Many Things They Do

I can tell from all your cards and letters that you are wondering whether the Wonders' great song "That Thing You Do" has been performed by any other musicians, even an actual musical group.  And yes it has!  It was most famously performed (with slightly different lyrics appropriate to the occasion) by the A cappella group Pentatonix to honor Tom Hanks at his Kennedy Center Honors in 2014.  It's especially nice for the reaction shots of Hanks' sons, singing along in the audience.

The Wonders were a fictional band, created for the movie.  But the actors who played the band all learned their instruments so they could credibly look like they are playing.  Tom Everett Scott in particular learned to play drums quite well, but all the others could play at least the title song.  When they went on publicity tours overseas, they also went on concert tours: they became an actual band, if only briefly.

Similarly, the label in the film that released their record, that the Tom Hanks character works for, was the fictitious Playtone.  Playtone subsequently became Hanks' real TV and movie production company (Play/Tone) which has won 52 Emmys so far, and produced several of Hanks movies like Cast Away as well as Polar Express, Mamma Mia! and Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House.

The actors who played the Wonders remained friends (Steve Zahn, who played the lead guitarist, was the best man for Tom Everett Scott's wedding) and several members "reunited" a few years ago to perform the song in LA on the film's 20th anniversary.  As mentioned before, Charlize Theron (with a relatively small part in her second movie) presented what was essentially a lifetime achievement award to Tom Hanks at this year's Golden Globes.  They were both nominated for top acting awards in this year's Oscars, and though neither won, they sat together in the audience and made news by leading the chants to turn the lights back on for the speech by the producer for the surprise best picture winner Parasite.

The Wonders on record were studio musicians with Mike Viola singing lead and the song's writer, Adam Schlesinger of Fountains of Wayne, singing backup.  The two co-produced the track.  In the movie, the song reaches #2 on the Billboard charts in 1964.  In what is otherwise known as the real world, the song was released on the Playtone Label by Epic, peaking at 41 on Billboard's Hot 100 in 1996 (the year of the movie's release), and scoring in the top twenty on adult contemporary charts.

Among the mostly live performance videos of the song on YouTube are several featuring singer Mike Viola, including this tasty acoustic version with an audience that knew just how to clap and sing along, as well as with various bands including Adam Schlesinger and Fountains of Wayne.  Unfortunately, the audio isn't great.  The audio is much better for another Viola and Schlesinger performance.  Once again, the audience provides the hand-claps.

Johnathon Schaech, who played the lead singer in the movie, has sung the song live here and there, including with Curtis Peoples and with some LA rockers.

 Some amateur ensembles have posted on YouTube, as well as (among others) bands called The Bloomfelds ,  Old Chevy and  Bubbles.  A Japanese band apparently, Shakabitts does a wild version. There are other A capella and acoustic versions, a piano ballad version, guitar only, drum only, etc.  There's even one featuring oboe, cello and violin that's worth sharing:




And of course, there's a "That Thing You Do" karaoke! A lot of people like this song!  There's even a performance  by actual pop stars, Nsnych, playing it in concert, pretty much a note for note cover but with great vocals and energy.  Ironically if appropriately, it was featured in their 60s tribute.



 Still, for me, the Wonders movie version is the best.

The movie's conceit is that the band intended this song to be a ballad, until their new drummer spontaneously gave it a beat during its first performance, and the rest is history.  Actually to my ear, this song structurally resembles "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes," which was a 1959 hit as a ballad by the Platters.