Well, dear readers, I am hopping mad. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, I am mad and because I am mad, I am hopping around the house like some kind of demented bunny rabbit. Why am I hopping mad, you might ask, and I might tell you because you have a right and perhaps a left to know. I am hopping mad because I was just about through with these here notes, when I went to amazon to do a handy-dandy link. After highlighting the link address, I closed out the amazon page, which closed out everything, including today’s notes. Yes, I lost today’s notes, and so here I am writing today’s notes when I’d already written today’s notes. That is one today’s notes too many in my book (Chapter Nine – Why The Hell Do I Have to Write TWO Fershluganah Today’s Notes?). How annoying is that? Is it any wonder I am hopping mad. Well, I shall try to reconstruct what I’d written, I suppose, and the devil take the hindmost.
Last night I dreamed I was at Manderly. In my dream my mouse wasn’t working properly. Okay, get your collective minds out of the gutter. I mean my computer mouse, not a euphemism for some unseemly thing. In any case, my computer mouse was not working and I smashed it to smithereens. I suppose I could have smashed it to Jonesareens, but instead I smashed it to Smithereens. Perhaps I should have smashed it to Jonesareens, because now I am not keeping up with the Joneses. Isn’t that a rather stupid and banal dream? And, of course, my real computer mouse is working just fine.
What on earth is a “smithereen”? That word just belongs in the pantheon of inane words, does it not?
I am having an extreme sense of deja vu, dear readers. I feel I’ve already written these notes, and yet, here I am, writing them again. Oh, well, I guess it’s just one of life’s little conundrums. Can one have a conuntympani, or a conuntrumpet? Just asking.
Perhaps it is time we all click that unseemly Unseemly Button below. Perhaps I won’t be so hopping mad when we’ve all clicked that damnable Unseemly Button below. Let’s find out.
Well, a lot of good that did – I’m still hopping mad. Yesterday, I began writing about my favorite musicals. These aren’t necessarily the “best” musicals or the “classics” (although some of them are), no, they’re the ones that have given me the most enjoyment.
I first saw the motion picture version of Li’l Abner back in 1959 at the Wiltern Theater, and I totally fell in love with it, and went back many times to see it. And I’ve loved it ever since. I never saw the Broadway production, but I did see a terrific local production in Los Angeles at the Bluth Brothers Theater. The film version was pretty faithful to the Broadway show, with the exception of some deleted songs. Peter Palmer reprised his Broadway role as Abner, and many of the supporting players reprised their roles as well, including the divine Stubby Kaye as Marryin’ Sam. Edie Adams, for whatever reasons, didn’t make the transition to the film version, but I can’t imagine anyone being more luscious, more beautiful or more sexy a Daisy Mae than Leslie Parrish. Her singing, was, of course, dubbed, but it was a very good match. The film version was directed by the Broadway show’s authors, Norman Panama and Melvin Frank, who made one of my all-time favorite films, The Court Jester. The book and script of Li’l Abner may be dated, but it is filled with still-hilarious one-liners and jokes, most of them falling to Marryin’ Sam and delivered with perfect timing by the great Stubby Kaye. The film retains most of Michael Kidd’s choreography (watch for both Beth Howland and Valerie Harper in the chorus). And, as a special bonus, there’s a cameo by Jerry Lewis. The score, by Gene de Paul and Johnny Mercer, is filled with one great song after another. They’re funny, they’re tuneful, and the ballads actually manage to be both touching and amusing, which is no mean feat. Why, our very own Guy Haines, who also loves this show, actually sang If I Had My Druthers on his very own album Haines His Way.. If you have never seen Li’l Abner, I think the film is still available on VHS, and it’s definitely worth checking out. And if you’re not humming Jubilation T. Cornpone after you see or hear it, well, you will be, trust me. Also, the opening number of Li’l Abner (much truncated in the film) is one of the great opening numbers/scene setters in musical comedy history. It’s a textbook example of how to start a musical.
That damn Haines His Way link was where the whole first set of notes went into the ether somewhere. Now we are caught up, so to speak, although I’m quite certain there were several bon mots in the first set of notes that I can’t remember. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, there are several missing bon mots. I hate when there are missing bon mots. One simply can’t have enough bon mots and when several go missing, then it is a sad day, bon mot-wise.
Well, these here notes would be longer, but I need to get them up – plus, if you add the original set of notes now missing, they would be really long, and, of course, they’d say the same thing twice.
Tomorrow I shall endeavor to write one set of notes and I will endeavor not to nuke them into that bloody ether. Why if I were to ever nuke notes again I would smash this damnable computer to both Jones and Smithereens.