Category Archives: Video Links

You know what I always thought was wrong with Guys and Dolls? It's always cast with adults. It works much better with kids…

Tom Lehrer. For obvious reasons…

It's about time to start linking to some of the Christmas videos that people like to watch every year…

Every eight minutes in this country, a new production of Music Man is staged somewhere. That means that every eight minutes, someone has to assemble or find a good, old-fashioned barbershop quartet…because you can't put on Music Man without four guys who can make wonderful vocal harmony, a cappella. These four guys, who performed at a production in St. Louis, are as good as any I've ever heard. Some of them even have that oft-seen look that one sees on the faces of men singing barbershop. It's that look that says, "I can't believe how cool we sound."

Yeah, I know Rosie O'Donnell can't dance and can just barely sing. Still, there's something I like about her when she tries…her enthusiasm, I guess. This is a clip from her old talk show — a day when the special guest over whom she fawned was Dick Van Dyke. She fawned over all her guests but every now and then, she got one who deserved it. She and a bunch of male dancers do a "chimney sweep" dance a la Mary Poppins as a salute, and it leads up to a nice reveal of the guest star. Ignore the fact that Rosie can't manage two correct steps in a row and just enjoy how happy everyone is to see Mr. Van Dyke at the end…

Most people know a lot of famous instrumental TV theme songs but don't know that those songs almost always have lyrics. There are lyrics to the Mission: Impossible theme. No one ever plays them but the composer, or someone working with the composer, wrote lyrics. There are lyrics to the Hawaii Five-O theme, too as we featured back in this link. The theme for M*A*S*H also had lyrics…and I wonder how many people who watched the TV show knew that song was called "Suicide is Painless."

There are even lyrics to the theme from The Odd Couple. As with M*A*S*H, they were written for the movie. Unlike M*A*S*H, they were not sung in the movie. Last year at a party, I got to meet the composer of the Odd Couple theme and many other memorable tunes, the late Neal Hefti. Obviously, I met him before he became the late Neal Hefti. As I mentioned in the earlier item, we talked about the (also obscure) lyrics to the theme he wrote for the movie, How to Murder Your Wife. I didn't mention it then but we also talked about the Odd Couple lyrics and I asked him who had written them. For some odd reason, Mr. Hefti wouldn't tell me. With a smile, he deftly changed the subject.

When I got home, I did some Googling and found the assertion that Sammy Cahn had written them. Hard to believe, thought I. Sammy Cahn was a pretty good lyric writer and these did not sound to me like the work of a pretty good lyric writer. For a time, I figured it was just one of those Internet errors we all know so much about…but later, it dawned on me to check the ASCAP database. Sure enough: Sammy Cahn. Oh, well. Even Rembrandt had a worst painting.

Here's a "video" of the theme from the movie soundtrack album. The lyrics kick in around a minute and 20 seconds in. Remember: These were penned by a man who notched 22 Academy Award nominations, won four and also gave us some of the most memorable pop tunes of the 20th century…

Here's another excerpt from Bruce Kimmel's musical revue, "What If?" And I don't know what it was that poor Sweeney Todd did to merit all this abuse. I mean, he just killed a lot of people and helped Angela Lansbury turn them into meat pies, right?

I have no idea who "Idiots of Ants" are, nor any idea of why I would want to know that. I guess the name is a play on "idiot savants" but whoever they are, they did this eight-minute interview with John Cleese. You might also enjoy reading this recent chat with the man for Vanity Fair. Both contain interesting insights about his work and (perhaps) a bit too much info about his private life…

Here's another tune by one of my favorite novelty bands, Big Daddy. As I've explained before here, they were a group that took recent hit rock songs and rearranged them in the style of the fifties. The act is no longer active but their records and CDs (all on the Rhino label) aren't that hard to find it you do a little hunting. Whoever made this video illustrated the tune with a slide show of their album covers.

What song are they improving this time? "Whip It" by Devo. As usual, I like it much better their way…

Watch as Henny Youngman tells sixteen jokes in two minutes and eleven seconds…

Bruce Kimmel (hi, Bruce!) asks the musical question, "What if Stephen Sondheim had only written for the Yiddish Theater?" I've been wondering about that, myself.

The lady who speaks first is the wonderfully talented Susanne Blakeslee, who can almost always be found either singing on a stage or doing voiceovers in front of a microphone. (Among other jobs, she often plays the wicked Cruella de Vil for the Disney folks and many roles on The Fairly Oddparents.) The other also-gifted folks are Alet Taylor, Paul Haber, Ryan Raftery, and Tammy Minoff.

More Muppets. You can't get enough of 'em…

You ever see this? It's The Selling of Vince D'Angelo, a short made back in '83 by Danny DeVito from a script by Michael Barrie and Jim Mulholland. It was for Likely Stories, an anthology series from the earliest days of cable television. It stars DeVito and many of his friends and it runs a little more than eighteen minutes. If you haven't seen it, you ought to. Very funny…and in many ways, prescient about where politics was heading.

A belated Halloween video from the Muppets…