Why Did “Anyone Can Whistle” Flop? 

Imagine falling off the stage in the performance and YOU KILL SOMEBODY. Not only do you have to live with the embarrassment but you also killed somebody

Another major factor, of course, was that hits like Hello, Dolly!, and Funny Girl were playing down the street. And Sondheim had yet to establish himself as a composer to be reckoned with. Most of the songs to Forum weren't even used in the movie version, because the audience didn't need the same break in the comedic action that the theatre audiences may have.

Lee Remick said that,among them, Angela Lansbury was the only one who had the technique to sustain a vocal performance week after week.

Pls do more of this where you talk about why shows flopped. It's usually a multitude of reasons

You need to do a crossover with Diva from Musical Hell!

Better question: WHY DID MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG FLOP?!?!?!

I love this score, and the show too actually. -I think the musical very clearly establishes the premise in the first 10 minutes, doesn't it? -Also, I don't think the writers were aiming for a beatnik audience - the broadway ticket buyers and the society they still lived in were the subject of the satire. So I'm not really sure how much water that holds. I think part of why it failed is that it didn't have an inclusive tone with the audience but a critical and mocking one, and also that it was too bizarre and experimental for a musical comedy in 1964's Broadway. HAIR started downtown, it was FOR the people that it was about, and it was spending most of its time enjoying and promoting those people and lifestyles while taking some humorous shots at the "uptown" audiences it would also have. It built steam downtown before trying to give its political and social messages to the uptown crowd. Also it wasn't a biting satire of current or recent times, ACW was (or was trying to be). Hair was also a rock musical with a new sound for Broadway, ACW was traditional Broadway. So I think they are two very different shows with very different styles and approaches and audiences.

Wow, great analysis of this show I've never heard of. Are you going to do more of them?

A lovely analysis. One note: the three-act musical was not falling out of fashion in 1964. It had been dead for decades. PORGY AND BESS (1935,) is in three acts, but I can't think of a major musical after OKLAHOMA (1943) that isn't in two acts.

I agree with practically everything he said; but the fact remains that Broadway has, on occasion, elevated some pieces of utter crap to stratospheric success ("Cats", anyone?), while turning its back on some truly splendid works. My two favorite Lost Jewels are Harold Arlen's "House of Flowers" and John Latouche's "The Golden Apple", especially the second. Even describing "The Golden Apple" is risky: it's a musical version of "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey", set at the time of the Spanish-American War. (The beauty contest among the three goddesses is a bake-off, Scylla and Charybdis are a pair of stockbrokers, Helen and Paris elope in a balloon, and if THAT doesn't whet your interest, I don't know what will). Please buy the CDs to both shows; you won't regret it.

Amazing video!! Could you make a video on why Dear World flopped??

I've never seen it performed, sadly. But I do love the Bakula/Peters/Kahn/Lansbury recording.

You may just be my new favorite RU-vidr, you talk about musicals like I do, I love theatre analysis. Love it.

That was an incredibly insightful analysis of what I've always considered a "Puzzling But Fun Musical". I did it in college - at Yale back in 1976. It was chosen by the undergraduate Dramat group because one of the members was dating Stephen's godchild - which meant that both Stephen and Arthur both showed up opening night. I was one of Cora's four "boys" - so I danced more than I sang. But I always liked the score. By the time of this Yale re-staging, Sondheim had obviously had many groundbreaking successes, so of course people flocked to our re-staging to see this "first Sondheim musical". They came away for the most part saying that it reminded them of "King of Hearts", the 1966 movie starring Alan Bates about a small town during WWII where inmates from the local lunatic asylum take over after the residents flee as the enemy approaches. Maybe if audiences in 1964 had been more familiar with "King of Hearts" Sondheim would have had more success - or maybe Sondheim should have just waited until "King of Hearts" was released and then applied the "Anyone Can Whistle" score to a musical version of the movie? At any rate, on the second weekend of our run, our performance was supposed to be a benefit for local private school. The patrons all arrived: blue-haired ladies in furs and grey-haired men in tuxes. THEY ALL LEFT AT THE END OF THE FIRST ACT. Yep - that was my experience performing in "Anyone Can Whistle".

1. The Beatles debuted on the Ed Sullivan two months before "Whistle" opened so there were no hippies or bell bottoms yet in 1964. There might've been some anti-Vietnam feeling but that had not really escalated yet in 1964. 2. Are you sure about Ragni and Rado writing "Hair" back then? In '64, Rado was two years away from appearing in Lion in Winter and I thought I read somewhere that he and Ragni ni didn't start writing "Hair" until "Winter" was over. Otherwise, a very, very sound analysis.

This is so very, very well done and produced! Thanks for sharing!

I was fortunate enough to be in a production of this show my freshman year of High School. Almost no one in the cast knew what the hell to make of the show, but it quickly became one of my all time favorites.

Great piece about this blizzard musical, I grew up wondering was there anyway it could of been saved but the only ways I have seen it on it's own work was the Concert versions and a UK radio version that if you can find I would suggest, it had Maria Friedman as Fay Apple and Julia McKenzie as Cora

People came to musicals in the 60s for escape, for laughter, for entertainment. ANYONE CAN WHISTLE was entertaining and had it's humorous moments, but for the most part it wasn't really escape. The dark town with the Cookie Jar is a lampoon of the real world, but there are places like it out there. The corrupt mayoress seems a very likely parallel to many politicians of the time. And the uncomfortable reality of a lot of the show might have hit a little too hard for 1964 audiences. After all, this was the year of such nonthinking shows as HELLO DOLLY, FUNNY GIRL, I HAD A BALL... nothing wrong with any of those shows, but people didn't expect a subtle lecture from their musicals in 1964, at least they didn't want to see one if they didn't know that was what it was. Besides, Sondheim's previous shows were both pretty tame and easy to stomach (WEST SIDE STORY was an exception), and this one was very, very different.

Thank you for this incredibly concise and entertaining analysis. I am new to your content but will certainly check out your other videos. By the way, I am totally ‘borrowing’ your turn of phrase “nailing jello to a tree’.

1:48: is that Mr. Meeseeks?!!

That was a beautifully done critique! I've never seen or heard the show. Now I want to. I enjoy your videos very much.

I remember hearing an interview of Arthur Laurents. He said "We were, frankly, too smart-assed for our own good".

listening to you break down sondheim is always awesome

I got to play HAPGOOD in 2009. Everybody Says Don’t is a joy to sing!

1:46 Are those little Mr. Meeseeks?!

We did this show at my school 3 years ago.

Interesting reasoning, but historically off the mark. I was in high school, in NYC, in 1964. So I was there, y'know? This was a transitional period in countercultures, the Beats were increasingly irrelevant, but hippies simply hadn't happened yet, not for another three years at least. You couldn't even *find* bellbottoms except in maritime supply stores (which is where I bought my first pair, in 1967, down on the Battery, menswear only and they didnt want to sell to me...) Tie dye? Not yet. If your point stands, and I think it could , it'd be more correct to say that there wasn't in America in 1964 any well defined and recognizable group of societal misfits that the theatergoers could relate to as the "cookies". Sondheim might have been simply too early.

Thank you for doing this -- any theatre lover's bound to be entertained.

I was privileged to have seen one of the nine original Broadway performances of this wonderful show. I loved it... well I loved (had a crush on) Lee Remick, thought Harry Guardino was just terrific, and Angela Lansbury... well, she was marvelous in a role that was not good enough for her talents. And don't forget Gabe Dell, a fantastic villain. The show was born at the wrong time, either too early or too late, it's hard to tell. But, I think it fell, unfortunately, into a generational glitch between the Cold War and the dynamic changes of the mid-sixties forward. Anyway, I loved it and still do. The songs "Anyone Can Whistle" and "With So Little To Be Sure Of" are classic treasures and should never be forgotten.

I remember when I was in high school, 1973-1976, seeing the the picture of Angela Lansbury her right arm raised in gesture/flourish in those annual books about the musicals on Broadway with the Hirshfield caricature of her in the same pose. I always wanted to read or see the show but alas I have yet to do either. Where on the timeline does the Beatnik musical The Nervous Set lay in comparison to Anyone Can Whistle? I only know about The Nervous Set from a wonderful cover of the standard, Ballad of a Sad Young Man from the show by a very talented local San Francisco artist Connie Champagne on her album Imagine Judy. Check it out - you're sure to get a hoot out of it as well as hear a wonderful female Judy Garland impersonator.

Your comments about this being Sondheim's biggest flop reminded me of Merrily We Roll Along, which is the one I always think of as his biggest flop. It might be interesting to compare the two and the ways they failed. I think Merrily did get a nice postmortem with the documentary "The Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened," but I don't hear much in broader circles about Anyone Can Whistle. Interesting to think about.

If Sondheim says Anyone Can Whistle failed because of the author also being the director, how does he justify his collaborations with James Lapine? Lapine wrote all three shows he worked on with Sondheim, as well as directing them. Two of those shows (Woods and Passion) brought both of them Tonys, and the third (Sunday) brought them a Pulitzer.

How well-done. Thank you!

Will you be doing something like this for Merrily We Roll Along, too?

It flopped because it had three acts and the first act - as the commentator says - mocks the audience. That said, I did the show at Yale University in the 70s and Stephen Sondheim came to see it (the student director of our version was dating Stephen's niece). He LOVED it - then afterward Sondheim bee-lined to a VERY HOT jock who was on the Yale Crew, who Stephen had "befriended" during the previous production of "The Frogs" at the Yale Rep. That HOT guy later became my boyfriend and told me about his whole "friendship" with Stephen in the early 70s. Who knew?

Do you have a source for the Sondheim quote you use at the end? I find it interesting, but cannot find the article anywhere for the life of me.

I suppose another thing against this show being successful was that ticket-buyers did not know much if anything about the singing prowess of Lee Remick and Angela Lansbury. Add to that the show being totally new and whose plot may not have sounded too appealing.

Story problems aside, the show has fantastic music, especially Cora's songs. Me and My Town, I've Got You To Lean On and Parade in Town are all wonderful.

Do PASSION!!

IMHO the song ANYONE CAN WHISTLE is SONDHEIM'S greatest song and my all time favorite song written by Stephen..:)

Honestly i want to watch ut more now??? and this show sounds more recent than anything i read the synopsis and was mindblown so sad i can't find it to watch anywhere (for obvious reasons)

I loved this!

Do one about Darling of the Day from 1968

Great breakdown, makes me want to go track down a record! Btw, how is the book "On Sondheim"? Is it worth reading? I've been interested in it since it came out but I read mixed reviews.

Having listened to the score countless times, read the original Broadway script, and seen the show at Encores, I can safely and confidently say that I do not think Sondheim & Laurents forgot to in "entertainment"... I find the show fantastically entertaining, generally speaking. And I think this show wanted to be an absurd off-broadway play, and I think was inspired by those plays... so it was never going to reach or please a Broadway audience especially one in 1964. Regardless of whether one thinks the show works or not I don't think is relevant to why it flopped - it was always going to flop because of what it's about and how it, by design and intention, is written and plays out. And I gotta say I do not agree with Sondheim here at all... the subject and message of the show is and continues to be very relevant. Conformity is still a major thing - yes, non-conformity had a moment in the spotlight as the thing to do, for maybe 20 years, and again in the 90s, but conformity never went away even when non-conformity was trendy, and it continues to come back with a vengeance. Other than perhaps the specifics of the "non-comformist" writers/thinkers that Hapgood names (I can't remember how many are of the "beatnik" era), there's very little if anything in the musical directly associating with that, and if you didn't know it it wouldn't color how you receive the show and the message, it certainly didn't with me when I first heard and read the score when I was 16 and found plenty of relevance in it, socially, politically and emotionally.

@5.25 music is IHE theme music 😆

I love this show!

The question I've asked for *years*

Here is the concert version with Bernadette Peters, Madeline Kahn, Scott Bakula, Chip Zien, Walter Bobbie, Ken Page and Angela Lansbury as the Narrator. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-eEoJFlSHa6Q.html

The show was great but the main reason it flopped is because of NYT giving a very negative review and at that time, review from NYT is very powerful. Other critics praised the show but NYT contributed with the ticket sales flopping. I hope someone makes a revival of this show with certain revisions.

The person who said "Whistle" should've been an off -Broadway show was probably right, but of course Remick, Lansbury and Guardino might not have agreed to it. Here is my major criticism: I don't think Laurents should have been the book writer. The style and tone of the show is zany, wild, satirical and. non-conformist. That's not Laurents. The author who wrote Gypsy, West Side Story , The Way We Were cannot write "Anyone can Whistle." Playwright and cartoonist Jules Feiffer would've been a good choice. Or how about Ken Kesey, who had recently had a great success with the non-conformist classic One flew over the Cuckoos Nest? (Although Kesey and Sondheim would probably not have been a good team.) Let Arthur Laurents direct. Produce it in a smaller theater than the Majestic theater.

Nothing changes the fact that this show has some of the most fun songs Sondheim ever wrote.

You make some good observations but despite the fact that early drafts of HAIR were being written somewhere, in early 1964 there definitely were no hippies. In early 1964 The Beatles were just making their U.S.A. debut on the Ed Sullivan show. The culture was still very much connected to the '50's. And theatre audiences' make-up would hold for quite a few more years. I think the smug tone and contempt for the very audience that would be buying tickets was more the reason cause let's face it, for a show to fold after one week had to be hated and not even big name movie stars could bring out the curious.

I just watched a production on RU-vid for the first time. I liked the show, and suspect maybe it didn't find it's right audience at the time; and may be more popular in the Future. It IS a strange show; but I think can work with the right casting/choreographer/director. I don't think it is quite main-steam; but it is a vehicle for the right artists/producer.

A beautiful summation of a most misunderstood musical play.

You are magnificent... respect !!!

Uhm... I think you are oversimplifying the problems, but when you consider the plot now, it was a show way ahead of its time. Now, with plenty of stories of Evil Government and people feeling politically lost and confused, ACW just might stand a chance again.

The original review stating the lack of wit and imagination is. A good start. Add Lansburys own observation on the lack of melody. It’s cynical without any levening

I bet you write a good essay.

Angela Lansbury's big break? Uhm, not in any way one can think of. She was already an established star. A good video otherwise. Thanks.

So we're supposed to accept that this town has a rest home for so-called non-conformists, that it's called The Cookie Jar, and that it's residents are called "cookies?" I'm sorry, but there's nothing in there that I can relate to. Thank goodness for the score, itself. Thanks for your analysis.

because not anyone can. i could never whistle. (lol)

Well I guess NOT everyone can whistle.

Please play songs!

I saw the Encores production with a smug attitude that the first audiences were too unsophisticated for Sondheim. What I discovered is that it's a fantastically stupid show with a terrible plot. Truly an idiotic, pointless, confusing plot. So, while this is an interesting review, it's an over-intellectualization. It just wasn't good, aside from a few nice numbers.

I hope Stephen Sondheim has never actually said anything to the effect of criticizing anyone for being hung up on their own perceived cleverness. They don't even make pots and kettles black enough to accommodate that.

No, no, no. You're totally off-base. See? This is what happens when the younger generation ignores their elders. It was never about the counter-culture... It had nothing to do with beatniks or any of the up and coming social revolutions. According to my mother (who would've been 92 if she were still alive, making her old enough to remember the early 1960's as an adult), Anyone Can Whistle flopped for one, simple reason: It was a story before its time. No one ever seems to address the fact that it was taking a very serious, taboo subject (at the time) and making a musical of it! Anyone who hasn't seen it may not realize this. Anyone younger, may not appreciate the times properly. Yes, we still had many restrictions and many taboos. In Anyone Can Whistle, a major part of the story involves an insane asylum (the Cookie Jar), its patients ("non-conformist" residents) and a doctor from it (Dr. Hapgood) who's barely sane himself. Even with all the euphemisms, it was a thinly disguised story about something NO ONE SPOKE OF in 1963 America. Anything to do with an insane asylum was strictly forbidden. It was one of the many things that no one ever talked about, ever. Especially since, in ACW, the main question was, what constitutes insanity? And, put to song, no less! That's why it flopped. People were offended by the topic, completely. Ten years later, Over The Cuckoo's Nest came out and even then many eye brows were raised... but things had loosened up enough for it to be accepted and became a hit. IF they had tried Anyone Can Whistle after that, I know it would have been a hit. What I don't understand is why NO ONE has ever tried it again on Broadway.

Quite simple. The songs sucked, except the title song.

Maybe it flopped because it sucked, as so much of Sondheim does.