|
Today, we focus more on Fest part of our holiday gala, rather than the music. But the little-known part is forefront. As readers of these pages know, I dearly love The Goes Wrong Show. It's a BBC-TV series made by the same people who created The Play That Goes Wrong, which I've written about on this site a few times. It was a hit in London and Broadway and toured to Los Angeles where I saw it -- a play ostensibly put on by a mediocre theatre company, the Cornley Drama Society, in the middle of England where pretty much everything...well, goes wrong. The show was such a success that they've done several follow-up plays. And also this series. The TV series is done by the same people, once again playing members of this same mediocre Cornley Drama Society from the middle of England. And supposedly they put on a new half-hour play each week (a different genre each time) that is broadcast throughout England. The shows are a joy and often remarkable. A couple of them are tour-de-force: one is a courtroom drama called "A Trial to Watch, and the other (a Tennessee Williams-style play set in the hot, steamy Deep South titled "90 Degrees") is almost Shakespearean in its physical comedy, taking slapstick ito an "oh-my-god" level. If you don't like physical humor, The Goes Wrong Show is not for you. Just know, though, that this is physical comedy done as an art form by brilliant craftsmen at the peak of their skills. The first season should be available on YouTube, and most of season two can be found on a site called DailyMotion.com. You can also get it on Amazon Prime, though it's not included and has a separate fee. This is their Christmas special from Season One, "The Spirit of Christmas" (with my favorite part, the 'Nistle and Nostle Song.') Where pretty much everything...well, goes wrong. [UPDATE: Weirdly, when you click on this video below, it said it can't play in this browser, though can on YouTube. So, if this video doesn't work, just click on this link here, and it will take you directly to the video on YouTube.]
0 Comments
No, that's not just a holiday greeting, but something else entirely. Let me explain... Trying to decide of this Holiday Fest post made me think of one of my favorite, little-known holiday movies which I figured I should mention, giving folks time to perhaps get it from Netflix or whatever online service you subscribe to before the season is out. Though it's great any time of the year. It's a foreign language film, Joyeux Noel, which was nominated for a Best Foreign Language Oscar in 2005. Honestly, I thought it should have won, but the Oscar that year went to a South African movie, Tsotsi. That was quite good, but for my own taste Joyeux Noel stood hand-over-fist better. Tsotsi told an important story, in an important country at an important time in its history. And it told it well. But Joyeux Noel was just...joyous. And wonderful. It tells a fictionalized version of a story you may have heard -- how in World War I, four armies faced each other on Christmas Eve, ready for battle, but among themselves decided to call a truce for that one night. The movie isn't just "feel good," there's a great deal of drama and intense tension, and it's all told superbly. It was also the first movie I'd seen Diane Kruger in, though I didn't realize it at the time, since she wasn't a well-known star in the U.S. then. She plays an opera singer, and interestingly he singing is dubbed by someone who was one of my folks very favorite, Natalie Dessay. (I should note for those wary of foreign language films that one of the armies at a crossroads is British, so a good part of the movie is in English.) Here's the trailer. It doesn't give a sense of the rich, tense drama at stake and tends more to focus on the warmth. But you should get a sense of it all, most especially how extremely well-crafted it is. By the way, here's a link to it on Netflix, by clicking here. You'll note that it has four stars -- and a 7.8 rating on iMDB. On Rotten Tomatoes, the critic rating is a high 74%...but the audience rating is 89%. So I'm not alone on this... We have a longer version of the Fest today. Bear with me a bit and let me explain. I've posted this all before and I find it a fun story of sorts to repeat. When the movie musical Scrooge was released in 1970, I remember reading an article about the film's composer-lyricist-screenwriter (and executive producer) Leslie Bricusse (who earlier had teamed with Anthony Newley to write the stage musicals Stop the World - I Want to Get Off and The Roar of the Greasepaint - the Smell of the Crowd, and the next year would write the score to the movie musical Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory). In the piece, Bricusse said that they'd done research and discovered that among all the Christmas carols written, there had never been one actually titled, "A Christmas Carol." So, he wrote one, which begins the film over the wonderful opening credits by the great artist, Ronald Searle (who also did the credits for, among other films, Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines.) I mention all this, though, for a specific reason. Bear with me. Here's that song first, however, and those wonderful opening credits. As I said, I mentioned all of that above for another reason entirely. It's that as good a film as Scrooge is, Bricusse's research staff was lousy. Because 14 years before, in 1956, there was a live TV musical version of A Christmas Carol that was called The Stingiest Man in Town and starred the legendary film actor, best known as playing Sherlock Holmes, Basil Rathbone as Scrooge. And the very first song in the show was called -- yes, you guessed it -- "A Christmas Carol." The music for the show was written by Fred Spielman, with lyrics by Janice Torre. It's not remotely distinguished or memorable, but has quite a few very nice things in it. And there, right at the top, first thing, is a song, "A Christmas Carol." A live musical adaptation of A Christmas Carol on American television doesn't seem like a terribly challenging thing to track down for a research staff working on a movie musical adaptation of A Christmas Carol. So, continuing our holiday theme of unknown Christmas songs from musicals, here is the earlier song, "A Christmas Carol," sung by The Four Lads. It's short, less than a minute, but whatever its length the name of the song is "A Christmas Carol." That the researchers couldn't find. But we think you fine folks deserve better... Which is why this also isn't the end of the post here. Because there's another one coming. And it's a joy. But here's that other song first -- Note: Though the person posting this put up a screen shot that say's "A Christmas Carol," it is from The Stingiest Man in Town. And yes, there's more... In 1959, which is only 11 years before the movie musical Scrooge was made (and three years after the TV musical above), the wonderful Tom Lehrer released his classic comedy album, An Evening Wasted with Tom Lehrer -- which included a song titled...yes, you guessed it -- "A Christmas Carol." And again, Tom Lehrer was not remotely an unknown entertainer and songwriter. It fact, as popular as An Evening Wasted with Tom Lehrer was when it was released, he was probably around the height of his popularity in 1970 when the film Scrooge hit the theaters. His huge hit album, That Was the Year That Was had been released in 1965, only five years before Scrooge. So, how on earth those researchers missed these two songs -- and for all I know there are more, and even high-profile ones -- I have no idea. Happily, we have this song to enjoy, as well... Happy Ollie Days. I posted this in 2021 for the first time, and loved the video so much that I thought it deserves repeating on this anniversary day. I've posted a lot of Kukla, Fran & Ollie videos (and will post some more this holiday season), but this is unique for them, and offers an absolutely fascinating (and very funny) look into the early days of television. A big thanks to fellow Kukla, Fran & Ollie afficionado Nell Minow for passing along this wonderful and offbeat, very early episode from the show than ran 75 years ago today, December 5, 1949. Kukla, Fran & Ollie went on the air nationally earlier that year – it premiered locally a few months before that -- and TV was in such an very early stage that every time a new station joined the network the show saluted them. But so many new stations had begun joining that the show hadn’t been able to salute them all. So, they decided to do a full pageant in their honor. It wasn’t just to salute the stations, though, but also fill them in about who all the Kuklapolitan characters are and how this television thing works, including the operation of cameras and the commercial possibilities (sponsored as it is by RCA Victor). The whole thing is funny, charming, odd and a fascinating look at the early days of TV. Especially as each of the characters sings a different song about television. (Also, though intended for viewers at the time, it’s also a great way for people today to learn who each of the Kuklapolitans are.) For all the character introductions, I was sorry that they didn’t have my fave, Cecil Bill on. Though that’s sort of fitting, because he only appeared occasionally, which was much of his charm. Also, a little Cecil Bill goes a long way. That’s because Cecil Bill was sort of nuts and spoke in a “ta toi toi toi” language that only Fran Allison and the Kuklapolitans can understand. However, you do hear Cecil Bill at the 10:20 mark, and they reference him later (at 22:00), acknowledging the challenge some people might have with him. The songs are a joy. Nell notes particularly loving Beulah Witch’s where she gives the phone number for stations to call if they have a problem with the signal. It all builds to a joyous finale led by Ollie that includes a very funny self-referential joke about puppet shows and Fran being as goofy as I’ve seen her on the show. What also bears repeating from earlier posts about Kukla, Fran & Ollie is that the show is almost-fully ad-libbed. Burr Tillstrom, its creator (doing all the puppetry and voices), would go through a general run-down with Fran Allison of what was planned and the musical numbers (which of course had to be written…), but that was largely it. (How ad-libbed was it? And one point in a sequence with Beulah Witch, if you listen closely you’ll hear Tillstrom crack himself up before quickly catching himself. And Fran plays right along without skipping a beat – including moments later when Beulah screws up saying “Indianapolis” and Fran again just plays along without skipping a beat) And the show was 30 minutes long – and daily. And also, this wasn’t a daytime show just for the kiddies, but ran at night. (The time and schedule fluctuated over the many years they were on.) I should note that Ms. Minow’s appreciation of Kukla, Frank & Ollie comes from a well-grounded foundation. The show was done in Chicago, and as I mentioned the other day, her father Newton Minow (later the FCC Chairman under JFK) was Burr Tillstrom’s attorney. Further, when she and her dad were visiting the show’s set one day, a newspaper reporter happened to be there doing a story on it. Seeing a little girl around, the reporter asked Nell what she wanted to be when she grew up. To which she answered, “A Kuklapolitan.” That made it into the article. And the happy news is that it’s my contention that Nell achieved her goal. I wish the video didn't give away the surprise, but as you can tell from the screenshot below, it is not even remotely hidden. Two nights ago, I recorded Stephen Colbert's show because I wanted to see one of the guest. As I watched the opening monologue, to the shock of the theater audience, a couple minutes in, out walked Prince Harry. (How he fits into the bit -- perfectly -- has a very funny lead-in set-up.) And he does quite a nice job, with some good writing. In fact, several extremely good jokes. By the way, I've seen some online commentary and articles that refer to him "taking on" Trump and even getting boo'ed at one point. Well, first of all, he didn't write the sketch (though of course he agreed to it), and secondly, no, he is not getting boo'ed for an anti-Trump joke, but Trump as the butt of the joke obviously is! (I mean, seriously, folks, do you think Stephen Colbert's audience is booing a joke at Trump's expense??!!) Randy Rainbow has a new song parody -- and it's wonderful. The lyrics are some of his best and funniest. And it's a vibrant production. I was going to post this immediately, when it went online a couple days ago, but so much other news got in the way. And then, of course, there's the Holiday Fest. But finally, here 'tis. And it's so good that I think it deserves the first spot of the day. Especially having delayed it. If you want to skip past his long ad, it starts at the 1:00-mark, and you can jump to 2:45 where the sketch and song start up again. |
Elisberg Industries gets a commission if you click here before shopping on Amazon.
AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. 
Feedspot Badge of Honor
Archives
December 2025
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed