The Mistake Waltz: Watch the Hilarious Ballet by Legendary Choreographer Jerome Robbins

in Comedy, Dance | June 4th, 2021

So often mis­takes are the most mem­o­rable part of live per­for­mance.

In Jerome Rob­bins’ The Con­cert (or The Per­ils of Every­body), they’re built in.

The por­tion set to Chopin’s Waltz in E Minor, above, has earned the nick­name The Mis­take Waltz. It’s an anthol­o­gy of screw ups that will be famil­iar to any­one who’s attend­ed a few ama­teur bal­let pro­duc­tions and school recitals.

When the entire ensem­ble is meant to be trav­el­ing in the same direc­tion or syn­chro­niz­ing swan­like ges­tures, the one who’s egre­gious­ly out of step is a guar­an­teed stand­out… if not the audience’s flat out favorite.

Rob­bins gen­er­ous­ly spreads the clown­ing between all six mem­bers of the corps, get­ting extra mileage from the telegraphed irri­ta­tion in every indis­creet­ly attempt­ed cor­rec­tion.

Per­formed well, the silli­ness seems almost impro­vi­sa­tion­al, but as with all of this leg­endary choreographer’s work, the spon­ta­neous beats are very, very spe­cif­ic.

It only works if the dancers have the tech­ni­cal prowess and the com­ic chops to pull it off. Les Bal­lets Trock­adero de Monte Car­lo aside, this can present a siz­able cast­ing chal­lenge.

Rob­bins also felt that The Con­cert should be pre­sent­ed spar­ing­ly, to keep the jokes from becom­ing stale.

Indi­vid­ual com­pa­nies have some agency over their cos­tumes, but oth­er than that, it is exe­cut­ed just as it was in its 1956 debut with the New York City Ballet.

For­mer NYCB lead dancer Peter Boal, who was 10 when he played Cupid in Rob­bins’ Moth­er Goose, has made The Con­cert part of Pacif­ic North­west Bal­let’s reper­toire. He revealed anoth­er side of the exact­ing Rob­bins in a per­son­al essay in Dance Mag­a­zine:

He had the unique abil­i­ty to become kid-like in the stu­dio, gig­gling with oth­ers and often laugh­ing robust­ly at his own jokes. He was cer­tain­ly his own best audi­ence for The Con­cert. How many times had he seen those gags and yet fresh, spon­ta­neous laugh­ter erupt­ed from him as if it was a first telling.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Bal­let Dancers Do Their Hard­est Moves in Slow Motion

Radio­head Bal­lets: Watch Bal­lets Chore­o­graphed Cre­ative­ly to the Music of Radio­head

The Dance The­atre of Harlem Dances Through the Streets of NYC: A Sight to Behold

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Join her Necro­mancers of the Pub­lic Domain: The Peri­od­i­cal Cica­da, a free vir­tu­al vari­ety show hon­or­ing the 17-Year Cicadas of Brood X. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

 

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The Airline Toilets Theatre Company: Watch One Man Stage Comical Shows in Airplane Bathrooms

in Comedy, Creativity, Theatre, Travel | June 1st, 2021

When COVID 19 struck, the­ater lovers were faced with a choice.

Let go entire­ly, or expand our def­i­n­i­tions of what con­sti­tutes “the­ater.”

We’ve had 14 months to get used to the idea of per­for­mances staged in clos­ets, in pod­cast form, or as phone calls hing­ing on audi­ence par­tic­i­pa­tion.

We’re sick of Zoom, but we no longer con­sid­er it manda­to­ry for the play­ers to inhab­it the same space as each oth­er or the audi­ence.

This is all old news to Peter Brooke Turn­er, a mem­ber of the Ukulele Orches­tra of Great Britain and the founder of the Air­line Toi­lets The­atre Com­pa­ny.

The ATTC’s reper­toire con­sists of great works of lit­er­a­ture, song and dance… per­formed exclu­sive­ly in air­craft lava­to­ries, a true feat when one con­sid­ers that Turn­er, impre­sario and sole com­pa­ny mem­ber, is 6’8”.

2015’s inau­gur­al pro­duc­tion, above, remains among the company’s most ambi­tious —  a 50th anniver­sary recre­ation of Bob Dylan’s 1965 pro­mo­tion­al film clip for Sub­ter­ranean Home­sick Blues, shot on var­i­ous flights through­out the Ukulele Orchestra’s US tour.

Before long, Turner’s car­ry-on was stuffed with props and cos­tumes — a toga, three self-adhe­sive Abra­ham Lin­coln beards, a fat suit, a plas­tic cig­ar, card­board face masks of Jimi Hen­drix and Queen’s Bri­an May, and a num­bers of inflat­a­bles, includ­ing a woman, a horse, and a not par­tic­u­lar­ly real­is­tic hand­gun.

Stag­ing solo, site spe­cif­ic mini pro­duc­tions struck Turn­er as a far more amus­ing prospect than remain­ing in his seat, watch­ing a movie:

I don’t like pas­sive con­sumerism — I’d rather make my own movie than watch some CGI block­buster on a plane. 90% of tour­ing is NOT per­form­ing but sit­ting around on a plane/train/bus star­ing into space — I’m just try­ing to do some­thing cre­ative to make the time pass. 

With advance plan­ning, the sim­pler pro­duc­tions can make it into the can on a sin­gle take.

The James Bond Trib­ute, below, which called for cos­tume changes, pup­pets and card­board masks of Sean Con­nery, Roger Moore, and Daniel Craig, was shot in seg­ments — Lon­don to Frank­furt, Sin­ga­pore to Auck­land, and Sin­ga­pore to Lon­don.

Rather than pro­ject­ing for the ben­e­fit of folks in the non-exis­tent back row, Turn­er prefers to lip synch pre­re­cord­ed lines, fed to him via ear­bud. This helps dial down the sus­pi­cions of flight atten­dants and fel­low pas­sen­gers. Once the “occu­pied” light comes on, he reck­ons he has between 7 to 10 min­utes to take care of busi­ness. Should any­one ques­tion the length of his stay, or his large bag of cos­tumes and props, his excuse is that “I suf­fer from haem­or­rhoids and need to change my pants. (Believe me, this is a con­ver­sa­tion no one wants to take fur­ther.)”

Watch a playlist of the Best of the Air­line Toi­lets The­ater Com­pa­ny here.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Drift: Pas­sen­ger Shoots Strik­ing Short Film Out of Air­plane Win­dow

Pre-Flight Safe­ty Demon­stra­tion Gets Per­formed as a Mod­ern Dance: A Cre­ative Video from a Tai­wanese Air­line

Artist Nina Katchadouri­an Cre­ates Flem­ish Style Self-Por­traits in Air­plane Lava­to­ry

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Join her June 7 for a Necro­mancers of the Pub­lic Domain: The Peri­od­i­cal Cica­da, a free vir­tu­al vari­ety hon­or­ing the 17-Year Cicadas of Brood X. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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Art Historian Provides Hilarious & Surprisingly Efficient Art History Lessons on TikTok

in Art, Comedy, History, How to Learn for Free | May 31st, 2021

@_theiconoclassIf youse come at me again for my Aus­tralian pro­nun­ci­a­tion I swear 😂 #arthis­to­ry #arthis­to­ry­tik­tok #baroque♬ orig­i­nal sound — AyseD­eniz

Art His­to­ri­an Mary McGillivray believes art appre­ci­a­tion is an acquired skill. Her Tik­Tok project, The Icon­o­class, is bring­ing those lack­ing for­mal art his­to­ry edu­ca­tion up to speed.

The 25-year-old Aus­tralian’s pithy obser­va­tions dou­ble as sur­pris­ing­ly stur­dy mnemon­ics, use­ful for nav­i­gat­ing world class col­lec­tions both live and online.

Some high­lights from her whirl­wind guide to the Baroque peri­od, above:

If it looks like the chaos after black­out where every­one is stum­bling around in the dark under one soli­tary emer­gency light, it’s a Car­avag­gio.

If there’s at least one per­son look­ing to the cam­era like they’re on The Office, it’s a Velázquez.

If there’s a room with some nice fur­ni­ture, a win­dow, and some women just going about their every­day busi­ness, it’s a Ver­meer.

Rather than the tra­di­tion­al chrono­log­i­cal pro­gres­sion, McGillivray mix­es and match­es, often in response to com­ments and Patre­on requests.

When a com­menter on the Baroque Tik­Tok took umbrage that she referred to Artemisia Gen­tileschi by first name only, McGillivray fol­lowed up with an edu­ca­tion­al video explain­ing the con­ven­tion from the 17th-cen­tu­ry per­spec­tive.

@_theiconoclassReply to @rajendzzz her dad was hot, com­ment if you agree #baroque #artemisia #arthis­to­ryclass♬ Guilty Love — Lady­hawke & Broods

At the urg­ing of a Patre­on sub­scriber, she leaps across four cen­turies to dis­cov­er an unex­pect­ed kin­ship between Cubism and Renais­sance painters, using George Braque’s Man with a Gui­tar and San­dro Botticelli’s Four Scenes from the Ear­ly Life of Saint Zeno­bius. One is attempt­ing to escape the shack­les of per­spec­tive by show­ing sur­faces not vis­i­ble when regard­ing a sub­ject from a sin­gle point. The oth­er is using a sin­gle space to depict mul­ti­ple moments in a subject’s life simul­ta­ne­ous­ly.

@_theiconoclass#arthis­to­ry #arthis­to­ry­tik­tok #renais­sance #cubism #medievaltik­tok♬ orig­i­nal sound — Fin­ian Hack­ett

McGillivray is will­ing to be seen learn­ing along with her fol­low­ers. She’s open about the fact that she prefers Giot­to and Fra Angeli­co to con­tem­po­rary art (as per­haps befits an art his­to­ri­an whose face is more 1305 than 2021). Artist Dominic White’s wear­able, envi­ron­men­tal sculp­ture Hood­ie Empa­thy Suit does­n’t do much for her until a con­ver­sa­tion with the exhibit­ing gallery’s direc­tor helps ori­ent her to White’s objec­tives.

@_theiconoclassWant to see me tack­le more con­tem­po­rary art? Big thanks to @mprg_vic ❤️🪶#arthis­to­ry­tik­tok #arthis­to­ry #con­tem­po­rar­yart #art­gallery♬ orig­i­nal sound — Mary McGillivray

She tips her hand in an inter­view with Pedes­tri­an TV:

I’m not very inter­est­ed in decid­ing what is art and what isn’t. The whole “what is art” ques­tion has nev­er been very impor­tant to me. The ques­tions I pre­fer to ask are: Why was this image made?

She rec­om­mends art crit­ic John Berg­er’s 1972 four-part series Ways of See­ing to fans eager to expand beyond the Icon­o­class:

It’s got all the things you would expect from a 1970s BBC pro­duc­tion – wide col­lared shirts, long hair, smok­ing on tele­vi­sion – plus some of the most influ­en­tial insights into how we look at art and also how we look at the world around us.

Watch Mary McGillivray’s The Icon­o­class here. Sup­port her Patre­on here.

@_theiconoclassWant a part two? 😏😘 #arthis­to­ry­tik­tok #arthis­to­ry­ma­jor #learnon­tik­tok♬ Rasputin (Sin­gle Ver­sion) — Boney M.

via Bored Pan­da

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Free Art & Art His­to­ry Cours­es

One Minute Art His­to­ry: Cen­turies of Artis­tic Styles Get Packed Into a Short Exper­i­men­tal Ani­ma­tion

An Intro­duc­tion to 100 Impor­tant Paint­ings with Videos Cre­at­ed by Smarthis­to­ry

Steve Mar­tin on How to Look at Abstract Art

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Join her June 7 for a Necro­mancers of the Pub­lic Domain: The Peri­od­i­cal Cica­da, a free vir­tu­al vari­ety hon­or­ing the 17-Year Cicadas of Brood X. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain’s Headbanging Cover of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit”

in Comedy, Music | May 14th, 2021

Smells Like Teen Spir­it is an unusu­al anthem because it refus­es the role of the anthem. It’s per­fect for the gen­er­a­tion it rep­re­sent­ed because this was a cohort that was so ambiva­lent about any tra­di­tion­al val­ues [or] con­ven­tion­al suc­cess. — music crit­ic Ann Pow­ers 

The scream­ing exis­ten­tial angst of “Smells Like Teen Spir­it” ensured that Nir­vana would define, tran­scend, and out­last the 90s grunge scene.

The song was an instant hit. Here’s a descrip­tion from some­one who was present at the small Seat­tle club O.K Hotel for its first live per­for­mance:

They start­ed play­ing the new song and peo­ple erupt­ed. We were being slimed on by shirt­less guys, just mosh­ing. My friend Susan start­ed hyper­ven­ti­lat­ing, she thought it was so good: ‘I can’t, gasp, believe what they just played!’ It was just instan­ta­neous; it was crazy.

“Smells Like Teen Spir­it” was unre­con­sti­tut­ed rock bliss to us…

…and per­haps not the most nat­ur­al fit for a ukulele cov­er?

On the oth­er hand, what bet­ter instru­ment for those “ambiva­lent about con­ven­tion­al suc­cess” than the ukulele?

The Ukelele Orches­tra of Great Britain’s cov­er is as inten­tion­al­ly sil­ly as the band itself, but also man­ages to con­vey some of the original’s DGAF atti­tude.

That’s quite an accom­plish­ment for a seat­ed row of for­mal­ly dressed, mid­dle aged musi­cians, strum­ming in uni­son on an instru­ment any­one can play… but few can play well.

The ukulele has become cool in cer­tain cir­cles, but remains inex­tri­ca­bly linked to Tiny Tim tip­toe­ing through the tulips, and a mil­lion fum­bling sum­mer camp recre­ations of Jake Shimabukuro’s gen­tle Hawai­ian “Some­where Over the Rain­bow.”

Orches­tra founder Peter Brooke Turn­er’s trib­ute to lead vocal­ist Kurt Cobain helps nudge the nee­dle  past pure nov­el­ty into the realm of cred­i­bil­i­ty, or at least a sophis­ti­cat­ed under­stand­ing of all the ways in which the orig­i­nal works.

Plus, his “yeah” at 1:52 tran­scends the era of flan­nels, harken­ing to a time when the uncon­flict­ed preen­ing rock god reigned supreme. (We should note that he serves plen­ty of ham along­side that sausage.)

Best of all is David Suich’s enthu­si­as­tic head­bang­ing. Clear­ly a fel­low who enjoys putting his long hair in ser­vice of his art! (We refer you to the Ukulele Orchestra’s inter­pre­ta­tion of AC/DC’s “High­way to Hell.” below…)

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

The First Live Per­for­mance of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spir­it” (1991)

Seri­ous­ly Awe­some Ukulele Cov­ers of “Sul­tans of Swing,” “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” “Thun­der­struck,” and “Smells Like Teen Spir­it”

How Nirvana’s Icon­ic “Smells Like Teen Spir­it” Came to Be: An Ani­mat­ed Video Nar­rat­ed by T‑Bone Bur­nett Tells the True Sto­ry

1,000 Musi­cians Play Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spir­it” Live, at the Same Time

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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Quarantined Dancer Creates Shot-for-Shot Remake of the Final Dirty Dancing Scene with a Lamp as a Dance Partner

in Comedy, Dance, Film | April 26th, 2021

1987’s low bud­get sleep­er hit, Dirty Danc­ing, pro­pelled its leads, Jen­nifer Grey and the late Patrick Swayze, to instant star­dom.

Swayze lat­er mused to the Amer­i­can Film Insti­tute about the film’s remark­able stay­ing pow­er:

It’s got so much heart, to me. It’s not about the sen­su­al­i­ty; it’s real­ly about peo­ple try­ing to find them­selves, this young dance instruc­tor feel­ing like he’s noth­ing but a prod­uct, and this young girl try­ing to find out who she is in a soci­ety of restric­tions when she has such an amaz­ing take on things. On a cer­tain lev­el, it’s real­ly about the fab­u­lous, funky lit­tle Jew­ish girl get­ting the guy because [of] what she’s got in her heart.

Near­ly 35 years after the orig­i­nal release, anoth­er gift­ed male dancer, Brook­lyn-based pho­tog­ra­ph­er Quinn Whar­ton, is tap­ping into that heart… and Grey has been replaced by a lamp.

Whar­ton once told Bal­let Hub that his favorite part of danc­ing pro­fes­sion­al­ly with the San Fran­cis­co Bal­let and Hub­bard Street Dance Chica­go was the access it gave him to the great names in dance — William Forsythe, Mats Ek, Christo­pher Wheel­don, Wayne McGre­gor, and oth­ers whose prox­im­i­ty made for “a remark­able edu­ca­tion.”

The first few months of the pan­dem­ic forced him to dance solo, recre­at­ing mem­o­rable film moments in response to a friend’s chal­lenge:

I was hes­i­tant at first but thought I would give it a try to see what I might be able to learn from it. Turns out it was way more fun than I thought and the result was fun­nier than I could have imag­ined.

We agree that his Quinn-tessen­tial Dance Scenes series is very fun­ny, as well as beau­ti­ful­ly exe­cut­ed in the twin are­nas of cam­era work and dance. His self-imposed para­me­ters — no out­side help, no green screen, no film­ing out­side of the apart­ment, and no spe­cial pur­chas­es of props or cos­tumes, con­tribute to the humor.

His hard­work­ing, dis­em­bod­ied, com­par­a­tive­ly well-cov­ered haunch­es elic­it laughs when seen next to the much skimpi­er orig­i­nal cos­tume of Flash­dance’s “Mani­ac” scene, above. 18-year-old star Jen­nifer Beals had three dance dou­bles — Marine Jahan, gym­nast Sharon Shapiro, and leg­endary B‑Boy Richard Colón, aka Crazy Legs of Rock Steady crew. None of them appeared in the orig­i­nal cred­its because, as Jahan told Enter­tain­ment Tonight, the pro­duc­ers “did­n’t want to break the mag­ic.”

In oth­er words, a lot of steamy 80s-era fan­tasies cen­tered on Beals are now known to be a case — pos­si­bly three cas­es — of mis­tak­en iden­ti­ty.

Whar­ton’s quar­an­tine project afford­ed him a chance to come at John Tra­vol­ta from two angles, thanks to the dis­co clas­sic Sat­ur­day Night Fever and Pulp Fic­tion’s twist sequence, a sur­pris­ing­ly pop­u­lar fan request. Though Travolta’s dance train­ing was lim­it­ed to child­hood tap lessons with Gene Kelly’s broth­er, Fred, Whar­ton prais­es his “seri­ous range.”

Whar­ton cites the inspi­ra­tion for one of his less­er known recre­ations, direc­tor Baz Lurhman’s first fea­ture, Strict­ly Ball­room, as a rea­son he began danc­ing:

My dad loves this movie and as a kid I can’t count the num­ber of times that I watched it. It’s so much, loud, brash, exu­ber­ant …It also allowed me to bring back my favorite part­ner.

Quinn-tessen­tial Dance Scenes is on hia­tus so Whar­ton can con­cen­trate on his work as a dance pho­tog­ra­ph­er. Watch a playlist of all eight episodes here.

See more of his dance pho­tog­ra­phy on his Insta­gram page.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

One of the Great­est Dances Sequences Ever Cap­tured on Film Gets Restored in Col­or by AI: Watch the Clas­sic Scene from Stormy Weath­er

The Pow­er of Pulp Fiction’s Dance Scene, Explained by Chore­o­g­ra­phers and Even John Tra­vol­ta Him­self

The Icon­ic Dance Scene from Hel­lza­pop­pin’ Pre­sent­ed in Liv­ing Col­or with Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence (1941)

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine, who can occa­sion­al­ly be spot­ted wan­der­ing around New York City in a bear suit, in char­ac­ter as L’Ourse.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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Watch Blondie’s Debbie Harry Perform “Rainbow Connection” with Kermit the Frog on The Muppet Show (1981)

in Comedy, K-12, Music, Television | April 19th, 2021

Do you dig songs about rain­bows?

The host of one of the very last episodes of The Mup­pet Show — Deb­bie Har­ry, lead singer of Blondie — does, and in 1981, she seized the oppor­tu­ni­ty to duet with Ker­mit the Frog on his sig­na­ture tune, “The Rain­bow Con­nec­tion” — its only per­for­mance in the series’ five sea­son run.

Many of us asso­ciate the folksy num­ber with The Mup­pet Movie’s pas­toral open­ing scene. This ren­di­tion trans­fers the action back­stage to the kimono-clad Harry’s dress­ing room.

Who knew her sweet sopra­no would pair so nice­ly with a ban­jo?

She also exhibits a game will­ing­ness to lean into Mup­pet-style ham­mi­ness, respond­ing to the lyric “Have you heard voic­es?” with an expres­sion that verges on psy­cho­log­i­cal hor­ror.

Mid­way through, the two are joined by a cho­rus of juve­nile frogs in scout­ing uni­forms.

A lit­tle con­text — these young­sters spend the episode try­ing to earn their punk mer­it badge.

No won­der. By 1981, when the episode aired, Blondie had achieved mas­sive main­stream suc­cess, with such hits as “One Way or Anoth­er” and “Call Me,” both of which were shoe­horned into the episode.

As cre­ator Jim Henson’s son, Bri­an, recalled in a brief intro­duc­tion to its video release:

…I was in high school and my father knew that Deb­bie Har­ry was, like, the biggest thing in the world to me. And he booked her to be on The Mup­pet Show dur­ing a vaca­tion week from school and he did­n’t tell me. We went out to din­ner the night before shoot­ing and they made me sit next to Deb­bie Har­ry at this fan­cy restau­rant. And I just remem­ber this whole din­ner I was just end­less­ly sweat­ing and all I knew was that I was aware of Deb­bie Har­ry sit­ting on the side of me. I don’t think I ever said a word to her, I don’t think I ever looked at her, but she did a great episode, she’s a great per­former and she’s a love­ly lady.

With punk per­me­at­ing the air­waves, the fan site Tough Pigs, Mup­pet Fans Who Grew Up laments oth­er guest hosts who might have been booked before the show end­ed its run:

It’s a shame Deb­bie Har­ry was the only mem­ber of her scene to make it to The Mup­pet Show. Can you imag­ine spe­cial guest stars, The Ramones, The B‑52’s or even Talk­ing Heads? … Harry’s guest stint reveals that the Mup­pets’ chaot­ic and tex­tured world has more in com­mon with the punk scene than one would ini­tial­ly expect.

The finale finds the Frog Scouts mosh­ing to “Call Me,” with a rea­son­ably “punk” look­ing, rain­bow-clad back­ing Mup­pets band (Dr. Teeth and the Elec­tric May­hem sat this one out due to their pre-exist­ing asso­ci­a­tions with Motown, jazz, and a more clas­sic rock sound.)

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

The Mup­pets Sing the First & Sec­ond Acts of Hamil­ton

Wit­ness the Birth of Ker­mit the Frog in Jim Henson’s Live TV Show, Sam and Friends (1955)

When Deb­bie Har­ry Com­bined Artis­tic Forces with H.R. Giger

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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On “Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar” and the Female Buddy Comedy–Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast #87

in Comedy, Film, Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop | April 2nd, 2021

The bud­dy com­e­dy is a sta­ple of Amer­i­can film, but using this to explore female friend­ship is still fresh ground. Eri­ca, Mark, Bri­an, and Eri­ca’s long-time friend Mic­ah Greene (actor and nurse) dis­cuss tropes and dynam­ics with­in this kind of film, focus­ing pri­mar­i­ly on Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar, the 2021 release writ­ten and star­ring Kristin Wiig and Annie Mumo­lo as a cou­ple of mid­dle aged near-twin odd­balls expand­ing their hori­zons in a sur­re­al­is­tic, gag-filled trop­i­cal venue.

While male pair­ings of this sort (Cheech and Chong, Bob and Doug McKen­zie, Beav­is and Butthead et al) stick to sil­ly jokes, Barb and Star base their antics around their evolv­ing rela­tion­ship toward each oth­er. As with the 2019 film Books­mart and many TV shows includ­ing Dead to Me, PEN15, and Grace and Frankie, the trend is toward dram­e­dy as the dynam­ics of friend­ship are tak­en seri­ous­ly. We also touch on Brides­maids, Sis­ters, The Heat, BAPS, I Love You Man, and more.

A few rel­e­vant arti­cles:

Hear more of this pod­cast at prettymuchpop.com. This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion that you can access by sup­port­ing the pod­cast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop. This pod­cast is part of the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life pod­cast net­work.

Pret­ty Much Pop: A Cul­ture Pod­cast is the first pod­cast curat­ed by Open Cul­ture. Browse all Pret­ty Much Pop posts.

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Michael Winslow, the “Man of 10,000 Sound Effects”, Impersonates the Sounds of Jimi Hendrix’s and Led Zeppelin’s Electric Guitars with His Voice

in Comedy | March 18th, 2021

Even if you weren’t a huge fan of the Police Acad­e­my movies, there was one char­ac­ter that made them watch­able: Larvell Jones, played by Michael Winslow, “The Man of a 10,000 Sound Effects.” His char­ac­ter is a sort of odd­ball pres­ence through­out the series, whose abil­i­ty to sound like a siren, a machine gun, a guard dog, or any num­ber of things, invari­ably helps his team save the day. He’s been the only con­sis­tent char­ac­ter through all eight entries of the movie series, a brief tele­vi­sion spin-off, and an ani­mat­ed car­toon series. And I dare say he’s the fran­chise’s rea­son to exist, as a Police Acad­e­my with­out Larvell Jones would be…what? A bunch of crap­py cops?

And while you might think of him as a mas­ter of machine nois­es, Winslow is actu­al­ly a very musi­cal per­former, as his above impres­sion of Jimi Hen­drix, both vocals and gui­tar, proves. Winslow was an army brat, moved all over the place, and his imi­ta­tion skills devel­oped at an ear­ly age, a cop­ing mech­a­nism for a lone­ly child­hood. He kept at it, and made it onto The Gong Show in 1978. The prize mon­ey allowed him to stay in Los Ange­les and start mak­ing the club rounds. He got scout­ed for Police Acad­e­my while open­ing for the Count Basie Orches­tra, per­form­ing “some fusion jazz sounds,” as he described it in an inter­view. For­tu­nate­ly, the film­mak­ers let him impro­vise through his scenes and his career took off from there.

As the clips here show, Winslow can jam hard. His Hen­drix impres­sion is a lit­tle bit stoned, and he gets the voice right. With a back­ing band on tape, he goes on to pro­vide the vocals and the dis­tort­ed, flanged gui­tar. You can see that lit­tle has changed from the ver­sion from the ‘80s at the Just for Laughs Com­e­dy Fes­ti­val in Mon­tre­al, Cana­da, and a 2011 per­for­mance from the Dubom­e­dy Inter­na­tion­al Per­form­ing Arts Fes­ti­val in Dubai. The lat­ter has bet­ter sound qual­i­ty and sep­a­ra­tion so you can hear Winslow’s work.

His Led Zep­pelin impres­sion com­bines both Robert Plant and Jim­my Page, and I won’t spoil the joke, but Winslow explains how Plant came up with “Immi­grant Song.”

And there’s no sound effects involved in his Tina Turn­er impres­sion, but a good wig, and an impres­sive set of pipes that only get wob­bly a few times. But then again, so do his legs.

Side note: Before Winslow there was a come­di­an called Wes Har­ri­son, who had a sim­i­lar tal­ent and a sim­i­lar rise to star­dom: from tal­ent show win­ner to a reg­u­lar guest on late night shows in the 1960s to a steady stream of night­club appear­ances.

In 1988, the two men, sep­a­rat­ed by 35 years, per­formed togeth­er on a Dick Clark vari­ety show. It is per­haps the only time the two shared a stage.

via Metafil­ter

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Down­load an Archive of 16,000 Sound Effects from the BBC: A Fas­ci­nat­ing His­to­ry of the 20th Cen­tu­ry in Sound

The Sounds of Blade Run­ner: How Music & Sound Effects Became Part of the DNA of Rid­ley Scott’s Futur­is­tic World

How the Sound Effects on 1930s Radio Shows Were Made: An Inside Look

Ted Mills is a free­lance writer on the arts who cur­rent­ly hosts the Notes from the Shed pod­cast and is the pro­duc­er of KCR­W’s Curi­ous Coast. You can also fol­low him on Twit­ter at @tedmills, and/or watch his films here.

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