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OK

Nov 4, 2014
1 min read

Before Hugh Jackman was a movie star -- in fact, before he even made his first movie, he was a real-life musical comedy star.  In fact, it was probably because of his being a huge hit as 'Curly' in the 1998 London revival of the quintessential American musical, Oklahoma!, that he likely became a movie star.



As a result of the show's success in the West End, a TV version was recorded on PBS for Great Performances.  That was in 1999.  The next year, he made his first film, X-Men.




Here is with the company performing title number, with a few yippie-ki's thrown in for good luck., 



(Tangential side note:  one of my favorite parody lines of all time was one that Alan Sherman writes about in his autobiography, A Gift of Laughter.  When in college -- if I recall correctly -- at the University of Illinois, he wrote a parody musical called, Yokahoma!  The title song has the line -- "Yokahama, where the planes come sweeping through the wind...")



One day, I'd love to see a college drinking game where they show this full musical, and every time the word, "Oklahoma" is mentioned, you have to take a drink.  Even if one made it through the show up to this point, this song along would leave everyone blacked-out even before the encore...

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