When St. Elsewhere Went Double-Homage
I absolutely loved this scene in a 1986 episode of St. Elsewhere, which I saw live -- which was surprising since it wasn't a show I watched regularly. But it has not just one but two homages to the musical 1776, both of which I suspect much of the audience missed. Most people, of course, didn't see the show on Broadway, and the movie wasn't a big hit and hadn't reached cult status yet by being played annually on the 4th of July. But it was a special treat for me since 1776 was the very first musical I ever saw on Broadway, and with the original cast, which William Daniels starred in as John Adams.
Daniels was one of the series stars, playing the crusty and annoying Dr. Mark Craig, but he actually had a history of being in Broadway musicals, not just his acclaimed performance in 1776 (which he recreated in the movie adaptation), but also the original production of On a Clear Day You Can See Forever. So, I wouldn't be surprised if the producers might have long-wanted to figure out a way of getting him to sing. And this season-opening episode gave them the opportunity.
For starters, they set the sequence in Philadelphia, the location of course of 1776, and where he goes back with his wife (played here by Bonnie Bartlett, who is not only his real-life wife, but they have been married for 70 years) to where they met at college at Penn. And knowing Daniels' Broadway background, you suspect that the writers are setting the audience up with his line at the top of the scene when he says that being there in Philadelphia always makes him want to sing. The couple dismisses that out of hand -- but those of us who have different ideas of such things were put on Full Alert.
Then, within the scene, he puts himself down very off-handedly, almost subtly by describing his St. Elsewhere character perfectly, to a T -- but in a way that intentionally uses the exact phrase is used throughout 1776 to describe the John Adams character he played in the musical (especially repeatedly in the song But Mr. Adams). And then finally, at the end of the scene, when you thought that that might have been the sole reference to 1776, Daniels is finally given his moment, out of the blue. To most viewers, they likely thought it was just to give a proper end to the scene with a joke allusion to something said earlier, but in fact it's a direct line from the opening of 1776 where all the characters are complaining about the “foul, fetid, fuming, foggy, filthy” city they are in.
Fun, too, is that you'll note they do the scene in one take, with no cuts.
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