Thursday, January 28, 2010

Movies in a Minute: Jurassic Park

My newest feature (movies in a minute)!

Scene 1
"Welcome to Jurassic Park. I've invited several honored guests. Dr. Grant, the paleontologist. Legs Sattler, the lady paleontologist--"

Ellie Sattler: "Actually, I'm a paleobotanist--

John Hammond: "Quiet, Legs. Dr. Ian Malcolm, the comic relief. Donald Gennaro, the evil corporate lawyer. Oh, and two young children for no real reason. Well, on with the tour!"

http://www.fastheadlines.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/steven-spielberg.jpg

Steven Spielberg: "Before we begin, do you think we could foreshadow the fact that raptors are dangerous and are going to cause a lot of carnage and destruction?"

Robert Muldoon: "SHOOT HER!"

http://www.fastheadlines.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/steven-spielberg.jpg

Steven Spielberg: "Hmm, a little more?"

Alan Grant: "John, you half mad half insane eccentric--you breed raptors on this island?!"

http://www.fastheadlines.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/steven-spielberg.jpg

Steven Spielberg: "A little more?"

Robert Muldoon: "Destroy all raptors!"

Scene 2

John Hammond: "What do you think of my park?"

Alan Grant: "Nature gooood. Science baaaaaaaaad."

Ian Malcolm: "Science baaaaad. Lawyers worse."

Scene 3.

John Hammond: "Well, on with the tour!"

Donald Gennaro: "I think I'll make it easier on everyone and get myself eaten soon. You don't want to watch me parade around in my Bermuda shorts for the rest of the movie, do you?"

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T-Rex: "ROAR!"

http://www.gavinrymill.com/dinosaurs/jurassicpark/RexFootMud.jpg

Alan Grant: "DON'T MOVE. Spielberg can't make us do another sequel if we don't move."

Joe Johnston: "No, but I can."

Scene 4

Robert Muldoon: "Not another dinosaur chase. Dammit, someone, do something."

Ian Malcolm: "I could come up with another snappy and topical line about the Pirates of the Carribean."

Ellie Sattler: "I could try taking off my anorak and hiking up my khaki shorts."

Ian Malcolm: "Let's get scared and lean against the stick."

Ellie Sattler: "Ooh, good idea."

Robert Muldoon: "Wake me when it's time for me to become an internet meme."

Scene 5.

Ellie Sattler: "You know what I hate? When the guy you're dating runs off into dino land and doesn't call and your back up guy won't even hit on you to boost your ego. Just because you're mauled and on morphine you don't have to be rude."

John Hammond: "Tell me about it! Chunky Monkey or Fossil Fuel?"

Ellie: "Ooh, got any Chubby Hubby?"

John Hammond: "Man. Creating a theme park with dinosaurs on an island in the middle of nowhere with no fence protection except electricity and then sending away 95% of my workers on the first weekend we open it to guests. How could it have gone wrong?!"

Scene 6.

John Hammond: "People are dying!"

John Arnold: "Hold onto your butts. Well, time to go restart the system manually."

http://www.jpdatabase.net/db_gallery/index.php?displaypic=jp%2Fjp_394.jpg

John Arnold: "Oh, the generator is conveniently located on the other side of the raptor exhibit. I'll go restart it. I'm a minority male with minimal character development, and the same first name as one of the main characters, and I don't even get to carry a walkie talkie. I'm sure this will end well."

Five minutes later.

Ellie Sattler: "He didn't come back. Let's try it again, except instead of sending Mr. Arnold, we'll send me!"

John Hammond: "You can't go restart the system. You're a dame and I'm a fella, and..."

Ellie: "No, I'm a pretty white female in a Spielberg movie. I'm the daughter of Bruce Dern, plus I've got top billing and I think Samuel L. Jackson just bit the dust, and I know Stephen prefers to space out the gore. I'll be fine. Girl power! Hey, what's wrong, Muldoon?"

Robert Muldoon: "You go on ahead. I've...got something to take care of."

Robert Muldoon: "Clever girl...Oh, the nadir of my career."

Scene 7.

Alan Grant: "Oh no, the doors won't lock without computers! Only fatties and little girly girls like computers. Try to reach the guns, Ellie!""

Ellie Sattler: "If I can contort myself a little more while leaning against the door...I can...show off my calves."

Lex: "This is Unix, I know this. I can do what a chainsmoking Samuel L. Jackson couldn't. Title IX, bitches!"

Tim: "Go, Lex, go!"

Alan Grant: "Uh, kid, can you stop cheering on Lara Croft on for a minute and hand us the gun so we can blast some dino ass?"

http://mentaldefective.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/steven_spielberg.jpg

Steven Spielberg: "Noooooo! Lucas, turn it into a walkie talkie, quick."

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George Lucas: "Right, boss."

Alan Grant: "I've decided not to endorse your park."

John Hammond: "But you endorsed all of my brother's documentaries! Even the ones without cute animals! Why does everyone think he's more relevant than I am?!"

Steven Spielberg: "Shut up--I came THIS close to killing off your character. If it weren't for your sense of childlike wonderment, you'd be raptor meat."

John Hammond: "This is because E.T. lost to Gandhi, isn't it?"

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Steven Spielberg: "Off the record? Yes."

Sunday, January 24, 2010

UnSweetined: A Full House Memoir

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A sitcom memoir! Most of it is about Jodie Sweetin dealing with her meth addiction. As a relatively clean girl whose drug info comes from reading rock biographies, snarking Go Ask Alice, and watching old drug PSAs, I couldn't really relate to the "Dude, I was SO tweaked" stories. But I do love the seedy underbelly of sitcom life so the Full House parts of the memoir were what I gravitated to. What does Jodie Sweetin reveal in her tell all?
  • Dave Coulier ended up marrying Jayne Modean, who played older Michelle in the episode where the guys have a daymare about what it would be like if the girls were still living in the house as adults. Dave and Jayne used to get it on in his dressing room while they were engaged and sometimes he'd ask her to say "Ow-scream." (All right, all right. That last part I made up.)
  • As we all know, Candace Cameron found religion and was the saintly one. Maybe D.J.'s goody good nature on the show was why Candace Cameron went down the religious route, while Jodie didn't. D.J. probably the only high school senior who could go to a frat party and brag about having a good time while not getting wasted, without a hint of irony. Even Brandon "Sanctimony is my life" Walsh has a few war stories to tell. Not D.J., though. (Then again, when your brother is Kirk "I'd rather be walking on water" Cameron, you pretty much don't have a choice.)
  • Jodie on John Stamos's lips: they're wet and slimy. This explains so much. Like why the Olsen twins became the "cute ones" on the show while Steph didn't (ability to tolerate wet Stamos kisses was the Full House version of the sleazy casting couch scene). And why Rebecca Romijn Stamos became Rebecca Romijn O'Connell.
  • OK, one alcohol related story. Jodie Sweetin's first drunk experience happened when she was fourteen and got tanked at Candace Cameron's wedding to Valeri Bure. Candace's reaction (in my mind) to Jodie getting super drunk:
Listen, you little wench, I put up with you getting a pretend wedding the same season I got dumped by Jonathan Brandeis. I tolerated Michelle's pretend wedding to my boyfriend. If you mess this up for me, Mr. Bear's going to become one more reason that Golden Gate Bridge needs a suicide net.
  • As we all know, the thoroughly forgettable pedo meat that was the Olsen twins came to dominate the show like Cesar Milan with a beagle who's not a Team Player. I got the sense that Jodie resented not being the one that everyone considered "the cute kid." Since I didn't speak fluent goblin, I preferred the Steph heavy episodes.
For example, Uncle Jesse's grandfather Papouli dies? Great, shove a few onions up the Olsen eye sockets and get Michelle bawling over a relative she's met twice in her life. D.J. has to choose between two heartthrobs while the gang cleans up a playground and Frankie Valli shows up to collect a check? Okay, but make sure the Olsens get some quality time whining about making the park safe for Nicky and Alex. Bitches. Don't get in the way of my Frankie Valli experience. I gouged out a woman's eyes when she made a tiny move towards picking up her Crackberry during Jersey Boys. I won't hesitate to go medieval on your Muppet asses. (All right, I threw pieces of my tiny eight dollar chocolate bar at her during Can't Take My Eyes Off of You.)
  • Jodie said that she and her mother both enjoyed meeting the Beach Boys on their many guest appearances on the show. In fact, during their first appearance, when the handlers were feeding the Olsens their lines off camera, Brian Wilson reacted by repeating the line and everyone laughed. Poor Brian Wilson. They let him out of his ten year drug addled sabbatical and he has to guest star in a sitcom episode where he's playing second fiddle to his mulletted former drummer, Mike Love, and a pair of aborted troll fetuses? For that, Jeff Franklin and Don Van Atta, I decree that the ironic punishment du jour for you shall be trapped in a windowless attic listening to the Olsen twins singing their version of Pet Sounds. There, now doesn't the concept of Danny Tanner rocking out to "My Generation" in spray on leather pants seem like the aural equivalent of nectar and ambrosia?
  • Speaking of music, I do have to admit that the House introduced me to a lot of older music. Yes, I'll admit that the first time I ever heard of "Help Me, Rhonda," it was when a clueless D.J. misidentified it as, "Help me, Gibbler." And I pretty much only knew "Forever" as the song that Jesse and the Rippers do after Jesse whines about not having a hit single and the Beach Boys (who are inexplicably jamming in his music studio) decide to let him cover it. Jesse's reaction? "And you know what, Elvis never recorded anything he wrote." Then he segues into a cringe worthy impression of Elvis doing Surfin' USA, and somewhere Chuck Berry is wondering whether to pop a cap in another plagiarizing white boy's ass or to call his lawyer again.
  • Lori Loughlin was apparently really cool according to Jodie. Since there were so many slender big breasted (and brain damaged) models who apparently wanted nothing more than to date Joey and Danny, Lori didn't want the girls to get any hang ups about their bodies. When they were shooting the episode where D.J. has an eating disorder, Lori made sure the girls knew that a character having eating issues isn't the same as an actress having them (unless you're on Growing Pains). In one cute little stunt, so the girls wouldn't get too self conscious about their bodies, Lori, plus Candace, Jodie, and the Olsens, came out onto the set with their chests stuffed with tissues as a joke. It's a little less funny when you take a look at what Jodie looks like now.

http://www.damnimcute.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/sweetin.jpg

For the love of god, please don't squeeze the Charmin.
  • Here are some things I wish had been revealed. Whether Mama Olsen was on some Thalidomide type drug when she gestated the twins, or if they were really born dead and Jeff Franklin switched them with babies that were the spawn of Satan and a jackal. Hey, it explains why at age four Michelle freed the class bird and why at age five she murdered her first pet, Martin the fish--death by bubble bath. And Papouli lived a long happy life in Greece and just happened to die as soon as he spent some time chez Tanner? Sorry, but the girl made Damien look like he was on the shortbus in terms of evil.
In conclusion? Good memoirs. Good. Not great.

In other random news, I haven't updated my other blog in forever. I'm thinking I might buy myself out and repost my old Get a Pencil and your Casebook posts in Dibbly Fresh and continue to snark TV (and everything) here on this blog which has the bigger audience.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Pop Culture Musings: Antidrug PSAs

Drugs. My drug knowledge comes largely from (where else?) TV. Growing up, we were all assaulted by drug PSAs. What did we learn? To find out, come with me on an anti drug tour of a life time.




Drug users hate being called names. They're sensitive and complex little pirates desperate for approval. Don't explain why you don't want to do pot with logical explanations--a simple putdown will suffice. Calling a grade schooler a "turkey" works--for older kids, I've found that, "weak willed cog of the machine" is great.



Lessons? Mmm, edible brains! Do we get free samples of these?




The "This is your brain" people of the 80s decided that the only thing that could make this message more effective with the kids was to make it sexier. Lessons learned: on the one hand, drugs make you a creepy little elfin pixie who takes out her rage on frying pans with a hysteria Joan Crawford reserved for her wire hangers. But on the other, drugs make you skinny enough to pull off that white tank top and pixie cut even more convincingly than Natalie Imbruglia. I'm torn.





Lesson the first. Dogs are narcs. Lesson the second, if you do drugs, you'll be condescended to by a creature who can't master the toilet. Getting an anti drug lecture from your dog is just slightly less humiliating than getting one from Borat.



If you've been to any experience where drugs are de rigeur (Woodstock, Studio 54, sitting through an M. Night film screening), block up your uterus and stitch your thighs together. No kids for you! On an unrelated note, I kind of hope this, "I learned it from YOU, okay?!" conversation crops up between Dexter and baby Harrison in another fifteen years.


According to one PSA which I unfortunately couldn't find, "Nobody ever says I want to be a junkie when I grow up." Are you sure? I like to think at least a few people had that as a goal. It would make me feel a lot better about the career paths of Keith Richards, Hunter S. Thompson, and the (soon to be) Widow Winehouse.



Lesson? If you do meth, invest in a set of eyebrow merkins. (Spock's Club is having a sale this weekend--everything from the "O RLY?" brow to the inscrutable poker faced brows.) However, the fact that my first reaction to this wasn't, "Drugs're BAD, mmkay" but to reach for my tweezer shows that I probably do need an intervention of a different sort. I never told you guys this, but hi. I'm Sadako, and I'm an eyebrowrexic.



If you do cocaine, you'll only be able to afford the sparkly be-dazzled Express dresses that cover a third of your ass. But your ass will be a third smaller because you won't need to eat so it works out okay. This ad is kind of comforting to me--party hardy coke girls wobble around in four inch heels and pass out in bathrooms. Since I live in ballet flats and with an Adrian Monk-esque fear of public toilets, it could never happen to me.



Heroin users wear sensible shoes, like sneakers, but their hair is stringy and unwashed. And they wear hoodies and take public transportation! Don't chase the dragon, kids. After all, the girl in the cocaine PSA got picked up by a limousine. Hold out for a cool drug.

The lesson? Meth < Heroin < Coke

Also, I'm hungry. Someone pass the scrambled brain, please.

Friday, January 15, 2010

Sitcom Secrets: Black Sheep

Sitcoms are cliquish places. And just as every clique has the cool kids, there's also the guy that everyone loves to kick around. In some cases, this happened off screen when actors got the short end of the stick. In other cases, characters got messed with because the writers had it in for them (See also, Meg Griffin).

Screech, Saved by the Bell

Sure, you all say you loved Screech, along with all the cast. But was Screech anyone's favorite character? For example, when you found out that the Saved by the Bell sex tape was all about Screech, who wasn't disappointed? There's no one I'd want to see a sex tape of less, and that includes Richard "Hey, hey, hey, what is going on here?" Belding.

http://sitemaker.umich.edu/mc2/files/screech.jpg

Even though Zack and Slater were up to their ears in be-scrunchied and plastic hoop earringed girls, Screech, on the other hand, sugared his churro alone almost every episode. After all, he had the sex appeal of a Cialis ad. He was nerdy, but not in an artsy Woody Allen way, and he inhabited an era before Michael Cera made awkward teenage boyishness hot. (Even Paulie Bleecker was virile enough to knock up Juno on the first go.) Poor Screech. The one time they did give him a real girlfriend, it was because he lost a poker game to Aaron Spelling.

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Aunt Vivian #1, Fresh Prince of Bel Air

I loved Aunt Viv #1. She had the physique of Angela Bassett and the career aspirations of Clair Huxtable without the bitchiness. And she fired me up to learn more about black history. I think of Aunt Viv each time I read an article on how there may be black Barbies, but they've got straight white girl hair and they certainly don't got back. But after season three, Janet Hubert pissed off Will Smith and she was replaced by Daphne Maxwell-Reid.

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Where have you gone, Janet Hubert, a nation raised on lukewarm sitcom moms turns its lonely eyes to you. Daphne Maxwell-Reid was nice enough but she was a cocoa colored Stepford Wife next to Janet. When I think of Daphne as Viv, all I think of is her smiling insipidly while managing to overlook the fact that her youngest offspring has the same aging disease that Robin Williams made us aware of in the documentary Jack.

http://www.linternaute.com/television/serie-tv/dossier/prince-de-bel-air/images/vivan2.jpg

In a clip posted to youtube, Alfonso Ribeiro (Carlton) rants about how Janet was crazy and that's why she was fired.



My theory? She disapproved of her eldest TV son's dalliances with certain creepy monkey loving NAMBLA members and as a result was wished into the cornfield.



Yup, that's a young Alfonso dancing with MJ. You think it's a coincidence that Aunt Viv #1 only published her tell all memoir about her experiences on the show the year after MJ died?

Eric, Boy Meets World

Eric used to be the character with the most unused potential. He was cute and smart, but lazy. Every now and again, he'd do something to show that he was more than an adorable dumbass, like become a weatherman or date a girl with a five year old. And Eric was clearly Feeny's favorite. But when the show started becoming Boy Meets World: the College Years, the producers figured the show already had one cute floppy haired slacker and Rider Strong beat out Will Friedle. (It's those damned pouty lips--who can say no to them?)

http://www.vivianreed.net/BMW/media/willf03.jpg

Eric gained weight, his floppy haired 'do became shorter, spikier, and Kate Gosselin-ier and he was reduced to a barely lucid man-child spouting off Cartman imitations. While Rider Strong went on to such meaty roles as Cabin Fever and Cabin Fever 2, the highlight of Will Friedle's career was voicing Ron Stoppable on Kim Possible. Playing second fiddle to a naked mole rat--how low can you go? (Disney Fans: "How DARE you refer to Christy Carlson Romano that way?!")


Stephanie Tanner, Full House

On the show, Stephanie was the oft overlooked middle child. In her autobiography, Unsweetined, Jodie Sweetin talks about feeling like the black sheep: Candace Cameron was the eldest and the Olsen twins owned stock in a hypno toad that convinced people they were the cutest thing since Gary Coleman's kidneys started working again.

http://images1.fanpop.com/images/photos/1800000/Stephanie-Tanner-full-house-1848010-506-467.jpg

On screen, Steph was the middle child who had to resort to pretend marriages to get attention, and off-screen, after the show ended, she was the one doing drugs. Not a cool drug (i.e., cocaine and dexedrine laced ow-scream) like the Olsens or the opiate of the masses, like Candace, but meth. The trailer park drug. Where have you gone, Steph, a nation of middle children turn their lonely eyes to you.

Jan Brady, The Brady Bunch

The vintage overlooked middle child. Marcia could dump guys and undump them when her old nose grew back and the really cute guys didn't want her. Plus, she had the sex appeal to hook celebs like Davy Jones and Desi Arnaz Jr. Cindy was too little to worry about boyfriends. But Jan was stuck in the middle and she had to resort to the pretend George Glass when she wanted a date.

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Eve Plumb, who played Jan, was the only actress who didn't return for the Brady Bunch Variety Hour, and when she did come back for the made for TV Brady movies, she was given the unsexy conflicts of marital problems and fertility issues. When asked what her favorite episode was, she once jokingly responded, "The last one," which apparently made fans very sad.

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Did you guys know that Maureen McCormick (Marcia, Marcia, Marcia) was on Celebrity Fit Club? Under Eve Plumb's pillow, there's probably a really fat voodoo doll with a lock of Maureen's long annoyingly straight blond hair.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Assorted Thoughts

First, I wanted to mention that the lovely Nikki at Are You there Youth? It's Me, Nikki was awesome enough to post my BSC fanfic on her blog. My first ever fanfic! It involves Shadow Lake, Jessi, and a very, VERY special guest star.

Second, I wrote another, longer post which will follow this one, either tonight or tomorrow morning.

And third, awards! A bunch of you gave me the beautiful blogger award, but I already posted it.. Just wanted to say thanks to all of you for giving it to me, though. I did get another award that I wanted to spread on.

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A blog award from Lauren, at I was a teenage book geek. Thanks so much. I love you!

List ten things that make you happy. Try to do at least one of them today.

1. Chocolate chip cookies. Especially crunch ones.

http://www.babble.com/CS/blogs/strollerderby/chocolate_chip-cookies.jpg

2. Watching clips of Ronnie Spector perform.



3. YA lit!

4. Wearing a buttload of eyeliner.

5. Obsessing over Full House.

6. Quoting and singing from Bye Bye Birdie. And this clip of Mr. Nolan Gerard Funk! (Now someone release the cas



7. Going to the gym.

8. Dog snuggies. I know, the party line is that snuggies are stupid and that snuggies for dogs are even stupider but every time I see this little dog, my uterus skips a beat.

http://me414.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/dog-snuggie.jpg

9. Movies, TV specials, and books set in the Edwardian era. Edwardian Manor House (reality show), Gosford Park, and so forth.

10. Reading about real life murder and sex crime cases. (I'm a sick sad baby.)

Tag ten bloggers who brighten your day:

I Want Your Sass
Nostomanic
Mode a la Pie

Literary Crap
Worst of the Worst Fanfic
The Dream Machine
BSC Chronologically
Tumor Attitude
YA Revisited
ABC Not-Just-For-Kids

Monday, January 11, 2010

CATS: the Snarkicle

Because I absolutely had to get it out of my system, the abbreviated version of the musical "CATS." I warn all pregnant women, young children, and those with high blood pressure to beware.

Every time I see this set, I have to restrain myself from screaming, "Euthanize the kitties! Bring on the Taverna!" We are, as you see, at the Wintergarden Theater, which is currently showing Mamma Mia! And yes, you know you're in trouble when a musical which is basically a Maury Povich paternity test set to disco is considered a work of art compared to your show.

The kitties prance and dance and sing about how great it is to be a Jellicle Cat.

Old Deuteronomy, the corpulent old feline leader and guru, stands on a raised platform and half heartedly imitates the rest of the dancing cats, like a guy on a TLC "650 pound Virgin" special doing water aerobics while waiting for the insurance company to approve his bariatric surgery.

Keep on, keep on dancing, little cats.

Ten minutes later, no one has any idea what a Jellicle Cat is, nor will they ever. But I have an even stronger urge to reach for a razor and go all Chien Andalou on my eyes than I did the day I stumbled across that Neuticles site.

Next, Victoria, a white female cat in a skin tight suit performs a dance that made me stare at my shoes in horror when I had to see Cats with my parents.

And because the unwashed masses seem to think that gyrations that would make Mary Lou Retton blush are Culture, this is how we ended up with Cirque Du Soleil years later.

Snark on, MacDuff. The Rum Tum Tugger, who's apparently the love child of Mick Jagger and a Laker girl, bumps, grinds, and touches himself. If you thought the ending of the Black or White video was hot stuff, you'll love this.

http://www.freewebs.com/catslovers/Rum_tum_tugger1.jpg

Side Note: the Rum Tum Tugger always pulls a lady from the audience to dance with him. One woman sued the actor playing Rum Tum, Andrew Lloyd Webber, and the Wintergarden Theater, for sexual harassment. Can you blame her? I feel as dirty as Hank Hill in that dolphin rape episode of King of the Hill, and I'm watching it on youtube at home.

Apparently, some of the Cats got to put "Doubled as Fluffer" in addition to "Swing" on their resumes.

Next, a cat who's called Grizabella the Glamor Cat, a down on her luck cat who used to be totally hot (think Lindsay Lohan's trajectory) enters. None of the others let her play in any kitty games.

"Andy likes me better because he gave me whiskers and real cat ears. Don't you wish your costume was hot like mine, Teddy Ruxpin?"

Side Note: Judi Dench was meant to play the role of Grizabella in the London production but ended up being replaced by Elaine Paige when she snapped a tendon. Dame Judi proved herself to be a true badass--none of this "Sorry, Mr. Mamet, I ate a bad tuna sammich" for her (take that, Jeremy "the Human Thermometer" Piven). Sawing through your own tendon to avoid a role is what true grit is all about.

But can you blame her? I'm guessing Andy promised her a role that was more Eartha Kitt and less "I'm a casualty of animal hoarding."

Another hour or so of kitty dancing. Railroad cats, theater cats, and a kitty ball. To paraphrase Blackadder, Mr. Lloyd Webber, I'm thicker than a whale omelet, but even I know--a musical's gotta have a plot.

Andy got the message. Over half way through the show, he decides to leaf through "Musical Writing for Dummies" and realizes that most plays, books, films, and children's puppet shows have antagonists. Hence, Macavity the Mystery Cat.

http://chatnoir.seven.cz/pribeh/pics/mac.jpg

"I hope Tina Turner doesn't notice I made off with her wig collection..."

Macavity fight-dances a couple of other cats and somehow manages to appear less menacing than Kitty on a Roomba. Then he steals Old Deuteronomy.

Time to bring Old D back! Mr. Mistoffelees has an elaborate dance number, which the Rum Tum Tugger sings, with the whole cast joining in for the chorus. I thank god and the costume department that Mistoffelees is wearing a glittery tux and not a skintight latex cat suit.

Mr. Mistoffelees, I no longer doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.

Mr. M. brings back Old Deuteronomy and the Rum Tum Tugger's tone changes as he sings earnestly. Then Mr. M. leaps onto Old Deuteronomy and nuzzles him as the other cats sing, and somewhere some over educated cats are debating who should be disemboweled first for slandering the feline species--Lloyd Webber or the CEO of lolcatz.

"Oh, well!"


"I never!"
"Was there ever a cat so clever as..."

"When I think about you, I touch my--Oops, wrong number."

"Look, Ma, no balls!"

Once again, thank you, costume department--this jumping sequence could have been so much worse.

Then for no real reason, it's time to send one of the kitties off to the Heaviside Layer. That's Kitty Heaven. Every seven years, a cat gets to ascend to the Heaviside Layer on a gigantic tire to be reborn.

Old D has to choose one cat.

"I can haz HEAVEN plz?"

What a surprise! It's the cat with "HAZARD WARNING: I SECRETE PATHOS" tacked to its hide. Grizabella ascends to the Heaviside Layer as the other cats chant.

Incidentally, Cats fanfic exists. I'll remind you that Mary Anne and Logan dressed up as two characters from this musical for Halloween in Mary Anne's Bad Luck Mystery. Now, how many of you want to see Ann M.'s fanfic collection? (Forget her BSC first editions and her autographed copy of Five Little Peppers!)

This post is dedicated to my good friend ali who's always up for a fun theater snark. Together, we've seen a ton of musicals--the good (the twin wonders that are Nolan Gerard Funk's hips), the bad (two words: Pal Joey), and the ugly (a college production of Wake Her Up, a rock musical version of the myth of Psyche and Eros, in which Eros swivels his hips and somehow makes the Rum Tum Tugger look as suave as a pre jumpsuit Elvis).