WHEW! memories

I remember the summer of 1979,  Just out of third grade, getting ready for a return trip to Vermont with my parents.  Maybe a few trips to my aunt and uncle’s rambling farm house in Brooklyn Connecticut.  But one other thing made the summer of 1979 great fun for me.

I had to have the TV on by 10:30, so I could see the most amazing game show I had ever seen in my young life.  This show har, and has everything I look for in a format:  A set that was a riot of color, and a total fantasy environment, gameplay that engaged the audience, and was insanely fast-paced, and a kick-asss theme by actor and composer Alan Thicke, which accompanied an animated opening sequence done by the Hanna-Barbera Studios (who also designed the life-sized cutouts for the bonus round).  This was WHEW!, a show that true believers, and die-hards, like myself, remember with a great deal of fondness, and longing.

WHEW! was the brainchild of Jay Wolpert-the man behind the highly successful and entertaining PIRATES OF THE CARRIBBEAN  movie trilogy.  Jay was a protege of Mark Goodson, and had created several of THE PRICE IS RIGHT’s pricing games.  WHEW! was, I believe, Jay’s first venture outside the Goodson/Todman fold, and what a debut!  I recently learned, through my own research, that WHEW! was Jay’s idea of marrying a comic book adventure to a game show format.  That’s why the set was as colorful as it was, and why Hanna/Barbera’s artwork was all over the place.  At 8 years old, I never made that connection.  I was too busy being engrossed in the game itself, but the more I think about it now, the more it makes sense.

Think of it this way.  The two contestants were like rival adventurers who knew that 10 villains were stashing away $25,000 in their lair.  Each adventurer wanted to be the one who was able to outsmart the other adventurer, and beat the villain’s at their own game.  And what was the game?  To correct blooper statements in a wide range of categories.  In the main game, the category was specific.  When you got to face the villains, it was uncategorized.  How did our contestant adventurers outsmart each other?  They either blocked the other person’s progress, by placing 6 blocks on the board, or by avoiding these blocks, and reaching the top in under one minute.  I loved watching someone hit a block.  Host Tom Kennedy (one of the all time greats) would count down the five seconds with the audience, and when several blocks were hit during the course of a game, Tom could barely contain his laughter (not meean spirited, more like laughter in disbelief.

The person racing the clock did have a way out.  All he or she had to say was ‘Longshot!”.  This brought the player up to the top, and gave the other player one extra chance to block.  Invariably, the game was won or lost here, as either, the player would get it right, get it wrong, or hit the extra block.  I’ve got to take a minute to mention another feature of WHEW! that made it so different, and so special.  The comic book theme was not only present in the set design, and show opeening animated sequence, but also in the sound effevts package.  When the player racing the clock entered or exited the stage, you heard footsteps, and a slamming door.  The clock timer, was the drum portion of the theme music without other instrumentation.  “Longshot!” gave you the sound of tires screeching, and an automobile crash.  And the best part, when you ran out of time, it wasn’t a buzzer that told you, it was the voices of the villains themselves saying, “Time’s UUUUUUUuuup!” in a sing-songy voice.  I absolutely loved that.

CBS , however, made two HUGE mistakes with WHEW!  first, they didn’t give it a full 30 minutes.  It’s 10:30 time slot was partly taken up with a news break at 10:55.  That killed the pacing of the show, in my opinion.  Tom Kennedy, more often than not, was fiorced to use time that could have been useed for a round, to just talk to the contestants, and then close the show.  The second mistake was adding celebrities to help the contestants.  Lousy idea.  The show’s format was perfect with the contestants palying solo.  If CBS wanted celebrities playing the game, it should have been celeb versus celeb for one week playing for charity.

CBS, however, does not deserve the blame for my next criticism and complaint.  There are three or four episodes on YouTube available for viewing.  The entire series, however, is in the hands of producer Burt Sugarman.  Burt has placed a hufe pricetag on the rebroadcast rights to WHEW!  Higher than GSN (which would be the one network that WOULD rerun WHEW!) can afford to dish out.  Word on the street is that Burt is unwilling to renegotiate his asking price, and the master tapes are just sitting there, possibly breaking down, and decomposing as we speak.  If it were possible, I would ask Burt why he’s being so tight-fisted about this.  He’s not exactly doing anyone any favors.  If anything, he’s coming across as miserly.  and what if someone wanted to bring it back for a new generation?  They can’t.  Burt’s holding that as well.

I don’t mean to be negatinve.  I just wish Burt would realize what he’s doing.  If anybody ever DOES bring back WHEW!,  don’t be so presumptious to think you can improve on what Jay Wolpert did.  He nailed the format and the feel of the game, and you’d be doing a huge disservice to fans by turning it into a dark, industrial set-themed show-in other words, don’t pull an Endemol or Fremantle with the format.

A lot can happen in 40 seconds….

You’re standing there listening to music in a headset.  You feell a tap on the shoulder.  You turn around, and you’re face to face with someone who needs you to understand what they’re talking about.  You understand, and now it’s your turn to pass it on to someone else.  Just one problem…you can’t repeat what you just heard.  You’re in the middle of a round of HOT STREAK, one of the most underrated game shows of the 1980’s.

HOT STREAK didn’t actually start out as HOT STREAL.  It actually started life as PARTY LINE.  MATCH GAME veteran host Gene Rayburn was the host of the PARTY LINE pilot episode, and did a wonderful job working with two teams of five people (men versus women), who had the daunting task of communicating a single word through all the members of the team in 40 seconds WITHOUT repeating a key word or phrase, with the members of the winning team having to communicate one more word to 9 (count ‘em!) new people in the same time limit, observing the same rules.

I have to wonder why it took Reg Grundy three years to get this show to air.  I know it’s not always easy getting a new show on the airwaves, but when you have a concept as strong as HOT STREAK’s, three years seems unreasonably long.  I applaud ABC for having picked up the series in 1986, but they put the show up against a little show called THE PRICE IS RIGHT, and another little show called WHEEL OF FORTUNE…death slot times two.  They also made the mistake ( or maybe Reg Grundy dropped the ball here) of hiring a host that American audiences didn’t know from a hole in the ground:  Bruce Forsyth.

Don’t get me wrong.  Bruce is a likeable personality, genuinely interested in his contestants, loves to engage the audience, and is geneally speaking, a lot of fun to watch.  Unfortunately, his American credits were limited to a guest appearance on the Muppet Show in its first season, and a brief appearance as the Bookman’s henchman in BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS.  A more familiar name, and a better timeslot would have done wonders.  That name, though wouldn’t be Gene Rayburn, though, he was already hosting the latest version of BREAK THE BANK in syndication.

I have to admit I was scratching my head on first viewing of HOT STREAK.  I honeestly didn’t see how you could get an idea communicated through five people without repeating.  My sister was even less kind to HOT STREAK-she said it was stupid..  I watched it again, when my sister wasn’t around, and it started to grow on me.  I started to see how it WAS possible to accomplish the object of the game.  I also noticed that instead of a ticking clock, we were treated to an old fashioned silent movie style chase riff, which seemed to have a few variations throughout the main game.  Interesting touch, if you ask me.

It’s been almost 25 years since HOT STREAK came and left the airwaves, and I have been finding myself thinking about it with great fondness and longing lately.  HOT STREAK had that element of creativity that is sorely lacking in daytime TV these days.  These days, we are having courtroom reality shows, violent and foul-mouthed talk shows (I mean YOU Jerry Springer, and Maury Povich–Maury, at least you used to have class-not anymore-you’re just as sleazy),  and even sleazier tabloid news shows being forced down our throats.  I do applaud CBS, though for their new version of LET’S MAKE A DEAL…Wayne Brady and the gang are doing that right.  We need fun, we need variety, we need programming that you don’t have to worry about the kids seeing (don’t get me started on the decline and fall of kids’ TV, I have a friend who can describe that for you even better than I).  HOT STREAK may not have been a hit here the way it is in other countries, but at least Reg Grundy TRIED to do something that was all of the above.

THE GHOST BUSTERS (1975)

Before GHOST WHISPERER, there was GHOSTBUSTERS, and before GHOSTBUSTERS there were THE GHOST BUSTERS.  Now you might be looking and looking again to see if I may have just repeated myself.  I promise I have not.  GHOSTBUSTERS ( one word) was the hit movie franchise from 1985, about a team of ghost busters in NYC saving the world from Gozer.  THE GHOST BUSTERS was a 1975 live action Saturday morning sitcom from Norm Prescott and Lou Scheimer’s FILMATION comapny, and was played for even more laughs than the 1985 movie.

Forrest Tucker played Jake Kong, the grizzled middle aged straight man of the trio of spectre chasers.  Jake ran the office, operated the de-materializer (“ZZZZZZZZZZZap!”), and was essentially the brains of the operation.  Larry Storch (who played opposite Tucker on F-TROOP) was Eddie Spenser (or Spencer, if you observe the opening titles’ spelling of the name).  Eddie was the enthusiastic, but not-too-bright sidekick, who inexplicably always wore a tacky zoot suit, with an equally tacky tie.  Spenser was always having to carry out the plan, which usually meant that he was the bait for the ghost guest star.  Rounding out the cast was Tracy-a gorilla who never spoke, but was always ready with a visual wisecrack when Kong was trying to get the job done.  According to the credits Tracy ws “trained” by actor Bob Burns.  In reality, of course, it was Bob in the outfit the whole time.

This trio worked for the mysterious Mr. Zero (executive producer Lou Scheimer himself), who always delivered the assignments as a recording in an unlikely object-anything from a rubber chicken to a whipped cream pie.  The running gag was taken right out of MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE.  The object would explode when the tape destructed, and poor Tracy always got the worst of it, while Spenser cluelessly chastised his gorilla partner about it.

Each week, our unlikely heroes had to contend with a ghostly guest star.  Many of whom were well-known faces in the 1970’s:  Johnny Brown, Ted Knight, Billy Barty, and Krofft character actor Lennie Weinrib, were just some of the faces who tangled with Spenser, Tracy, and Kong.  But fear not:  like I said, this was played for laughs.  The ghosts weren’t out to control the world, or destroy it.  Most of the time, they just wanted to get a precious object to finish some unfinished business, or get some treasure.  Mostly harmeless, but troublesome nonetheless.

I was thrilled when they released the series on DVD.  THE GHOST BUSTERS was one of those shows you watch twice in your lifetime.  As a kid, you loved the physical comedy/slapstick angle, and that de-materializer was a pretty neat prop to handle.  As a grownup, you get to enjoy the subtle humor, and refernces, and yes, the slapstick still works.  My favorite running gag involved Spenser trying to open the filing cabinet.  No matter what he did, the wrong drawer would open, the right drawer wouldn’t open at all, or several drawers would open at once-you never knew what would happen when Spenser had to get a file.  It really made the show feel like a live action cartoon.

You should still be able to find this on DVD at BEST BUY or AMAZON.  I highly recommend it.  Especially if you’re thinking of creating something for Saturday morning TV.  There’s an element in this show your creation will need, and that element is FUN=pure and simple.  No agenda, no overstating a point, just fun.

One last bit of trivia:  The background music credit is for one Yvette Blais.  This is actually the pseudonym of Ray Ellis, who composed a lot of great music for Reg Grundy’s game shows in the 1980’s.

 

THE HALLOWEEN THAT ALMOST WASN’T

Take Judd Hirsch (TAXI and NUMBERS) as Count Dracula, 1970’s TV spokeswoman and personality Mariette Hartley as the Witch, LAUGH IN”s Henry Gibson as Igor, and Broadway and TV character actor John Shuck as Frankenstein, and put them together for one live-action TV special, and you get THE HALLOWEEN THAT ALMOST WASN’T.  One of the funniest Halloween specials that seems to have unfairly fallen by the wayside.

This is not meant to be an attack on the classic GREAT PUMPKIN, so put the knives and slings, and pitchforks down.  I enjoy GREAT PUMPKIN very much, but I want to put the spotlight on HALLOWEEN THAT ALMOST WASN’T.

The story is simplicity in itself.  It’s almost Halloween, and all is not well in Transylvania.  There’s an ugly rumor going around that Dracula is going to end the holiday.  Dracula is furious about this (“Halloween is my national holiday!”).  He’s not the only one upset.  Two young kids who love this holiday as much as Dracula, have heard the news, and wonder what will happen to the fun they’re planning on having.  These kids don’t know it yet, but they’ll wind up being instrumental in bringing about the happy ending.

Back at Dracula’s castle, Drac has summoned his legion of monsters to discuss the crisis.  It is at this meeting that Dracula learns that the Witch is there to strike a blow on behalf of equal rights.  Either Dracula meets her demands, or she won’t fly over the moon, and that’s it for Halloween.  When Dracual refuses, the Witch leaves for her castle, and locks herself in.  It’s up to Dracula and the other monsters to get the Witch to do her job, by luring or forcing her out of the castle.

But like I said, this is all played for laughs.  Writer Coleman Jacoby and Director Bruce Bilson pack this 30 minute special with plenty of bits of physical comedy, pop culture (for 1979) references, and hilariously cringeworthy throwaway jokes.    I have a hard time picking out favorite lines and moments, because there are so many.  One moment, like Dracula and Frankenstein disussing how a popular movie made Frank take up tapdancing, will put a smile on myface.  Then another moment, like the Witch’s demands which include having the Witch’s picture replace Dracula’s on the souvenir T-shirts, makes me laugh.  Then ANOTHER moment, like Dracula abusing Igor or doing his “teeny tiny bat” incantation puts me away-you have to see this last one for yourself, what happens after he’s a teeny tiny bat is even funnier.

I wish I coiuld tell you where to get this on DVD, or which TV stations or cable networks will run it, but I can’t.  What I CAN do is tell you to get yourself over to YouTube, where someone had the good sense to upload it, and in very good quality, too I might add.  I’m not tricking you when I say that this HALLOWEEN is a real treat.

And Now for Something Completely 40

I must have been 7.3141529 years old, and was under the impression that the English had no sense of humor to speak of.  How could I not when the only British TV my parents ever seemed to watch were those period pieces of MASTERPIECE THEATRE, and network miniseries based on classic works of literature?  I was certain at that age that if I ever went overseas, I’d have a rotten time, because the English didn’t seem to have a sense of humor about anything.

That is until I saw this advertisement on WGBH.  It was a short advertisement for a TV show.  The clip featured this 6 foot 4 gentleman dressed in a 3 piece suit, having a conversation with another well-dressed gentleman.  The 6′4″ man stands up, and begins to walk around the office, which is no larger than my bathroom, in the most bizarre, and extraordinary manner I had ever seen.  The audience wwas exploding with laughter, and this strangely walking man, was English!

In case you haven’t guessed, this was the first time I ever saw the climax of Monty Python’s Ministry of Silly Walks skit.  This was my introduction to the wonderfully silly and anarchic world of Monty Python.  Even though I was too young to watch it back then (my parents would have had a fit if they caught me watching Monty Python at that age), I knew this was something I’d want to investigate and check out later.

Later came when I was about 15.  Two events joined forces to bring me into the Python legion of fans.  First, I made a friend who had moved into my hometown form Boston, and who happened to know almost every Python routine word-perfect.  He enjoyed trying to engage me in the routines, especially since he knew that, at the time, I had no idea what the hell he was talking about  The other thing that happened was that my folks had finally decided that I could start staying up later on Friday nights.  That meant that if I was lucky, I’d catch Monty Python on WGBH.  The first complete episode I ever got to see was the “Book at Bedtime/Kamikaze Highlanders” episode from the third series.

I could not have asked for a better episode to start with, because it gave me a clear idea of what they wanted the show to be.  I was seeing a fantastically series of surreal skits connected by Michael Palin and the gang trying to make sense of RED GAUNTLET by Sir Walter Scott.  I couldn’t wait to tell my friend about it.  Of course, he knew that episode backwards and forwards, but we still enjoyed a good laugh remembering it.  The second one I saw from the same series was Michael Palin starring as Reg Pither in the “Cycling Tour (“I’m just a jack-in-the-box/and whenever love pops, I’m gonna bounce up and down on my spring….”).  Absolutely hilarious.

I have since seen all 45 episodes.  After I saw most of them, I started seeking out the movies.  I think I actually saw them in the order they were made.  I recorded AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT, and HOLY GRAIL.  I was able to rent LIFE OF BRIAN (which rreally is more about radicalism and terrorism than anything else, but that’s another column-please don’t start a holy war here, the People’s Front of Judea have been especdially hard hit by the recession).  The movie I had to shell out the most for was MEANING OF LIFE, because , at the time, it wasn’t available on video.  I didn’t get sick from the famous restaurant scene, but I don’t know what posessed me to eat lunch while watching it.

The highlight, for me thi=ough, was getting to see SPAMALOT in NYC the night before it won best musical.  I got to meet Chris Seiber, who’s currently playing Lord Farquaad in SHREK, and had my picture taken with Hank Azaria.  .  Unfortunately, Tim Curry didn’t come out to meet the audience, that would have been great.

So, now Monty Python turns 40.  It’s hard to believe that I am one year younger than this group, but have pretty much known who they were my whole life.  I’m really grateful for how this group has shaped and cultivated my sense of humor.  We Python fans a re a special group, a community, almost a family.  A very silly family that knows that Norwegian Blues have beautiful plumage, that cheese shops without cheese aren’t much of a cheese shop, a Gumby isn’t a green clay figurine, and that one wafer thin mint can cause a huge biohazard in a stuffy French restaurant.

More madness about Madsion Avenue

In a recent post, I targeted two advertising camapigns that were a major insult to my intelligence.  In case you couldn’t figure them out, they were Old Navy , and their insipidly stupid talking mannequins (and yes, I hope an Old Navy exec is reading this-my 5 year old god daughter is smarter than your commercials!), and Burger King with their morons dressed as menu items.  Thankfully, I haven’t seen that in a while.

Buth ON and BK are far from the only companies trying to suck IQ points out of our brains.  My next targets are Light and Fit Yogurt, and Chef Boyardee.  I’ll start with the yogurt, and their dainty little vampire shoplifter.  You must have seen this eyesore of an ad.  The woman in the commercial has the yogurt.  She rips off the cover, places the cup to her mouth.  We are then FORCED to listen to this deees-gusting slurping noise, while we watch her guzzle the stuff, and watch the container collapse.  The cup falls to the ground, and she looks coyly around, like she just did the cutest widdle thing—tee-effing-hee.  Folks, does the word SHOPLIFTER mean anything to you, ’cause that is exactly what she is doing, right in the store.  I keep PRAYING that a store security guard comes along and hauls her shoplifiting ass to JAIL.  Seriously, I don’t care how hot and seductive she thinks she’s trying to be.  She JUST STOLE MERCHANDISE!!!!

Then there’s the Chef Boyardee “secretly nutritious” campaign inwhich parents don’t want their school aged children to realize that what they’re eating is nutritious.  Chef Boyardee blatantly rfails to realize to things in their effort to insult our intelligence.  1.  As soon as these “kids” see themselves on TV, or see a similar ad for the SAME PRODUCT, they’re gonna KNOW it’s nutritious.  Secondly, these “kids” are of an age where they could probably read what’s on the can for themselves.  It ain’t a secret anymore, Chef.  No matter how much Mom bangs the pots and pans, or has an inner conversation with herself in which she GIVES AWAY what the can says.  The secret is out.  Is it any wonder I use my DVD player almost every night?

They Don’t Get It

The other night, I happened across a channel on YouTube run by bobtwcatlanta.  It is a treasure trove of tv theme songs/opening sequences from the 1970’s, ’80’s and ’90’s.  And I’m not talking about the ones you can see or have seen time and again, I ran into some rarities I NEVER expected to see again.  If you like nostalgia like I do, I urge you to check this person’s channel out, and be ready to spend hours remembering.

As I enjoyed this trip, a thought struck me.  These opening sequences and themes served a real purpose.  They actually helped establish time, place, and character.  Every once in a while, one of these themes would break out and become a hit song in it’s own right.  You also got to put names and faces together, so you’d nknow who was who.

But, now, you don’t get this luxury, or that pleasure.  Oh no.  Madison
Avenue, and it’s unholy alliance with the major networks have convinced each other, and you the American Public, that you don’t have the patience or the attention span to sit through such things.  Now, you’re expected to know who’s who, without having SEEN the show before, and you’re lucky to get a guitar riff or string hit.  Get real, Madison Avenue, CBS, ABC, NBC and Fox.  If we can sit through the 60 minutes or 30 minutes worth of crap you’re passing off as entertainment these days without flipping stations, we can sit through a 30 or 60 second opening sequence WITH theme music AND matching names to faces.

Neil Patrick Harris, the star of one of CBS’s top-rated sitcoms understands this.  He made a huge point about it at this year’s Emmy Awards when he chastised the networks for abandoning this creative art form.  If one of TV’s most visible and bankable stars can recognize that theme music to TV shows has merit, then why can’t the bigwigs in the boardroom?

Answer:  They are AFRAID!  That’s right, they’re afraid that you’re not going to stick around to watch their show if they actually take the time to introduce it the way they used to.  They can hear you reaching for your remote to change the channel, or worse turn off the TV all together, and do something more worthwile, like reading, or calling a friend, or spending time with your family.  These are all unacceptable to the network bigwigs, and Madison Avenue, no matter what their PSA’s tell you.  What the networks REALLY should be concerned about is the fact that people are doing these awful things to their networks because their shows are CRAP.

I say bring back the theme song and the opening sequnece.  Give us credit for having patience and an attention span, you’ll also be putting some talented songwriters to work.  And in this economy, that’s far from a bad thing.

An open letter from Madison Avenue

Dear America,

We, the advertising houses of New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles think you’re stupid.  We advertisers are not willing to give you enough credit to realize mannequins don’t talk.  We expect you to believe people actually dress as hamburgers and talk about being broiled.

Furthermore, we  expect you to think that all men are incompetent jocks who can never say or do the right thing, and therefore, must be corrected by their wives, who have never done anything wrong in their lives.  The wives , however, along with the husbands MUST be outsmarted by their bratty, know-it -all, overly fashion centered kids..

As long as you dump your hard-earned money on our products, we’ll keep treating you like idiots with our advertising campaign.  We hope you never wise up and realize that we are treating you like you’re stupid.  Because if you do realize this, we’ll actually have to start trying to be clever and intelligent, and we’re just too damn lazy to do that.

Yours insincerely,

The advertising agencies of America

The Zone is now closed

I haven’t had the time or the energy to post about the movies I’ve seen, so my MovieZone is now closed. Thank you to my friends and readers. I’ve enjoyed interacting with you.

However, I am going to keep posting to Wordspace about topics I feel strongly about. My new blog will be simply Andy’s Zone. Look for my first post coming soon.

ONE RED FLOWER memories

In my article about movie musicals making a comeback, I mentioned a musical called ONE RED FLOWER. For those of you who may not recall, this musical is taken from the book LETTERS FROM ‘NAM, in which you can read actual letters written to and from the soldiers who fought in that terrible war. The musical focuses on a mother and six soldiers whose stories are told in song through these letters and poems. I find myself thinking a lot about this musical lately. Not necessarily because of the tensions in the Middle east, or anything political like that. No. I’ve just been thinking about how much this musical moved me even more than the commercial successes of LES MISERABLES, MISS SAIGON or RAGTIME (and those are three heavy hitters in the deeply moving department).

Let me explain. I learned about ONE RED FLOWER from a friend of mine who is a member of ALL THAT CHAT over at talkinbroadway.com. She saw it in Washington D.C> in either 1999 or 2000, and couldn’t say enough about it. Next thing I know, the North Shore Music Theatre announced ONE RED FLOWER as part of the 2001/2002 season, beginning in September of 2001. Even better news: a bus tour company i was familiar with announced a day trip to see FLOWER. Talk about opportunity knocking. It was pounding on the door.
Well, I don’t need to remind you about what happened at the beginning of September of 2001. I still have raw memories of that day. Those memories were still fresh about two weeks later, when i boarded the bus to Beverly, MA. After our lunch stop at a very good steakhouse, we were at North Shore.

Nothing, and I mean nothing could have prepared me for what I would see or how I would feel. Like every great musical, the opening number, “I Was There”, engaged me with it’s simple, yet driving rock melody, and straightforward lyrics. I was with them, and I began to follow the structure of the piece quite well, learning a lot about the soldiers’ experiences along the way. All the time, the emotional intensity of FLOWER was building and building. Then came the boiling point in a protest song called “I Don’t Understand This War”. Just as that song reachedits climax, the soundtrack of the lunar landing broke in over the sound system, and were back with three of the soldiers in the jungle, staring up into a starry sky, listening. The local time was “4:16 A.M.” The soldiers, arms on each others’ shoulders, sang about how in that moment, they knew who they were, what they were doing, and where they belonged. This is the Act 1 closer, and by the time it was done, I was unable to speak. I honestly expected that if I dared to open my mouth, I would be crying so uncontrollably that they’d have to ask me to leave the theatre.
Act 2 wasn’t about to let me off the hook either. Sure it opened with a lighter song called “Saigon Tea”, but that was about as light-hearted as it would get. The unforgettable title song shows up in Act 2, as does a heart-breaker caled “There Will Still Be Christmas”, and the gut wrenching finale “If You Are Able”. The theatre was on its feet, roaring its approval at the end. I rode home, thinking that I had to find a way to tell Paris Barclay how much his show moved me. I found his e-mail address, and did just that. He wrote back with a quick note, thanking me for my support.
It’s been eight years since I first had the experience, and I find myself wishing I could experience it in some way again. I find it sadly interesting that despite the praise from audiences and press reviews, there’s STILL NO cast album! I’ve made inquiries, and done searches, but no luck. So I’m putting the word out to the recording companies, get in touch with Paris Barclay, and get him and his cast into the studio, PLEASE! I can’t afford to fly out to wherever it’s playing, I can’t even afford to go to see a play in Providence, right now, but that’s beside the point. A cast album would be great for me and other fans who can’t get out to see it. I’d even settle for a few clips on YouTube, but that’s not my call to make.
In closing, I am so grateful that I had the chance to see ONE RED FLOWER, and I hope many more of you get the chance to see it, too. Just be sure to have enough Kleenex.