Tommy’s choreography for Our Favorite Son was lifted from a sequence in the movie King of Jazz. The sequence uses the dancers’ arms more than the legs.
In case you're wondering, here are Carol Hall's actual lyrics to the xylophone censored parts, which begin at around the 1:15 mark: "We're gonna play 'em out and lay 'em out tonight / They won’t have ever seen nobody quite like me / We're gonna wham, and bam and thank-you-ma'am tonight / I swear I don't know how they’ll stand such ecstasy / (Right between the goalposts!) / We've been deprived so long but no we’re getting some / I’ll bet the girls are counting up the minutes 'til we come / (They ain't the only ones!) / Seventy-five miles until we get to heaven / Seventy-five miles until our plans are laid / Seventy-five miles until we get to Chicken Ranch / Where history, and Aggie boys, get made!"-
As a former Houstonian, thank you for sending the words correctly. It’s unbelievable that they would be censored in a video that is still being shown in 2023. The words are heard now all the time in music. Shows how much times have changed since this video was made.
The last few minutes with the clogging & shit kicking is actually pretty fantastic. Not many people around anymore who can do this...that style of dancing has its roots in Irish Step Dancing and is culturally significant.
I was actually thinking it was more rooted in German clog dancing. Given that in Texas there are strong German immigrant roots. But o totally see what you mean. Very very similar.
I asked my brilliant jazz dance teacher, Betsy Haug, what she thought about country line dancing, and she said, it was too basic to be of any interest to her. No rhythmic complexity.
Rusty Phresh How true in so many more ways than one. A few more phresh and inventive stories capable of ringing loud and true through and through would do what entertainers are meant to do, too.
Tommy Tune may be a fine dancer, but as a choreographer, he is totally lame. No theatrical sensibility, just place it in front of the audience like a dead fish.
Can't find where to post this so I'll just put it here! Thank you SO much for your wonderful channel! I am seeing Tony clips that I have never even thought of watching. It's brilliant to see clips of original productions, thank you!!
This is the most bizarre censorship I've ever seen. There's not a single curse word in this song, nor a single mention of a specific body part. Henry Fonda already said the word "Whorehouse" in the show's title. That's as dirty as anything about this gets. The xylophone is bleeping out words like "laid" and "made" and "come." Those are regular verbs in everyday usage. Seriously WHAT?!
The bizarre lyrical censorship only highlights how dirty the song *actually* is... despite the complete and total lack of profanity. Idiotic TV censors, we don't miss you at all.
The play was SO much better than the movie. They totally changed it in order to give lots of camera time to Dolly Parton and Burt Reynolds. In the play the characters that Dolly & Burt played were not the main characters.
Remember this as an example when people start whining about how bad political correctness is today compared to the past, and how "you can't make jokes any more". It's not worse today, just different.
And when it came time to make the movie, the producers and director said "this scene isn't gay enough. Let's add steroids, glitter, water, shake well, add more ascots and see what happens."
It's been 40 years, they were probably in their early twenties, so unless you're assuming the majority of them were hit by the AIDS epidemic (rather then simply a percentage, as was presumably the case), not sure why you say that. They'd mainly be in their early to mid sixties.
@@BernardProfitendieuyou're totally missing the historical subtext. Those of us who lived though that era know exactly what he meant. Your intervention is extremely unwelcome
I know what you mean and yes, the losses of the 80s and 90s were horrifying. Count me among the generation of young men who were left scarred by it all. I was scared to date until the early 2000s - a full decade after turning 18.
@@tejaswomanYoung men in the musicals business. The vast majority of them, especially back then, would have been gay men. Straight people largely ignored that back then. Now, musicals are a bit more mixed between straight / gay men and women. Given that the big musical productions happened in big cities which were struck the hardest by the AIDS epidemic, the reality was that, yes, if you were in a production like this, you'd have been seeing your colleagues and friends die all around you. All of this is well documented history. And those of us who lived through it can testify to it. I was a teenager then, but I knew people who experienced this and survived - plus a couple who died in the early 90s just as the first viable drug therapies were coming out. It's kinda polite - in a innocent way - that you wouldn't jump to these conclusions. I'm guessing a tejana like yourself wouldn't have many personal reasons to have direct knowledge of this, after all. But the OP's phrasing was VERY clear to those of us who do. The horror of those years is indescribable.
I can't decide which is more off-putting: the sound that happens when the network censors words, or the fact that these guys are so obviously not football players! 😘 Some of the songs from this musical are wonderful, though.
Totally. And just think ... Back then suburban housewives were dragging their full husbands to go see it - many of whom were entirely clueless that the performers were primarily gay guys (with maybe the occasional straight actor who liked getting all the attention backstage). And, if you happen to be young, I'm not even exaggerating, I swear. That's how it was.
This is an odd choice for the tonys given that this is the least memorable song from the show in fact its the worst song from the show. Who decided this was the best way to present a really fun and enjoyable musical?
