...a full octave higher than the score!!!

April 3, 2018 8:23 PM

In an alternate universe, the recruiting alien from The Last Starfighter got together with the mom from the Partridge Family and the narrator from Arrested Development and filmed a musical together. OH WAIT THAT'S THIS UNIVERSE!

I've had the 1962 Original Movie Soundtrack for The Music Man [YT playlist] memorized for so many decades I once freaked out an entire room of people by doing Rock Island and Iowa Stubborn along with the movie while it was playing on TCM. Side A: Main Title / Rock Island / Iowa Stubborn, Ya Got Trouble, Piano Lesson & If You Don't Mind My Saying So, Goodnight My Someone, Ya Got Trouble & Seventy-Six Trombones, Sincere, The Sadder But Wiser Girl, Pick-A-Little Talk-A-Little

Side B: Marian The Librarian; Being In Love; Gary, Indiana; The Wells Fargo Wagon; Lida Rose & Will I Ever Tell You?; Gary, Indiana; Shipoopi; Till There Was You; Goodnight, My Someone; Seventy-Six Trombones

posted by hippybear (76 comments total)

They wrote near 40 songs!

Personally I blame the Model T Ford.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:30 PM on April 3, 2018 [3 favorites]

I was Gracie Shinn once in a community theater production and I could probably have understudied any part, I was so obsessed
posted by Countess Elena at 8:35 PM on April 3, 2018

Last Starfighter, thank you.
posted by lipservant at 8:35 PM on April 3, 2018 [3 favorites]

DAMMIT I KNEW IT WAS WRONG EVEN AS I TYPED IT BUT MY BRAIN WAS NO HELP!
posted by hippybear at 8:39 PM on April 3, 2018

Also best starfighter by default, though. I mean, if there aren’t any other starfighters…
posted by rodlymight at 8:50 PM on April 3, 2018 [1 favorite]

Every single time I go in prepared to roll my eyes at the turn in Til There Was You. Every single time I end up crying like a kid.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 8:51 PM on April 3, 2018 [4 favorites]

Mod note: Xur and the Kodan Armada have corrected your post
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 8:53 PM on April 3, 2018 [16 favorites]

I too can probably sing the entire movie from memory, and recite most of the dialog. It's one of the movies I watched OVER and OVER and OVER as a kid. Of all the old musicals my mom sat me down to watch, it was by far my favorite.
posted by threeturtles at 9:03 PM on April 3, 2018 [3 favorites]

A boy's band? Seems more like a...Shelbyville kind of idea.

I came to this through loving Robert Preston as Centauri first, since that's where I first saw him, but damned if I see an urn now without saying, "One Grecian Urn!" in my head.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 9:04 PM on April 3, 2018 [3 favorites]

I love this musical so much. I can't remember if I saw it on stage before I saw the movie - I have only a very vague memory of that first stage production, I think it must have been a regional thing some summer in Connecticut when I was a child. But I loved the movie, and got to see the most recent Broadway revival 4 times. First with Craig Bierko sometime in the middle of his run -- he seemed to be channeling Preston, and it was mesmerizing. Then I went again for Bierko's final performance, which was electrifying. Then Eric McCormack took over the part, so I went again, and thought he did a creditable job (though I will always love Bierko best). Then Robert Sean Leonard took over, and I went again, and it was amazingly awful -- like, I knew he wasn't a song & dance man, but, the drop in energy level was palpable. And he played it like a drama; I wish I could remember the exact line, but, I remember being shocked when he managed to drop one of his punchlines. Every other performance of the production, when they got to the curtain call/76 Trombones reprise, the audience was standing and clapping the entire way through it, but in Leonard's the audience sat through the whole thing and the clapping ended early on. I can only imagine how demoralizing it must have been for the rest of the cast who had experienced what it felt like before.

But I love even the lousy productions. Like the 2003 tv-adaptation with Matthew Broderick, that was a fairly terrible version, but I remember thinking that their Winthrop was maybe my favorite ever. The bad shows make you appreciate the good ones, and really bring home the difficulty level of playing Harold Hill. I mean, it's not a part that demands operatic singing skills, but it requires a level of charisma and energy that not every actor can manage. He is the engine that drives the show, and if that actor doesn't make you feel as enthused as the people of River City, it's like seeing the tricks behind a magic act.
posted by oh yeah! at 9:33 PM on April 3, 2018 [7 favorites]

Ditto on having the whole thing memorized--for my entire family, even. It always makes me stumble when I see live productions of it, though, when they get to the Uneeda Biscuit. And My White Knight instead of Being in Love.

The other best thing that came out of Meredith Wilson's collaboration with Robert Preston was Chicken Fat, the ridiculously catchy workout song commissioned by the Kennedy administration's Council on Physical Fitness. I wasn't old enough to have experienced it in school, so I probably don't have the proper blend of nostalgia and resentment about it, but I love it all the same.

On preview: how could you possibly out-Winthrop Ronnie Howard?
posted by darksasami at 9:36 PM on April 3, 2018 [4 favorites]

I don’t really enjoy many movie musicals but I will defend this one forever.
posted by kreinsch at 9:36 PM on April 3, 2018 [2 favorites]

Cash for the adverbs. Cash for the articles. Cash for the clauses and the sentences and paragraphs. Cash for the air, water, fire, earth, and suntan lotion. Cash for the angels and the sylphs and the seraphim. Cash for the men and women, children and accessories. Cash for the under and the over and the in-between. Cash for the nuance and subtleties beneath the skin. Cash for the numinous and holy and ineffable.
posted by aws17576 at 9:41 PM on April 3, 2018 [5 favorites]

(My link above is probably pretty mysterious, and I don't know that I can explain much. I spent some time in the late '90s amusing myself by trying random web domains, and that's how I encountered F'loom and sent for one of their a cappella CDs. Weird shit. The track linked above is described in the liner notes as an imagined dialogue between Harold Hill and real-life media critic Neil Postman. A friend and I painstakingly transcribed the whole thing and performed it at an open-mic night, much to everyone's confusion. And this was the kind of open mic where the emcee pressured people to come up by reading aloud from Being and Time between acts.

I heard the F'loom track before I'd even seen The Music Man, and when I finally rectified the omission some years later... well, I won't say things suddenly made sense, but the shock of recognition was certainly interesting.)
posted by aws17576 at 9:51 PM on April 3, 2018 [1 favorite]

In 1972, some of us in my high school band were recruited/shanghaied into providing the backing band for the drama department's production of "Music Man", their first musical. We skipped the intro/main title music and started on the train for the a capella "Rock Island" bit, with the band filling in seats in the onstage 'train' set. I got to pipe in on a couple of the "whadyasay"s and "no it ain't"s, then we all rushed back to the 'orchestra pit' to do the "Iowa Stubborn" song. Good times.
posted by oneswellfoop at 9:53 PM on April 3, 2018 [2 favorites]

Screw The Last Starfighter—that's Toddy from Victor/Victoria!
posted by los pantalones del muerte at 9:57 PM on April 3, 2018 [9 favorites]

Every single time I go in prepared to roll my eyes at the turn in Til There Was You. Every single time I end up crying like a kid.

Never have cared much for the Beatles catalogue pre-Revolver, but their cover of Till There Was You has always brought a smile to face.
posted by los pantalones del muerte at 10:29 PM on April 3, 2018 [5 favorites]

One other thing about the high school production of 'Music Man': the student who played Harold Hill started talking off-stage like Robert Preston - totally overdramatic - and for the rest of junior and senior years, he never got out of it...

When I started college, I volunteered for the underpopulated drama department's production of 'A Man for All Seasons' and was cast as Cardinal Wolsey, a role played by Orson Welles, in which he had an intense single scene with the title character then died offstage (leaving me available to work on the stage crew). In rehearsals, I was constantly being told to "project more" and be "more Orson Welles". I guess I was a little scared of being stuck in that mode, because in the next-to-last rehearsal before the first performance, I got to where my character declared "Our ambassador is a ninny" and yelled it out in my best Paul Lynde impression. The reaction was evenly divided between giddy laughter and stunned silence.
posted by oneswellfoop at 10:36 PM on April 3, 2018 [2 favorites]

My Fella just last night was adjusting the lyrics of "Shipoopi" to fit the ingredients of some recipe he was working on. . .
posted by goofyfoot at 10:57 PM on April 3, 2018

Folks who grew up during the early 60s will remember that there was a related musical side project involving the President’s Council on Physical Fitness, Robert Preston and Meredith Wilson: Go You Chicken Fat Go.
posted by kinnakeet at 11:07 PM on April 3, 2018 [1 favorite]

One thing that I miss from stage versions vs. the film? The background chickens.
I feel like one loses the joke in Pick a Little without them.
posted by bartleby at 11:31 PM on April 3, 2018

You guys are SPOOKING me. After reading a sporking of Ready Player One, I had to rewatch Starfighter. Then, two days later, I see this post. I mean, really, Metafilter, at LEAST turn the webcam light on so I know when to wear pants?
posted by Samizdata at 11:42 PM on April 3, 2018 [1 favorite]

Or you know, if you don't want to, at least set up a webcam canary so, you know, I can put on a better show...
posted by Samizdata at 11:54 PM on April 3, 2018

We did Wells' Fargo Wagon in 3rd grade chorus back in the 70's... Good times...
posted by mikelieman at 2:13 AM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

On preview: how could you possibly out-Winthrop Ronnie Howard?

Winthrop is a tough sell for me. I usually feel a kind of second-hand embarrassment watching him, which the cute-kid factor can't overcome.

We did Wells' Fargo Wagon in 3rd grade chorus back in the 70's... Good times...

I always tear up in this song, I so resent how scummy modern Wellls Fargo has become - stealing from people and wrecking their credit by setting up false accounts. I have to walk past one of their ATMs on my commute, and instead of getting to have a nice 'Music Man' nostalgia moment, I can only give it a 'you are a criminal enterprise that should be put out of business' glare.
posted by oh yeah! at 4:47 AM on April 4, 2018 [5 favorites]

You guys are SPOOKING me. After reading a sporking of Ready Player One, I had to rewatch Starfighter. Then, two days later, I see this post. I mean, really, Metafilter, at LEAST turn the webcam light on so I know when to wear pants?

Tell me about it; I’m music director for a production of this show that opens tonight.
posted by donatella at 5:17 AM on April 4, 2018 [5 favorites]

Metafilter: You can talk, you can bicker, you can talk, you can bicker, you can talk, talk, talk, talk, bicker, bicker, bicker, you can talk all you wanna, but it's different than it was. No, it ain't, no, it ain't but you gotta know the territory.
posted by dannyboybell at 5:27 AM on April 4, 2018 [16 favorites]

The Music Man has been a part of my life since I was about four - I very clearly remember watching it on the TV at Christmas in about... 1969? That sounds about right. It was certainly before I'd worked out there were different things on the TV rather than one long, confusing programme. And we used to listen to the original Broadway version a lot, too.

One of my favourite factoids about the film is that it's one of the small number of things that were artfully shot in such a way as to conceal the fact that the lead actress was really rather pregnant at the time (along with a season of Seinfeld, the first series of Black Books and Shiina Ringo's video for Irohanihoheto).

The bit where it becomes clear that Good Night My Someone and 76 Trombones are the same song and Shirley Jones launches into the wrong one is a gag worthy of Airplane.

I long assumed that it was based on a classic American novel, but no, it was entirely original. Which is quite extraordinary, when you come to think about it. And autobiographical, too, to a certain extent.
posted by Grangousier at 5:34 AM on April 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

This was one of three cassettes of musicals we rotated during family summer cross-country vacations, which were played on a Realistic portable tape player/recorder. So this show is deeply rooted in my brain.

Oh yeah, I also saw the Broadway revival with Craig Bierko and Rebecca Luker. That production made me so happy, and I’m glad that I missed the later versions.
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 5:40 AM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

This is unquestionably the best musical.
posted by kevinbelt at 6:03 AM on April 4, 2018

A boy's band? Seems more like a...Shelbyville kind of idea.

Phil Hartman was a genius we lost way too soon. He did that monorail song perfectly...
posted by mikelieman at 6:07 AM on April 4, 2018 [6 favorites]

Music Man is one of those cultural icons that I've seen and heard a billion references to and parodies of but I don't think that I've ever actually seen the thing itself. Also TIL that Lennon/McCartney didn't write 'Til There Was You.
posted by octothorpe at 6:16 AM on April 4, 2018

Not only did I obsessively listen to this album as a child, but about 10 years ago, I went with my sib and their family to an outdoor, summer production. It was magical, if a bit buggy, and the kids (young elementary age) became equally obsessed. But they didn't just listen, they had to have the lyrics printed out and memorized (the internet as a force of good). Someone would just start singing, and the whole household would join in. To have a small child look you in the eye and start belting out "Maaaariaaaan, Madame Librrrrrrrriaaaan" - and running up and down the stairs acting it out - well, it was cute and sweet, and now they are in college and finishing high school, and I think I need to dust...
posted by AMyNameIs at 6:40 AM on April 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

I note that the performance and general upbeat mood of Gary Indiana certainly suggest that it must be a wonderful place, but a close reading of the lyrics reveals that he never actually says anything good about it, just that he came from there and so he's got good memories.

Brilliantly observed on the part of the writers. The good con artist doesn't actually lie to you but just walks you right up to the line and lets you step across on your own.
posted by Naberius at 7:15 AM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

I am the only member of my family who loves this movie, but I will defend it to my dying breath. Great music, great banter, great performances. Ye gods!

I did not know until this moment that Meredith Wilson wrote Lida Rose -- I assumed it was a pre-existing song for the barbershop quartet to sing, like Goodnight Ladies. What a great tune.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 7:25 AM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

I will continue my one-woman campaign for a live musical version of The Music Man starring Jon Hamm. He really doesn't need to sing that well for this part and it's just something I want. I started on a dream cast for this too, but I got distracted.

My personal theory is that Winthrop is Marian's son. You can at least make a good case for it. In any case, I do wonder if that was originally the plan but it was decided against at some point along the way.

I love The Music Man. It's just such a delight and I watch it a lot. (I was not that big on the 2003 TV adaptation -- I think beyond Matthew Broderick, it felt pretty miscast.)
posted by darksong at 7:50 AM on April 4, 2018 [4 favorites]

Another huge fan here. IIRC, there's an episode of Happy Days where Richie and Marion pass a movie theater with an original "Music Man" poster on the wall, and Marion says something like "hmmm, that kid looks familiar."

After YouTube became a thing, there was a time when I went down a deep, deep rabbit hole listening to The Buffalo Bills and lots of groups like them.
posted by Melismata at 7:50 AM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

It is worth checking out Meredith Willson's career - this was the only thing I knew him for, but it turns out it's far from the only thing he did. He wrote the score for The Great Dictator, for example. The man wrote at least two symphonies, that has to be worth something. Even if I've no idea whether they're any good.

(They are on Spotify, though, so I'll check them out later.)
posted by Grangousier at 8:01 AM on April 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

I've always loved this musical and have a great deal of it memorized. At some point, however, I learned that my wife (and most of her friends) absolutely despised it. It wasn't that she disliked the music, it was the old fashioned gender politics that annoyed her so badly. So I've learned to tamper down on my enthusiasm for it and just accept it as a problematic fave I don't talk about.
posted by charred husk at 8:10 AM on April 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

She probably hates Annie Get Your Gun then, too.
posted by Melismata at 9:09 AM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

Thanks for the feminist criticism. There was a piece in the Times a few weeks ago, "The Problem With Broadway Revivals: They Revive Gender Stereotypes, Too".
posted by brothers at 9:14 AM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

"Gary Indiana" is the worst and most useless song ever written. I'll see myself out.
posted by goatdog at 9:16 AM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

And Native American stereotypes, and race stereotypes, and ...
posted by Melismata at 9:16 AM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

OK but wait, now I really wanna see that musical with Centauri and Shirley Partridge as main characters, with Ron Howard as the voice of a Greek chorus.
posted by LooseFilter at 9:22 AM on April 4, 2018

I watched this a lot as a kid. No, more than that. A lot a lot. I can probably sing most of it off by heart. And it's entirely possible that this and not Star Wars is where I learned to love a rogue.

He left River City the Library building,
But he left all the books to her!
posted by PussKillian at 9:40 AM on April 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

My personal theory is that Winthrop is Marian's son. You can at least make a good case for it. In any case, I do wonder if that was originally the plan but it was decided against at some point along the way.

Us too. And it's why Old Man Madison left all the books to her.

Pert Kelton, who plays Mrs. Paroo in the movie, was 56 at the time, and Ronnie Howard was 7 or 8. So, not impossible, but pretty unlikely.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 9:56 AM on April 4, 2018 [6 favorites]

Just read the IMDB trivia entry for the first time in a while. Oh, I need to quote the one about the Beatles to Metafilter. Oh, wait, I also need to share the one about the time signatures. And update the info about Happy Days. And...you know what? Never mind. Just read the whole thing, it's fascinating!
posted by Melismata at 10:44 AM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

Sorry, but it's not The Music Man without the incomparable Barbara Cook, here at a tribute to Robert Preston .
posted by ceejaytee at 11:02 AM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

I was Salesman 5 in an elementary school production of TMM. I can *still* do large swaths of the opening patter at high speeds 30+ years later. Really should have used the spongy retentiveness of my brain at that age to acquire additional languages, instead, but ah well. Hindsight.
posted by merriment at 11:35 AM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

My personal theory is that Winthrop is Marian's son.

Wait- does anyone in this day and age not believe this? "The sadder but wiser girl?"


Nevertheless, I love The Music Man, but there are places where you can really tell that Meredith Willson was starting to run a bit dry. I mean, that's not really a song, you're just repeating "Gary, Indiana" over and over again. Also, you just rhymed "Marian" with "Carrion."
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 11:44 AM on April 4, 2018 [4 favorites]

I have searched in vain for a personal video from several years ago. So you'll just have to imagine a music theatre nerd realizing the sounds the dishwasher make are the bass-line rhythm that opens "Marian the Librarian." And said nerd singing along with the dishwasher. (Whoosh ba da da ba Bum ba da da da whoosh - "Maaaaaaar-i-an.")

MM was probably my intro to music theatre. At age 4 I used to like to ride my rocking horsey to a cheesy arrangement of the score on a very generic record that my mother played. "76 Trombones" is EXCELLENT rocking horsey music.
posted by NorthernLite at 11:44 AM on April 4, 2018

Also, I love the Buffalo Bills.

How can there be any sin in "sincere"?
Where is the good in "goodbye"?
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 11:48 AM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

Also, you just rhymed "Marian" with "Carrion."

You bite your tongue. The look on Shirley Jones' face when she's trying to figure out where he's going with "caaaaaaaa..." is one of the best comic moments in the movie.

Regardless, "If I fell, and I busted my whatchamacallit, I could lie on your floor unnoticed, 'til my body had turned to carrion" is a spectacular and inspired song lyric.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 12:34 PM on April 4, 2018 [6 favorites]

I mean, that's not really a song, you're just repeating "Gary, Indiana" over and over again.

You must have missed:
Gary, Indiana, Gary, Indiana, Gary, Indiana,
That's the town that "knew me when."
If you'd like to have a logical explanation
How I happened on this elegant syncopation,
I will say without a moment of hesitation
There is just one place
That can light my face.
Gary, Indiana,
Gary Indiana,
Not Louisiana, Paris, France, New York, or Rome, but--...
posted by notmtwain at 1:01 PM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

Yeah, but you kind of forget that song has other lyrics after young Ronnie Howard has had a go at it.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 1:05 PM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

Yeah and Wells Fargo Wagon isn't really a song. It's just two minutes of Ron Howard spitting on everyone.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 1:11 PM on April 4, 2018 [4 favorites]

And it's a bit cargo-culty.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 1:26 PM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

SNL skit singing the Wells Fargo song, around the time of the recent actual Wells Fargo scandal, heehee.
posted by Melismata at 2:12 PM on April 4, 2018

(Yeah, the amount of spitting that Ronnie Howard did always irritated me. It's like, yeah, his lisp is a big part of the plot, I get it, you don't need to drown everybody...)
posted by Melismata at 2:14 PM on April 4, 2018

One of my enduring memories of this show was a local production for which our local critic wrote a review stating the performer playing Harold Hill was "the black hole of acting." She had a reputation for savage reviews, but that one ascended to the top of her personal hall of infamy.
posted by DrAstroZoom at 2:23 PM on April 4, 2018

When I have mentioned my Marian-as-Winthrop's-mother theory to people in the past, they acted like I was just being weird. I feel so vindicated!
posted by darksong at 2:36 PM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

Poll: Music Man beating West Side Story for Best Musical Tony? I say nay.
posted by NorthernLite at 2:55 PM on April 4, 2018

Meredith Willson wrote a book about creating The Music Man and getting it to the stage:
Willson, Meredith. But He Doesn't Know the Territory. Minneapolis. University of Minnesota Press 1959, 2009.
It's an easy and very fun read. Highly recommended for Music Man fans.
posted by fgdmorr at 3:12 PM on April 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

I had a friend in college named Gary who had been dating a girl named Deanna since high school. No one even bothered to go for the obvious jokes since we assumed he had heard them 1000 times already.
posted by bassooner at 3:13 PM on April 4, 2018 [5 favorites]

(my younger brother at age about 8, starting as high as he could and descending enharmonically until he ran out of breath or range): GARYINDIANAGARYINDIANAGARYINDIANAGARYINDIANA
GARYINDIANAGARYINDIANA GARYINDIANAGARYINDIANA GARYINDIANA GARYINDIANA GARYINDIANAGARYINDIANA...
posted by tspae at 3:30 PM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

Pert Kelton, who plays Mrs. Paroo in the movie, was 56 at the time, and Ronnie Howard was 7 or 8. So, not impossible, but pretty unlikely.

I am 51, and still biologically capable of having a kid. (NOT planning to. But Steps Are Taken to make sure there are no Winthrops appearing.) And I'm not alone among my age peers. So, yeah, in my admittedly limited sample selection, "pretty unlikely" is incorrect. In fact, biology being what it is, "life finds a way" and such, there's a certain amount of anxiety about this in my friend group.

So feel free to envision Winthrop's origins as you will.
posted by Nancy_LockIsLit_Palmer at 3:55 PM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

My high school did The Music Man in 1981. Our choir director chose to have 4 students be the barbershop quartet, instead of hiring adults. We were pretty solid. Our tenor, was playing kill the man with the ball, got elbowed in the throat, and lost one of his vocal cords for a while. Director wanted to replace him with another guy we all hated...

Tenor healed enough in the end, and we were awesome.

IIiiiiicccccceee Creeeeeeeemmmmmmm!
posted by Windopaene at 3:59 PM on April 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

What my father brought to the marriage: 1000 classical music LPs. What my mother brought to the marriage: Original cast recording of "My Fair Lady" and original cast recording of "The Music Man".

I too can sing all the songs!
posted by acrasis at 4:09 PM on April 4, 2018

I played Harold Hill in my 8th grade class production of The Music Man! Many years later, my Marian became my weed dealer. Good times.
posted by duffell at 6:29 PM on April 4, 2018

Oh that's NOTHING. I could recite the entire score right now. I was in the community theater version in sixth grade. My role was Girl in Gingham Dress but I knew every single line. I am TELLING you. Best musical EVER.
posted by knitcrazybooknut at 7:22 PM on April 4, 2018

(And I still say "Ye Gods!" on a regular basis.)
posted by knitcrazybooknut at 7:22 PM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

Great Honk!
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 7:58 PM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

In related news, Rogue One and Book of Eli screenwriter Gary Whitta is working with Jonathan Betuel, writer of The Last Starfighter to reboot that movie. So, who do you visualize as "this generation's Robert Preston", and once this is done, could the same actor remake Music Man?
posted by oneswellfoop at 9:00 PM on April 4, 2018

He still wouldn't know the territory.
posted by hippybear at 9:04 PM on April 4, 2018

Ye Gods!
Great Honk!
Sorry, my go-to is
BALLLLZAC!
posted by bartleby at 9:52 PM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

Hermione Gingold growling BALLLLZAC is true north on my sexual compass.
posted by duffell at 2:48 AM on April 5, 2018 [2 favorites]