run on HBO, but one thing it didn’t garner was a lot of laughs.

The people at Funny or Die are working to fix that with “The Wire: The Musical,” a short video parody of the grim and gritty drama series that has the added virtue of including several members of the original cast, includingMichael K. Williams, reprising his role as Omar.

Other familiar “Wire” faces include Andre Royo, jonesing for a hit as the homeless junkie Bubbles; Sonja Sohn as Greggs the cop; Larry Gilliard Jr. as ill-fated dealer D’Angelo Barksdale; and Felicia “Snoop” Pearson as fans of “The Wire” have never seen her before.

Though some key faces didn’t return for the video, like Dominic West as McNulty and Idris Elba as Stringer Bell, they’ve found some strangely appropriate replacements.

The fake New York Times quote in the video claims, “I’m pretty sure David Simon doesn’t know they’re doing this. But if he did, he’d love it.”

That quote turns out to be more accurate than the writer-director (Pat Bishop) ever intended.

On his website, Simon, the outspoken creator of “The Wire,” heaped high praise on the video, which he watched Tuesday morning after Williams emailed it to him.

“I woke up this morning to an an email from Michael K. Williams, with this video linked. Hilarious. Just great,” he writes.

“Felecia’s turn alone is worth the time. Ya hair look good, Snoop.”

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