Sandy Duncan in 'Ugg-a-Wug" from Peter Pan

[PalJoey]

Posted: 2/1/09 at 12:18am

For those who wanted to see Sandy Duncan's "Ugg-a-Wug" from the 1979 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, I finally found it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vvdFqZzFSY

[PalJoey]

Posted: 2/1/09 at 12:23am

Sorry about the video quality, but it's from a VHS tape that dates back to the early 1980s, when we could only copy tapes by hooking up one VCR to another.

The tape I dubbed was from a one of the Indians I was dating at the time.

Or was it from one of the Lost Boys...?

[gypsy4]

Posted: 2/1/09 at 12:23am

thanks! I love watching clips from this production there was so much energy put into it.

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 2/1/09 at 12:32am

I don't think I've ever seen anything as unintentionally offensive in my entire life. Are the "Indians" actually wearing orange body suits?

[PalJoey]

Posted: 2/1/09 at 12:49am

No, leotards.

[BobbyBubby]

Posted: 2/1/09 at 1:24am

Thanks for posting. That choreography is sensational.

[orangeskittles]

Posted: 2/1/09 at 1:43am

For pure nostalgia purposes, I still prefer this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2G1sxB8J-4

But that choreography is great.

Updated On: 2/1/09 at 01:43 AM

[Dolly_Levi]

Posted: 2/1/09 at 2:06am

Terrific fun!

[otis33]

Posted: 2/1/09 at 3:54am

Fantastic!

[PalJoey]

Posted: 2/1/09 at 8:23am

I'm usually a Jerome Robbins purist, and Rob Iscove is no Jerome Robbins, but the Sandy Duncan production was one of those theatrical experiences that made you grin from ear to ear, and this "Ugg-a-Wug" was a highlight, despite its inadvertent or naively unintended racism.

[theaterkid1015]

Posted: 2/1/09 at 9:16am

One of the most offensive numbers ever written and still one of my favorite.

Thanks for uploading this. It brightened my whole morning.

[PiraguaGuy2]

Posted: 2/1/09 at 9:33am

Love it.

[Brick]

Posted: 2/1/09 at 12:14pm

That was thrilling.

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 2/1/09 at 12:30pm

Does anyone know who revised the lyrics for the Rigby production? I never really noticed how much of a great job they did. Especially with "Brave noble warrior" and having Tiger Lily sing the first verse. Granted, the Rigby production recognized the offence and then turned the number into an almost equally insulting and psychotic drum banging tribute to the Native American culture, but I still dig the revised lyrics.
Updated On: 2/1/09 at 12:30 PM

[Dollypop]

Posted: 2/1/09 at 1:12pm

When the Gateway Playhouse did PETER PAN a few years ago, they avoided controversy by making Tiger Lily's troupe a baseball team. Was it the Washington Redskins or __________ Indians?

[PiraguaGuy2]

Posted: 2/1/09 at 1:16pm

I saw a production where they called them "Native Neverlandians".

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 2/1/09 at 1:23pm

That's just distracting. No one is native to Neverland. They all got sent there. (right?)

[PalJoey]

Posted: 2/1/09 at 4:34pm

There's no way around the racism, really.

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 2/1/09 at 4:52pm

Well, the revised lyrics are still less offensive. And the Rigby costumes, orchestrations and choreography were definitly more PC. There just doesn't seem to be any way around having to call them Indians.

[FlyingMonkey1223]

Posted: 2/1/09 at 4:54pm

That video is awesome. The choreography rocks. I was in a production of PETER PAN as a youth and that brought back memories! I love racism!

[StickToPriest]

Posted: 2/1/09 at 5:03pm

I just watched a bunch of clips from the Mary Martin version. And wow did that take me back.

I haven't seen it in years. My siblings and I used to watch it ALL THE TIME when we were very young. There is something so magical and yet so melancholy about watching things that were so dear to you when you were child. It takes you back in a way that few other things can. As I was watching, I started to forget where I was. I was transported back to our old living room on a December night snuggled with my siblings by the fire as we all watched, enthralled of course, and my younger sister and I would sing along with Peter as he crowed and my older sister would tell us to be quiet because this was her favorite song and we were ruining it. And then getting scared and hiding under the covers anytime Hook showed up with is pirates. And clapping ever so hard to help save Tink. Just clapping and clapping. And knowing, really KNOWING, that our claps had helped and that we were now a part of the Lost Boys forever. We didn't know who the actors were or who the writers were and we didn't understand the concept of the stage and didn't care why it looked different from other movies. We just knew that this all had really happened and we were a part of it and these songs were our songs. We were swept away without any obstacles of awareness.

No cynicism. No critiques of the performance or the show. We didn't know they were performances and we didn't know it was a show. We knew that it was a magical story and these were special people who we knew and who knew us because we would always come back to see them again, each time a little more familiar and each time a little more aware of what we were watching.

Until it starts to lose it's magic. As we grow older and become too cool to watch that kid's show and forget that these people are doing this for us. We lose the wonder and we lose the excitement and we begin to think that maybe we weren't helping in saving Tink. That maybe she would have lived even if we hadn't clapped and screamed and cried along with Peter.

And then we come to adulthood. We have moved past the childhood wonder and the teenage cynicism. And we are in adulthood. A place I am still getting comfortable with. And what makes up adulthood. Is it primarily the child snuggling with his siblings hiding from Hook and laughing at Peter's shadow and wishing we had a dog as big as Nana? Is adulthood primarily the cynic who knows that it's all a stage and a bunch of actors pretending?

Or is it a mix of both? There is beauty in the naiviety, but there is also danger in it as we grow. And their is anger and resentment in the awareness (an anger at not being able to retain the ignorant wonder), but there is also truth. You just have to find the right mixture and that is something that I think Neverland is really about.

Neverland is about being an adult and accepting your responsibilities but still believing that you helped save Tink and telling Peter his shadow is behind him and KNOWING he can hear you.

We need both, I guess. But especially in this day and age we lose that sense of childhood surrender and wonder. We lose Neverland.

I lose Neverland more than I mean to. I plan my life instead of really enjoying it. I spend to much time in my head and not enough time clapping for Tink and laughing at Nana with a freeing abandon.

But watching these clips sent me back to the couch and I was there cheering for the Lost Boys and knowing I was one of them. We can't forget we are all Lost Boys. We aren't the Pirates. Who wants to be the Pirate? I never did when I was younger. the pirates were the epitome of...well, of everything bad.

Sometimes I forget what it means to really live but watching Mary Martin (see, as a kid I would have just said "watching Peter Pan,"...I didn't know who Mary Martin was) and this magical show that I have such a connection to is what I need sometimes to remind myself that sometimes being a child is good. And freeing. Especially in this age of cynicism.

We all gotta crow. And we all help save Tink. And we all can fly. If we think happy thoughts. But those happy thoughts that came so quickly as a child, as I grow sometimes it can be harder to think them even though there are so many there. So so many.

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 2/1/09 at 6:02pm

That's all very well...

[PalJoey]

Posted: 2/1/09 at 6:27pm

That's why we go back to see Peter Pan, STP: to believe again. Even if it's just for 2 hours.

[bk]

Posted: 2/1/09 at 10:07pm

How much fun. And there's my darling friend Marsha Kramer as Wendy, looking like a little kid despite being over thirty at the time.

As to those who find this offensive or racist - really, shame on you. One grows so weary of all this PC crap. Let's figure out when Peter Pan takes place, shall we?

[PalJoey]

Posted: 2/1/09 at 10:12pm

I have loved Marsha Kramer since I saw her in an Equity Library Theater production of Cole Porter's Out of This World, when she was very young and I was even younger.