A welcome to Yoshinobu Yamamoto, a far less friendly welcome to Wander Franco, a welcome to Isiah Kiner-Falefa, eh, the mob has spoken about the Substack bugout, stealth musicals, and Tommy Smothers
I don’t get the whole make a movie based on the musical based on the original movie mentality, other than American entertainment refuses to take a chance on anything that isn’t an automatic financial windfall.
Oh Tommy, I hope you can pull the deity in charge aside and ask him WTAF the current state of affairs is all about…
I remember they tried to do a movie of The Producers with the original cast and original director. My only hope is that somehow it made money by being a flop. (It's not an universal rule, but hiring the director of the play to direct the movie is often a terrible idea. Not worthy even of Max Bialystock.)
The movie just seemed so lacking in energy. I saw a stage production at a nearby regional theatre and it was everything that the movie wasn’t - lively and really entertaining.
It's the same thinking behind sequels and spin offs. Audiences are more willing to watch and known entity that's mediocre and thus studios are more willing to green light it than something new that's good but might not find it's audience or could require a lot of marketing to get attention.
I always find it fascinating how much hate some have for musicals. I guess because when you are from NYC, you think of musicals as this mighty engine that drives the Great White Way and not some novelty. Not, mind you, that I have much idea what is actually on Broadway or if Broadway is making any money. That said, I don't entirely get the need to turn everything into a musical now.
I first encountered the Smothers Brothers on a revival of their show on CBS in the 80s. The show was filler during a writers strike, but that strike didn't include variety shows. So they were back on the network that screwed them. And it was okay, still funny but generally fluffy. nothing like what they did the first time around. It would be a long time till I saw what had been, and learned the whole thing. (There is a great book about them from maybe 20 years ago.) There is one other odd place I encountered them. In an episode of Benson where the cast was in Las Vegas, the brothers were performing in an elevator while Benson was riding between floors. He was really impressed that in Vegas, it's not just elevator music. After he left, one brother turned to the other and said, "we really need to get better bookings." RIP Tommy.
As someone who isn’t a big fan, I think musicals are incredibly hard to get right. You need a good story that is nevertheless conducive to musical numbers and you need musical numbers that work in their own right as distinctive great songs and aren’t just bland filler. For me, there are a select number of great ones that nail both, but the vast majority fail in one or both of these efforts.
Also, “jukebox musicals” where some slapdash story is stitched together just to get from one old pop song to the next are utter demon turds flushed straight from the Hell Mouth.
If anyone knows someone at AC/DC, put me in touch. I am convinced an AC/DC jukebox musical would print money. You've got songs everyone knows and the obvious story arc with Bon Scott and Brian Johnson. Hell, you ever get an obvious stopping point for the first act.
No! No jukebox musicals! Just have a good tribute band play the damn songs! We don’t need Bon Scott singing Highway to Hell near his gravesite before intermission.
I recently watched Mean Girls for the first time. It's solid and there's a lot of story there, though TBH my gut feel was some plot points could have gone deeper. If you remake the movie and add half a dozen 5-minute songs, what 30 minutes are you cutting? Or are you adding 30 minutes? And that's not even a musical in my mind; that's a movie with some singing in it. When you turn the whole thing into musical numbers, you give up a good chunk of plot and character development. And many movies already condense a 6-hour story into two hours of screen time.
A musical can be perfectly entertaining if written as a musical and the viewer KNOWS they're getting a musical. But the surprise musical feels lacking.
Wait until someone talks about Verdugo's Fresh Start opening for Industrial Shithouse at Wembley and then the internet will collapse into a black hole.
One of my friends, while Fister was pitching so well for the Tigers, rewrote the lyrics to the Train song "Hey, Soul Sister" (which my friend despised, but couldn't escape because it was all over the radio at the time) to "Hey, Doug Fister" and it was one of the most amazing things I ever read. 😄
I’m too young to have any memory of the Smothers Brothers show. Seeing it after the fact is just not the same. But with that massive caveat, I felt it was lesser Tom Lehrer stuff. Tom is still alive at 95 and has released all IP claims on his musical work.
...
For largely the same reasons people are leaving Substack, I doubt I will support anything Roald Dahl had anything to do with. An admitted antisemitic and his literary heirs don’t need my money.
...
In my little attempt at baseball talk during a dead time some notes on our birthday boys.
You want counterculture? I give you Bill Lee. Happy 77th to the Spaceman.
You want names? Let’s start with Count Sensenderfer. An outfielder in the 1870s, he played bits of four seasons in the original Major League Baseball, the National Association.
And the first player - at least that I knew of - with all of the vowels in his first name, super fielder Aurelio Rodriguez would have turned 76 today but passed away at a young age nearly two dozen years ago.
I should really get Melvin Nieves a gift. He was the centerpiece of ATL’s trade for Fred McGriff.
Last but not least, a starter on the All My Wife is a Better Athlete than Me Team, Mr. Nancy Lopez turns 71 today. Ray, Nomar and Dansby can form a club. No word if NFL’s Jonathan Owens is allowed to audit the group.
I don’t get too worked up about it. He is long dead and the work itself was good. Just my own little protest: I wouldn’t pay to see (almost) anything related to Dahl.
My exception was when Kid #2 performed in the high school James and The Giant Peach production some years ago. Support for my kids takes precedence the same-ish way I am not immediately canceling my subscription here but won’t renew absent migration. And likewise I didn’t dump out my bottle of Bulleit when the booze family dumped its Queer child from management; I drank it then switched ryes.
Don't take my throwaway comment as the last word. They may well have reconciled in the years since it was newsworthy.
And FWIW, there was a dispute about whether it was her sexual preferences or her professional marketing (IIRC) skills that were the cause. She wouldn't be the first legacy child promoted beyond her skills due to her selection of parents.
My position was that for something as fungible as my standard Rye (and occasional bourbon) pour I could treat accusation itself as sufficient evidence. Others may well have different levels of proof without being ethically challenged.
I'm assuming you've watched the Spaceman performing with the Savannah Bananas? For those of you who haven't, he comes out of the stands, hands his beer to someone, pitches an inning (usually without giving up a run), and reasonable fields his position.*
I should be doing so well at 77--I will probably be able to handle the "get out of the stands and hand my beer to someone" part, but getting the ball over the plate at 77? Nope.
*Savannah Bananas games are on their YouTube channel if you need some offseason baseball mayhem.
Whenever I need a few belly laughs, I'll tune into their YT channel. My wife surreptitiously entered their ticket lottery (which, sadly, no dice) and bought me a longsleeve tee and merch package for Xmas.
And a happy birthday today to Carl 'Big Train' Willis, who somehow was charged with a blown save in Game 6 of the 1991 World Series but actually was a star for pitching a scoreless 8th and 9th. Puckett ended it in the 11th with the 'and we'll see you tomorrow night' walk off.
Another thing about migrations: sauropods. Yes, they're moving in herds. They do move in herds. Unfortunately, in the process they squished little proto-hominid mammals who, left unsquished, might have evolved into hominids millions of years earlier. But life finds a way, right? We still got Raquel Welch in a mammoth skin bikini, even if she hasn't been stuffed and mounted at the La Brea museum yet. So, when you watch the next Republican debate, remember that however stupid and primitive the candidates appear to be, they are trying to evolve, and there are no sauropods left to squish them.
The only thing about this post that makes sense to me is Raquel Welch in a mammoth skin bikini. I still gave you a like because you forced me to research sauropods.
I like Och’s description of what a protest song is - a song so specific that you cannot mistake it for bullshit. If he were still around he’d be having a field day.
99.99% of commenters want you to wait for the comment section to work.
I think they also represent the basic dislike for change. The fear that COC might not survive. (It’s insane to think that it worked in the first place and now you have to do it again.)
And substack wouldn’t have to do much at all to not be the nazi bar. But here we are, hanging out at a stupid nazi bar. Having just all left Twitter because it’s all Nazis, what the fuck is wrong with everyone? Why are there Nazis everywhere?
Someone did a piece on VC money behind substack. I can’t find it, but it’s pretty disheartening how most VC money is a pump and dump scheme. And the bros with the money are just basic selfish money dudes.
I remember the skin-heads were the de facto nazi people in the 80's-90's. I figured they hated themsleves and their lifes. They were the outcasts and I just thought those kids were trying to be the ugliest thing in society as their protest of their situation. i thought it might be a phase one may go though. But now, with the voice tech gives us, Nazi are everywhere. There is always a group who feel someone else is responsible for there woes. But I didn't read Mein Kampf so I no nothing about them.
Your reference to us "hanging out at a stupid nazi bar" hit home to me because that's how we lesbians felt back in the 70s and 80s when our bars were owned by the Mafia. At least that was the rumor. They certainly weren't owned by lesbians themselves - that came later, and then they disappeared entirely (almost) because we stopped gathering together in person to fortify ourselves & connect with each other - it was all online! But alas, the online world proves to be equally problematic. Time is indeed a flat circle.
I was in high school when the Smothers Brothers were on CBS. Every Monday morning began with a discussion of what we'd seen last night -- the jokes, the music, the stuff we KNEW our parents didn't get. Thank you, Tom, for pushing the envelope, even though it cost you your job and I think the lining of your stomach, too.
Pat Paulsen was a regular on the Smothers Bros show. He ran for President of the US. I've still got a couple of the Brothers' albums. I can still hear them in my head, but I may pop them on the phono. Haven't heard the 'Measles Song' in a long time.
Tommy Smothers. I'd missed that news. I grew up on them, and Tom Lehrer and Spike Jones, Arlo Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Jone Baez, Harry Belafonte...the Smothers Brothers were a couple of my best history teachers.
I was lucky enough to see Pete play a high school auditorium in Rockland, Maine when he was in his 80's. There wasn't much of his voice left, but there didn't need to be; the audience did most of the singing.
My favorite of that slice of music is Odetta who I got to chauffeur around Tuscaloosa when she played a little art festival late in her life. Nice but very reserved talking to a 30something who was an infant at the peak of her career. We have the stool she sat on as she played. Her contract specified a height and I drove all over town the day before trying to find one. I missed by an inch but close enough!
One of their most nervy moves was to put Pete Seeger on the air, after he'd been blacklisted from TV for years. And then CBS wouldn't broadcast Seeger's performance of "Waist Deep in the Big Muddy." The Smothers' fought that, and eventually brought Seeger back to do it again. That incident was one of the nails in their coffin.
Two days after Seeger cold opened their show with Big Muddy, Walter Cronkite famously called for the removal of US troops from Vietnam, an act he later said was partly inspired by Seeger's performance. Johnson was out of the campaign barely a month later.
There's probably some connection to be made about today's simultaneous conversations in the comments about their show and leaving Substack.
I consider myself a very frequent movie watcher and I had no clue any of those 3 were musicals until I was chatting about their upcoming releases a few weeks back with some other movie pals (I think the Mean Girls one surprised me the most even though some part of me remembered that it had been on Broadway) so consider me almost stealth musicaled.
Personally I have no problem with musicals (caught Some Like It Hot on Broadway last week, excellent) but it does feel like a bit of a bait and switch to me when the trailers are cut to obscure what would otherwise be the main driver of the film / what differentiates it from simply another cash grab IP reboot (which is what I thought they were doing with Mean Girls). I'd probably be more inclined to see it actually now that I know that it's a musical, even if the trailer's reference to being 'not your mother's Mean Girls' has me feeling absolutely ancient given that the original came out when I was in HS.
My son and I were that guy in the movie theater when we settled in to watch Spirited with Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds last year. In fact, I believe I uttered the same sentiment verbatim. We even stopped the movie to rewatch the trailer to see if we missed that it was a musical. The trailer didn’t have a note of music in it. Nevertheless, we rewatched it again this year, and wish each other “good afternoon” frequently. 😬
I too discovered The Smothers Brothers as a child listening over and over again to a couple of their albums that my dad had lying around (along with Pete Seeger, The Weavers, Shelley Berman, and Bob Newhart). For anyone at all interested in them or that era of comedy, I cannot recommend more highly David Bianculli's book "Dangerously Funny: The Uncensored Story of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour". I knew they spawned some big names, but I had no idea how many. If you found anything funny from the '70s through the '00s, there's decent odds that it came from the mind of someone who got their break due to The Smothers Brothers.
Not sure about the javelin, but make it an Oldsmobile 442 and I’m in
Ah, 1973. When 14" wheels and a donut spare were something to brag about.
Seems cooler than a similar vintage Mustang or Camaro though just based on rarity.
Oh hell yes! That was my first dream car.
Back in the Jurassic Era when. Was a pre-teen, my dream car was anything that had four tires and an engine that ran.
Forget the Javelin. Yamamoto would be worthy of an AMX with the 390 V8.
One went for 40k at a recent auction in PA.
They're awesome. A forgotten classic muscle car.
I still refer to “the Norman Abernathy Choir” 😂
I had no idea whatsoever that these were musicals! None of them! I hear you about the sneakiness and, man, did it work on me!
☑ Wonka
☑ Mean Girls
☑ The Color Purple
I feel duped. And kinda dumb. 🤷♀️
I don’t get the whole make a movie based on the musical based on the original movie mentality, other than American entertainment refuses to take a chance on anything that isn’t an automatic financial windfall.
Oh Tommy, I hope you can pull the deity in charge aside and ask him WTAF the current state of affairs is all about…
I remember they tried to do a movie of The Producers with the original cast and original director. My only hope is that somehow it made money by being a flop. (It's not an universal rule, but hiring the director of the play to direct the movie is often a terrible idea. Not worthy even of Max Bialystock.)
The movie just seemed so lacking in energy. I saw a stage production at a nearby regional theatre and it was everything that the movie wasn’t - lively and really entertaining.
Sight unseen, I daresay that Lane is not the sort to be the lead in a movie musical.
It's the same thinking behind sequels and spin offs. Audiences are more willing to watch and known entity that's mediocre and thus studios are more willing to green light it than something new that's good but might not find it's audience or could require a lot of marketing to get attention.
I always find it fascinating how much hate some have for musicals. I guess because when you are from NYC, you think of musicals as this mighty engine that drives the Great White Way and not some novelty. Not, mind you, that I have much idea what is actually on Broadway or if Broadway is making any money. That said, I don't entirely get the need to turn everything into a musical now.
I first encountered the Smothers Brothers on a revival of their show on CBS in the 80s. The show was filler during a writers strike, but that strike didn't include variety shows. So they were back on the network that screwed them. And it was okay, still funny but generally fluffy. nothing like what they did the first time around. It would be a long time till I saw what had been, and learned the whole thing. (There is a great book about them from maybe 20 years ago.) There is one other odd place I encountered them. In an episode of Benson where the cast was in Las Vegas, the brothers were performing in an elevator while Benson was riding between floors. He was really impressed that in Vegas, it's not just elevator music. After he left, one brother turned to the other and said, "we really need to get better bookings." RIP Tommy.
As someone who isn’t a big fan, I think musicals are incredibly hard to get right. You need a good story that is nevertheless conducive to musical numbers and you need musical numbers that work in their own right as distinctive great songs and aren’t just bland filler. For me, there are a select number of great ones that nail both, but the vast majority fail in one or both of these efforts.
Also, “jukebox musicals” where some slapdash story is stitched together just to get from one old pop song to the next are utter demon turds flushed straight from the Hell Mouth.
If anyone knows someone at AC/DC, put me in touch. I am convinced an AC/DC jukebox musical would print money. You've got songs everyone knows and the obvious story arc with Bon Scott and Brian Johnson. Hell, you ever get an obvious stopping point for the first act.
No! No jukebox musicals! Just have a good tribute band play the damn songs! We don’t need Bon Scott singing Highway to Hell near his gravesite before intermission.
I can recommend that you see “Some Like It Hot”. It got it exactly right.
Here's *my* gripe with musicals.
I recently watched Mean Girls for the first time. It's solid and there's a lot of story there, though TBH my gut feel was some plot points could have gone deeper. If you remake the movie and add half a dozen 5-minute songs, what 30 minutes are you cutting? Or are you adding 30 minutes? And that's not even a musical in my mind; that's a movie with some singing in it. When you turn the whole thing into musical numbers, you give up a good chunk of plot and character development. And many movies already condense a 6-hour story into two hours of screen time.
A musical can be perfectly entertaining if written as a musical and the viewer KNOWS they're getting a musical. But the surprise musical feels lacking.
There are plenty of musicals which entirely meet your criteria. Hadestown, for example. South Pacific. 1776. Some Like It Hot. Anything Goes. Wicked.
Last January, on my most recent trip to New York, I saw five musicals in four days. Yeah, you could say I’m a fan of them.
In your NyQuil-induced stupor, you did happen to miss some important news:
Alex Verdugo is looking for a “fresh start” with the Yankees
Damn. I'll have to send out a supplemental newsletter!
This is going to turn into an in-joke that no one else understands why it's so funny, isn't it?
The key is all of us not beating it into the ground. (Odds: 50/50)
So you’re saying we already need a fresh start with the “fresh start”?
Wait until someone talks about Verdugo's Fresh Start opening for Industrial Shithouse at Wembley and then the internet will collapse into a black hole.
Only if there is a reference to Do(u)g Fister.
One of my friends, while Fister was pitching so well for the Tigers, rewrote the lyrics to the Train song "Hey, Soul Sister" (which my friend despised, but couldn't escape because it was all over the radio at the time) to "Hey, Doug Fister" and it was one of the most amazing things I ever read. 😄
I saw Fresh Start open for Industrial Shithouse at Wmbley
I swear to you I didn't see this response before I made my own.
I’m too young to have any memory of the Smothers Brothers show. Seeing it after the fact is just not the same. But with that massive caveat, I felt it was lesser Tom Lehrer stuff. Tom is still alive at 95 and has released all IP claims on his musical work.
...
For largely the same reasons people are leaving Substack, I doubt I will support anything Roald Dahl had anything to do with. An admitted antisemitic and his literary heirs don’t need my money.
...
In my little attempt at baseball talk during a dead time some notes on our birthday boys.
You want counterculture? I give you Bill Lee. Happy 77th to the Spaceman.
You want names? Let’s start with Count Sensenderfer. An outfielder in the 1870s, he played bits of four seasons in the original Major League Baseball, the National Association.
And the first player - at least that I knew of - with all of the vowels in his first name, super fielder Aurelio Rodriguez would have turned 76 today but passed away at a young age nearly two dozen years ago.
I should really get Melvin Nieves a gift. He was the centerpiece of ATL’s trade for Fred McGriff.
Last but not least, a starter on the All My Wife is a Better Athlete than Me Team, Mr. Nancy Lopez turns 71 today. Ray, Nomar and Dansby can form a club. No word if NFL’s Jonathan Owens is allowed to audit the group.
It's really frustrating that we are seeing so many Dahl adaptations now. The estate's belated and somewhat tepid apology doesn't change anything.
I don’t get too worked up about it. He is long dead and the work itself was good. Just my own little protest: I wouldn’t pay to see (almost) anything related to Dahl.
My exception was when Kid #2 performed in the high school James and The Giant Peach production some years ago. Support for my kids takes precedence the same-ish way I am not immediately canceling my subscription here but won’t renew absent migration. And likewise I didn’t dump out my bottle of Bulleit when the booze family dumped its Queer child from management; I drank it then switched ryes.
I didn’t know about Bulleit. People are horrible
Don't take my throwaway comment as the last word. They may well have reconciled in the years since it was newsworthy.
And FWIW, there was a dispute about whether it was her sexual preferences or her professional marketing (IIRC) skills that were the cause. She wouldn't be the first legacy child promoted beyond her skills due to her selection of parents.
My position was that for something as fungible as my standard Rye (and occasional bourbon) pour I could treat accusation itself as sufficient evidence. Others may well have different levels of proof without being ethically challenged.
I'm assuming you've watched the Spaceman performing with the Savannah Bananas? For those of you who haven't, he comes out of the stands, hands his beer to someone, pitches an inning (usually without giving up a run), and reasonable fields his position.*
I should be doing so well at 77--I will probably be able to handle the "get out of the stands and hand my beer to someone" part, but getting the ball over the plate at 77? Nope.
*Savannah Bananas games are on their YouTube channel if you need some offseason baseball mayhem.
The Bananas are touring in '24. I am in the lottery pool and hope to get to see them when they play in Gwinnett.
I'm modestly surprised that Lee would hand over his beer. Maybe it interferes with his micro-dosing rather than his pitching.
I tried the Bananas ticket lottery and crapped out. I feel like a disappointed Swiftie.
Whenever I need a few belly laughs, I'll tune into their YT channel. My wife surreptitiously entered their ticket lottery (which, sadly, no dice) and bought me a longsleeve tee and merch package for Xmas.
And a happy birthday today to Carl 'Big Train' Willis, who somehow was charged with a blown save in Game 6 of the 1991 World Series but actually was a star for pitching a scoreless 8th and 9th. Puckett ended it in the 11th with the 'and we'll see you tomorrow night' walk off.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer had pretty good counterculture bonafides.
Another thing about migrations: sauropods. Yes, they're moving in herds. They do move in herds. Unfortunately, in the process they squished little proto-hominid mammals who, left unsquished, might have evolved into hominids millions of years earlier. But life finds a way, right? We still got Raquel Welch in a mammoth skin bikini, even if she hasn't been stuffed and mounted at the La Brea museum yet. So, when you watch the next Republican debate, remember that however stupid and primitive the candidates appear to be, they are trying to evolve, and there are no sauropods left to squish them.
The only thing about this post that makes sense to me is Raquel Welch in a mammoth skin bikini. I still gave you a like because you forced me to research sauropods.
Never stop Gator. Never stop.
Next, check out mesonychid condylarths. We couldn't have blubber sandwiches without them.
That's mean looking sonofabitch! Like a wolverine on steroids.
On Phil Ochs:
"Here's to the State of Mississippi"
Almost 60 years later the state is actually worse off.
I like Och’s description of what a protest song is - a song so specific that you cannot mistake it for bullshit. If he were still around he’d be having a field day.
99.99% of commenters want you to wait for the comment section to work.
I think they also represent the basic dislike for change. The fear that COC might not survive. (It’s insane to think that it worked in the first place and now you have to do it again.)
And substack wouldn’t have to do much at all to not be the nazi bar. But here we are, hanging out at a stupid nazi bar. Having just all left Twitter because it’s all Nazis, what the fuck is wrong with everyone? Why are there Nazis everywhere?
Someone did a piece on VC money behind substack. I can’t find it, but it’s pretty disheartening how most VC money is a pump and dump scheme. And the bros with the money are just basic selfish money dudes.
I remember the skin-heads were the de facto nazi people in the 80's-90's. I figured they hated themsleves and their lifes. They were the outcasts and I just thought those kids were trying to be the ugliest thing in society as their protest of their situation. i thought it might be a phase one may go though. But now, with the voice tech gives us, Nazi are everywhere. There is always a group who feel someone else is responsible for there woes. But I didn't read Mein Kampf so I no nothing about them.
Fox News and YouTube, basically.
Your reference to us "hanging out at a stupid nazi bar" hit home to me because that's how we lesbians felt back in the 70s and 80s when our bars were owned by the Mafia. At least that was the rumor. They certainly weren't owned by lesbians themselves - that came later, and then they disappeared entirely (almost) because we stopped gathering together in person to fortify ourselves & connect with each other - it was all online! But alas, the online world proves to be equally problematic. Time is indeed a flat circle.
I was in high school when the Smothers Brothers were on CBS. Every Monday morning began with a discussion of what we'd seen last night -- the jokes, the music, the stuff we KNEW our parents didn't get. Thank you, Tom, for pushing the envelope, even though it cost you your job and I think the lining of your stomach, too.
Pat Paulsen was a regular on the Smothers Bros show. He ran for President of the US. I've still got a couple of the Brothers' albums. I can still hear them in my head, but I may pop them on the phono. Haven't heard the 'Measles Song' in a long time.
Tommy Smothers. I'd missed that news. I grew up on them, and Tom Lehrer and Spike Jones, Arlo Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Jone Baez, Harry Belafonte...the Smothers Brothers were a couple of my best history teachers.
Arlo & Pete’s “Precious Friend” album is still in heavy rotation at casa de dlf.
I was lucky enough to see Pete play a high school auditorium in Rockland, Maine when he was in his 80's. There wasn't much of his voice left, but there didn't need to be; the audience did most of the singing.
I saw Arlo once but never Pete.
My favorite of that slice of music is Odetta who I got to chauffeur around Tuscaloosa when she played a little art festival late in her life. Nice but very reserved talking to a 30something who was an infant at the peak of her career. We have the stool she sat on as she played. Her contract specified a height and I drove all over town the day before trying to find one. I missed by an inch but close enough!
Odetta, damn. What a voice! That's royalty.
One of their most nervy moves was to put Pete Seeger on the air, after he'd been blacklisted from TV for years. And then CBS wouldn't broadcast Seeger's performance of "Waist Deep in the Big Muddy." The Smothers' fought that, and eventually brought Seeger back to do it again. That incident was one of the nails in their coffin.
Two days after Seeger cold opened their show with Big Muddy, Walter Cronkite famously called for the removal of US troops from Vietnam, an act he later said was partly inspired by Seeger's performance. Johnson was out of the campaign barely a month later.
There's probably some connection to be made about today's simultaneous conversations in the comments about their show and leaving Substack.
I consider myself a very frequent movie watcher and I had no clue any of those 3 were musicals until I was chatting about their upcoming releases a few weeks back with some other movie pals (I think the Mean Girls one surprised me the most even though some part of me remembered that it had been on Broadway) so consider me almost stealth musicaled.
Personally I have no problem with musicals (caught Some Like It Hot on Broadway last week, excellent) but it does feel like a bit of a bait and switch to me when the trailers are cut to obscure what would otherwise be the main driver of the film / what differentiates it from simply another cash grab IP reboot (which is what I thought they were doing with Mean Girls). I'd probably be more inclined to see it actually now that I know that it's a musical, even if the trailer's reference to being 'not your mother's Mean Girls' has me feeling absolutely ancient given that the original came out when I was in HS.
I was many years past college & law school when Mean Girls was released
Tommy is one of the more notable alumni of my college fraternity.
My son and I were that guy in the movie theater when we settled in to watch Spirited with Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds last year. In fact, I believe I uttered the same sentiment verbatim. We even stopped the movie to rewatch the trailer to see if we missed that it was a musical. The trailer didn’t have a note of music in it. Nevertheless, we rewatched it again this year, and wish each other “good afternoon” frequently. 😬
I too discovered The Smothers Brothers as a child listening over and over again to a couple of their albums that my dad had lying around (along with Pete Seeger, The Weavers, Shelley Berman, and Bob Newhart). For anyone at all interested in them or that era of comedy, I cannot recommend more highly David Bianculli's book "Dangerously Funny: The Uncensored Story of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour". I knew they spawned some big names, but I had no idea how many. If you found anything funny from the '70s through the '00s, there's decent odds that it came from the mind of someone who got their break due to The Smothers Brothers.
That's the book I was thinking of!