Young Frankenstein tour comes to Toronto

[AJ19852]

Posted: 3/21/10 at 4:28pm

Saw it yesterday. How could a piece of candy coated crap like this manage to last a year in New York?

The worst thing about it: It's not at all funny. A lot of stupid jokes but no real laughs.

It also has a terrible score except for one song Puttin' On the Ritz which is from an old Fred Astaire movie.

This is the wort musical I have ever seen.

Yet this show ran for over a year on Broadway in the largest theatre on the street.

How is that possible?

[Nymph Errant]

Posted: 3/21/10 at 4:30pm

... perhaps Totonto is used to more sophisticated fare like their unpteenth Mamma Mia tour or their held-over Wicked spooge-fest?

[threetwoone]

Posted: 3/21/10 at 4:34pm

I guess it's a matter of personal opinion. I personally find the show hilarious, and while the score isn't the strongest ever, I do enjoy all the songs; original or not. The Seattle audiences seemed love it, but we do get a lot of pre-Broadway try-outs with original casts, so the audience is always enthusiastic.

[AJ19852]

Posted: 3/21/10 at 4:36pm

Huh? What are you talking about. Mamma Mia was here once and closed 6 years ago. Wicked was here twice for 2 months each time. Those shows were at least entertaining.

I'm talking about a tour of a show that was a hit on Broadway but is amateurishly bad.

[uncageg]

Posted: 3/21/10 at 4:37pm

I haven't heard the word spooge in about 3 years! That made me laugh.

[AJ19852]

Posted: 3/21/10 at 4:38pm

I kept hearing how funny the show was so I went prepared to laugh a lot. Like at The Producers. Not this time. Nothing clever about it at all.

[homeimp]

Posted: 3/22/10 at 12:25am

I enjoyed the show. I also saw it in NYC. I liked it neither more nor less then The Producers. In my opinion The Producers was overrated and Young Frankenstein was underrated. I thought the first 20 minutes of The Producers was actually quite bad. I didn't like either of the main characters, Max or Leo, but maybe I wasn't supposed to. At least the YF songs had recognizable tunes, unlike many shows that the critics have recently praised on Bdwy. I don't have a sense of humour, so I'm not going to judge how funny it was, but it was fun. I had a good time.

[rufussars]

Posted: 3/22/10 at 4:43am

I can empathize with you, AJ. YF isn't nearly the paragon of sophisticated theatre like those hit Toronto-born musicals such as...oh, wait.

Even though you're lying, did the fact that it has a "terrible score", "no real laughs", and is the "worst musical you've ever seen" really warrant its own thread, however?

Personally, while the musical certainly didn't eclipse THE PRODUCERS in any way, shape, or form, I still found YF to be a delightfully quaint creation. Honestly- what appeals to your sense of humor? What genre of musical score were you hoping for?

I've yet to see any worthwhile theatre beyond PHANTOM, LES MIZ, or MISS VIETNAM last longer than a year in Toronto. Oh, those silly Canadians...what with their bags of milk and questionable taste in fine art.

By the way, AJ, while YF's Hilton is indeed the heftiest theatre "on the street" with 1,821 seats, it can't hold a candle to the 3,759-seater in Port Authority.

[Phantom of London]

Posted: 3/22/10 at 6:12am

I also thought Young Frankenstein was enjoyable and worth the visit when I saw the show in 2007 in New York, however def not worth $450 premium seating that was being quoted at the time.

'Puttin on the Ritz' worked very well on stage, also great songs, such as 'The Brain', 'Roll in the Hay', 'Please Send Me someone', and 'True Love', which were all hilarious on stage.

All what ruined the show was Mel Brooks greed by charging $450 seats and the refusal to publish their grosses.

[AJ19852]

Posted: 3/22/10 at 6:17am

Jersey Boys has been playing Toronto since August of 2008. Crazy for You ran for two years here. Show Boat played 18 months here. Even so Young Frankenstein is only booked for 5 weeks at the Princess of Wales.

I thought Avenue Q was a riot when it played here. The current hit My Mother's Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding is also very funny, and has been extended three times so far. I laughed a lot at The Producers both in Toronto and New York. Evil Dead was funny and it played here for over a year. The original Drowsy Chaperone another show created in Toronto has had 3 successful runs in the area.

I didn't like the CD of of Young Frankenstein even before I saw the show. It mostly seemed like left over songs from The Producers. The music should have been darker and more sinister. There wasn't any reason for it to be all musical comedy numbers.

I started a new thread because the show just opened here and with the search feature not working properly I found lots of threads but can't open any of them.

[imdreamingbig]

Posted: 3/22/10 at 10:39pm

May I just say that I hope MMLJWW gets extended again. Or goes somewhere else to gain popularity, it's an amazing little show.

The Sound of Music played for over a year, but I wouldn't know if you consider that 'great theatre'.

I think all the Torontonians just have to face that, no, the 09-10 season was NOT 'Seven Smash Shows'.

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 3/22/10 at 10:52pm

I'm talking about a tour of a show that was a hit on Broadway but is amateurishly bad.

The show wasn't a hit on Broadway. The reviews were not good and the show failed to recoup it's initial investment.

[AJ19852]

Posted: 3/23/10 at 4:54am

It didn't recoup? I figured it had run more than a year so it would have recouped. Didn't Mel Brooks forbid the finances to be published? This makes it worse, they are touring a bad production of a flop show and expecting people to pay good money to see it? Twisted.

[rufussars]

Posted: 3/23/10 at 5:30am

Oh, gimme a break, AJ. If only financially successful shows went on tour (or, more specifically, waited to recoup before they did), there'd be about a whopping 2 new tours in any given season sent out. Investment as a paragon of success in this case is senseless. Really, why should that be the gold standard here? How many Sondheim or Jason Robert Brown shows didn't make money? Exactly. Regardless of how much money YF didn't make on Broadway (incidentally, it was a hair away from totally recouping), there would still be a tour planned. Frankly, there's been enough interest in this show based on its property name to warrant a production for the road (where it's selling fairly well). You didn't care for it, AJ...we get it. Your rather harsh and dismissive reaction to it still baffles me, but, then again, plenty of other things that people raved about simply weren't my cup of tea, either. But, honestly- no laughs?! "Please Don't Touch Me" STILL makes me chuckle even after hundreds of listenings.