Shows that reference other shows?- Page 2

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 8/29/12 at 11:42pm

(And in that Applause clip, while I assume the guys are wearing flesh colored tights or shorts or something, I always wondered how mooning the audience got onto network TV...)

[Wynbish]

Posted: 8/29/12 at 11:43pm

An Evening with Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 8/30/12 at 7:25am

Subtle nods and bigger thefts abound.
Direct references include:

In Applause "She's No Longer a Gypsy" references the famous incident from Pajama Game when Shirley Maclaine went on for Carol Haney (and became a star) as a parallel to Eve's going on as Margo's understudy.
"She got there (or in?) early
and pulled a Shirley Maclaine"

In Follies, "I'm Still Here" references "Abie's Irish Rose"

"Manhattan," the Rodgers/Hart song from Garrick Gaieties (1925) may have had a reference to a long running show. In Ella Fitzgerald's recording, she sings:
"Through Central Park we'll stroll, where our first kiss we stole, soul to soul
And "My Fair Lady" is a terrific show, they say We both may see it close some day." I believe I've heard post-1925 and pre-My Fair Lady versions of the song which substituted South Pacific.

I think someone mentioned Two On the Aisle. There, in Dolores Grey's great song "If," she complains, "if you had not left me home when you had two seats for South Pacif."

Rodgers and Hart also make several show biz references in "Zip" from Pal Joey, including "Will Saroyan ever write a great play?"

Irving Berlin's "Brush Up Your Shakespeare" from Kiss Me Kate.

Tthere's "Me as KIng Lear" (Send in the Clowns) and "Speeches are brilliant when they're Shaw's" (The Glamorous life, film version, sometimes done on stage) from ALNM.

Finally: "She plays Medea later this week." Comedy Tonight, Forum.



Updated On: 8/30/12 at 07:25 AM

[Smaxie]

Posted: 8/30/12 at 8:12am

The original lyric in "We'll Have Manhattan" is "Our future babies we'll take to Abie's Irish Rose/I hope they'll live to see it close".

"Intermission Talk" from Me and Juliet has a number of references to other shows (including R&H's King & I).

"They Couldn't Compare to You" from Out of This World mentions Call Me Madam and Ethel Merman.

I've heard that the authors of the 1927 football musical Good News named one of the characters Bingham as a reference to the rival football team in the 1917 football musical Leave It To Jane.

"Homesick Blues" in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes cites "A show like Sally".

Others mentioned Merrily here, but one thing not mentioned is that when producer Joe Josephson tells Frank and Charley to write a "plain old melody-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee," in "Opening Doors," he's humming "Some Enchanted Evening". Frank in the same song sings "I saw My Fair Lady... I sort of enjoyed it."

"Who Knows What Might Have Been?" in Subways Are For Sleeping has a section where Sydney Chaplin sings "She's an ordinary girl..." in the style of Rex Harrison's "I'm An Ordinary Man" in My Fair Lady.

All of the "Allelujahs" in "Cinderella Darling" in the original How to Succeed were a reference to the nun chorus of the show that was playing across the street at the time, The Sound of Music.

Updated On: 8/30/12 at 08:12 AM

[Quiche2]

Posted: 8/30/12 at 8:16am

The latest Godspell revival did--Turn Back O Man. Had a Wicked reference in there.

I understand why they did that, cuz Stephen Schwartz composed Godspell and Wicked, duh. And in the "Popular" scene in WICKED, Galinda says "Ohh Look its tomorrow haha!" I'm really confused here, is that an ANNIE reference?

[Wynbish]

Posted: 8/30/12 at 8:23am

No. That's just a reference to the fact that it was past midnight or most likely sunrise. Aka "tomorrow"

Updated On: 8/30/12 at 08:23 AM

[Quiche2]

Posted: 8/30/12 at 8:24am

Ooohhh lol I feel like a dumbasz now.

[theobsessed]

Posted: 8/30/12 at 8:32am

I know it's not Broadway, but TICK...TICK...BOOM! has a couple of them. I know West Side Story and what I think is a Marry Poppins reference is in the song "Why". And the opening and closing numbers give a nod to COMPANY, and there's a song in it called "Sunday" which is a parody of the song of the same title from SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE. I have been told there are others in the written dialogue, but I've never seen the show so I wouldn't know.

[EponineAmneris]

Posted: 8/30/12 at 9:01am

In THE PRODUCERS during DER GUTENTAG HOP-CLOP, after he and the boys have 'signed' their... deal... to produce his musical about Hitler... Franz declares, "Wait 'till they hear about this in Argentina!"

[Smaxie]

Posted: 8/30/12 at 9:04am

>Franz declares, "Wait 'till they hear about this in Argentina!"<

That's just a reference to Argentina being a safe haven for Nazi war criminals in hiding after World War II.

[adam.peterson44]

Posted: 8/30/12 at 9:10am

Since Two On The Aisle has been mentioned as having references, I'll mention that Catch Me If You Can references "Mr. Two On The Aisle" in its final song (but i don't really get that lyric - would be happy to hear your interpretations of it).

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 8/30/12 at 9:17am

"Oh can't you still to look at me
That I'm a natural Camille
As Camille I just feel
I've so much to offer
("Hey listen Kid I know I'd be divine because")
I'm a natural cougher"

I'm The Greatest Star, FUNNY GIRL

[EponineAmneris]

Posted: 8/30/12 at 9:23am

AWWWW, Smaxie You rock. Thank you for correcting me. That makes sense now that you say it.

I just always thought he was refering to EVITA... You know, like saying another musical about a dictator... even though the show hadn't been written then... Whoa...

... Geez I need some food and to wake up LOL

[Smaxie]

Posted: 8/30/12 at 10:17am

>Since Two On The Aisle has been mentioned as having references, I'll mention that Catch Me If You Can references "Mr. Two On The Aisle" in its final song (but i don't really get that lyric - would be happy to hear your interpretations of it).<

That's not a reference to the show Two on the Aisle. "Mr. Two on the Aisle" means someone with prestige, who commands the very best, as in 'two on the aisle,' a pair of tickets with a seat on the aisle, reserved for only the most important people.

[Marcellus2]

Posted: 8/30/12 at 11:25am

Henrikegerman

"Irving Berlin's "Brush Up Your Shakespeare" from Kiss Me Kate."

Cole Porter's "Brush Up Your Shakespeare" from Kiss Me Kate.

[adam.peterson44]

Posted: 8/30/12 at 11:35am

Smaxie, thanks for the explanation. That makes more sense now.

[After Eight]

Posted: 8/30/12 at 8:46pm

The delightful 1948 revue Make Mine Manhattan, recently revived quite charmingly in NY, has a song, "Anything Can Happen in New York," that tells us, amusingly, "Oklahoma mght close!" Another song, "The Good Old Days," makes a reference to Sally and A Streetcar Named Desire.

That rollicking romp, Ankles Aweigh, has a jaunty song, expertly delivered by Jane Kean, "Nothing Can Replace a Man." It begins with the declaration, "Rodgers and Hammerstein claim/ There is nothing like a dame." And I claim there is nothing like Ankles Aweigh, either. Unfortunately.

Then there's Jerry Herman. May there always be Jerry Herman! Here's a man who reveres the greats of the past, and pays homage to them in his song "Show Tune," in Parade. There you'll hear a hit parade listing of some of the greatest show tunes of all time. The kind of songs they don't write any more. In the same show, there's a song poking fun at the downbeat doings of shows of 1958-59, called "Jolly Theatrical Season." Fiorello and Juno are among them.

[Dollypop]

Posted: 8/31/12 at 12:17pm

During the entre acte in the brilliant Broadway revival of GODSPELL, Telly Leung performed snippets of lots of Broadway melodies--including "Rose's Turn" and, when he knew I was in the audience, "Hello, Dolly!"

[sondheimfan2]

Posted: 8/31/12 at 12:51pm

On the Twentieth Century has a reference to Abie's Irish Rose in the song "The Legacy" sung by Oscar Jaffee.

[ErinDillyFan]

Posted: 8/31/12 at 1:17pm

In Shrek, when Lord Farqua is singing about his family, he foreshadows that his mother is the princess from "Once upon a Mattress" with a few bars of "Hey, Nonny, Nonny"

In the movie version of "Call Me Madam", when Donald O'Connor's character starts singing to the princess, he references the stage versoin of the show saying "You haven't heard this song? It was a big hit on broadway a couple of years ago."

[ErinDillyFan]

Posted: 8/31/12 at 1:37pm

I didn't see anyone mention the most obvious the show "Musical of Musicals"

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 8/31/12 at 1:42pm

"I Wish I Could Go Back to College" when he sings "I wish I could go back to college, how do I go back to college?" is the same melody as "Is anyone in the main stream?" from "La Vie Bohem" in "Rent"

The two melodic lines are similar, but it's not an intentional reference to Rent.

[NoName3]

Posted: 8/31/12 at 3:21pm

Midway through "Happy Hunting Horn" in Pal Joey, there is a brief solo horn part. It is "Siegfried's Horn Call" from Richard Wagner's music drama Siegfried.

In Nine, when the ensemble sings about German music in "The Germans at the Spa," the melody is from the love music in Wagner's Tristan und Isolde. It's meant to be recognized, as opposed to the way ALW uses Puccini.

At the very end of "A Weekend in the Country" the orchestra blares out a snippet from the prelude to Act I of Richard Strauss's opera Der Rosenkavalier. I think that was Tunick's idea.

During the Act I finale of Gilbert & Sullivan's Utopia, Limited, Captain Corcoran from their much earlier hit H.M.S. Pinafore makes a cameo appearance.

In Mozart's Don Giovanni, the Don hires a small group to play for for him during dinner. He comments that one piece is heard too often. The piece is "Non piu andrai," one of the big hits from Mozart's previous opera Le Nozze di Figaro.

The Peachum's first number in The Threepenny Opera uses the same melody that the Peachums sing in the opening number of The Beggar's Opera. It's meant as an homage to the earlier show.

In Dolly, Barnaby sings in "Dancing" that he might join the chorus of the Castle Garden show.

Part of the melody of "The Worst Pies in London" is lifted from the melody of "Tommorrow" in Annie. Sondheim did it deliberately as a joke.

[After Eight]

Posted: 8/31/12 at 11:00pm

"But Alive" in Applause mentions "Younger Than Springtime."

[showchoirguy]

Posted: 8/31/12 at 11:16pm

I saw a regional production of "The 39 Steps" and they had about 4 Hitchcock references.