Daily News Drama Critic Reacts to Merrick-esque GREASE! Ad

[jv92]

Posted: 8/23/07 at 11:25am

The critic for the Daily News has written a reaction to the infamous Grease ad we were all talking about yesterday. To get a sense of the utter stupidity of the ad, please view my avatar.
Anyway, I've given a link to the article. Happy reading!
Link to article

[TheatreDiva90016]

Posted: 8/23/07 at 11:29am

"Like a big Broadway flop, the ad opened and closed after one day, with John Barlow calling it "a one-time only run."

Too bad that one time has ruined the shows already bad reputation.

[Wanna Be A Foster]

Posted: 8/23/07 at 11:30am

It's been posted already.

https://forum.broadwayworld.com/readmessage.cfm?thread=945350&id=3249327

[jv92]

Posted: 8/23/07 at 11:31am

Thank you Foster. I didn't realize that.

[postergirl]

Posted: 8/23/07 at 11:32am

Do you really think anyone who might be planning on seeing the show cares about a one day print ad?

[South Fl Marc]

Posted: 8/23/07 at 11:43am

What a stupid move on the producers part. This ad has created more publicity emphasizing the fact that the show was critically panned. What idiots!

[jv92]

Posted: 8/23/07 at 11:50am

Or...
It could go down the route of Subways are for Sleeping and its infamous ad and generate MORE interest in the show. (OH NO!)

[WOSQ]

Posted: 8/23/07 at 11:50am

Its a hoot and the News cannot take itself or the impact of an ad in the Post (for crying out loud) too seriously.

There is a reported 8 figure advance which would be roughly the orchestra and front mezz well into spring already sold or at least reserved by groups. By that time Grease will be rolling on word-of-mouth or not.

What has hurt the show's rep more than anything is the perception that it is a show for the kids when it isn't. If done right Grease is borderline raunch and is aimed at the kids' parents and grandparents. People my age, and I knew Jesus when he was in the third grade.

[ahmelie]

Posted: 8/23/07 at 12:50pm

It could go down the route of Subways are for Sleeping and its infamous ad and generate MORE interest in the show.

What's the story behind this?

[B3TA07]

Posted: 8/23/07 at 12:55pm

I like how WannaBe linked us to an earlier thread but we dismiss it and just continue conversing here.



I love this ad.

[wonderfulwizard11]

Posted: 8/23/07 at 1:04pm

ahmelie- Subways for Sleeping was a show produced by David Merrick, and it got panned by the major critics. So, Merrick found people with the exact names of all the NY critics, had them rave about the show, and made an ad with the fake critic's raves.

[jv92]

Posted: 8/23/07 at 1:09pm

You could probably find the Subways are for Sleeping ad on Google, but it is located in the Broadway: The American Musical book and Suskin's Second Act Trouble.

[Anakela]

Posted: 8/23/07 at 1:12pm

So, Merrick found people with the exact names of all the NY critics, had them rave about the show, and made an ad with the fake critic's raves.

Even better- he apparently wanted to do this ad idea with an earlier show, but couldn't find anyone in NYC named Brooks Atkinson, so he had to wait until Atkinson retired-
Museum of Hoaxes entry about it

[ahmelie]

Posted: 8/23/07 at 1:16pm

Ah yes, I know that story. I didn't realize it was for Subways are for Sleeping.

That is genius.

[Unknown User]

Posted: 8/23/07 at 1:17pm

I think this ad is brillant. They all did use the phrase "The One That I Want" No?

[Gypsy9]

Posted: 8/23/07 at 1:38pm

I happen to be one person who loves the cast album of SUBWAYS ARE FOR SLEEPING(1961). It is vastly under-rated. Jule Styne, Betty Comden, and Adolph Green were in their prime. I can still remember writing for opening night tickets, but it was sold out.

It's good to know that the likes of David Merrick are alive and kicking.

[South Fl Marc]

Posted: 8/23/07 at 1:54pm

"It's good to know that the likes of David Merrick are alive and kicking"

David Merrick was a great, albeit ruthless, producer. I think its insulting to equate him with the drudge that produced this dinner theatre production.

[robbiej]

Posted: 8/23/07 at 2:12pm

I have to tell you, I used to approve pull-quotes for a major cable television network. In no way, shape or form would I have approved this ad. I would have been fired because of it.

[srgr8]

Posted: 8/23/07 at 2:20pm

this ad is hilarious

i have to agree that its giving a new revival a bad reputation. it just seems so utterly pathetic, or is that just me? :)

its one thing for a show to get a bad rap for being horrible (which this show, while not horrible, it was not good)....and its another thing to be seen as pathetic/deceptive. Which raises the previous question, just how many people fell for it?

Updated On: 8/23/07 at 02:20 PM

[robbiej]

Posted: 8/23/07 at 2:21pm

It's also another thing to piss off the critics so much that they will refuse to allow ANY quotes to be used for any future shows these producers might bring to NY.

[Enjolras77]

Posted: 8/23/07 at 2:45pm

Here is an image of the famous Merrick ad mentioned above--

[Smaxie]

Posted: 8/23/07 at 3:06pm

There was also the Merrick classic, "At last, people are holding hands in the theater again!" to help promote Oh, Kay!

Frank Rich relates the story in his piece, "Exit the Critic":

"Merrick had come back to Broadway with "Oh, Kay!" a feeble attempt to create a musical in the style of "42d Street," his last hit, now a decade old. At the critics' preview I attended, he pulled one of his old tricks: in the seat next to Alex Witchel, the Times theater columnist whom I was dating, he planted a loud, disruptive woman who talked and bounced in her seat throughout the show. After my negative review of "Oh, Kay!" came out, Merrick circulated a protesting letter to The Times in which he claimed Alex had talked through the performance. To heighten the public relations push, he then placed an ad in which a negative quote from my review and a news item from Alex's column about an Actors Equity dispute involving "Oh, Kay!" were contained within a cupid's heart. "At last, people are holding hands in the theatre again!" read the headline.

The stunt was a replay of a famous one he had pulled on Walter and Jean Kerr three decades earlier, when he publicly accused Jean of influencing Walter's reviews by dramatically "nudging" him at the theater. (Walter's answer to the charge in The Herald Tribune -- "Surely, Mr. Merrick, someone, somewhere has liked you well enough to give you a little dig in the elbow. No? Ah, well" -- is a journalism classic.) And by Merrick standards, the treatment I got was mild. In his prime, Merrick likened Brooks Atkinson's successor, Howard Taubman, to Adolf Eichmann during a half-hour tirade on Johnny Carson's "Tonight" show, on which the producer also accused the critic of feeding poison nuts to the squirrels in Central Park and spraying pesticide at Hubert's Flea Circus. Those were the days! It's hard to imagine any theatrical producer even being booked on a network talk show now.

Merrick's ad ran for one edition in The Times and was reprinted widely. The publicity did not save "Oh, Kay!" which died ignominiously in a welter of financial disputes pitting Merrick against his own employees. The great producer's career was over. But the notion Merrick perpetrated that Alex and I were in league either to reward or punish the New York theater hardly died with "Oh, Kay!""

"Exit the Critic"