Aretha Franklin Takes Over for an Ailing Luciano Pavarotti & Sings Puccini’s “Nessun Dorma” at the Grammys (1998)

in Music, Opera, Television | January 4th, 2016

Stop me if you’ve heard this one: When the star is unable to per­form, a tal­ent­ed under­dog is plucked from the cho­rus and thrown into the spot­light with just min­utes to pre­pare.

It’s a crowd pleas­ing plot, one that occa­sion­al­ly plays out in real life, as it did at the 1998 Gram­my Awards, above.

The twist was that the under­dog role went to the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin, pinch-hit­ting for her friend, oper­at­ic super­star, Luciano Pavarot­ti, benched by a sore throat at the zero hour.

Giv­en the nature of the event, the Radio City Music Hall audi­ence prob­a­bly wouldn’t have mind­ed had the planned pro­gram­ming been scrapped in favor of “Respect,” “Nat­ur­al Woman,” or any num­ber of tunes Franklin can crush with­out bat­ting an eye­lash.

Instead, she stuck with “Nes­sun Dor­ma,” the famous final act open­er from Gia­co­mo Puccini’s Tur­nadot. Nev­er mind that it was Pavarotti’s sig­na­ture aria, that the man had pop­u­lar­ized it to such a degree that your aver­age foot­ball hooli­gan could iden­ti­fy his voice from a record­ing. Over a bil­lion view­ers tuned in to catch it on 1994’s Three Tenors spe­cial on TV, then rushed out to buy the sub­se­quent live album, a rare crossover hit.

Franklin wasn’t total­ly green in the Puc­ci­ni depart­ment. As mas­ter of cer­e­monies Sting informed the crowd, she’d per­formed the song two nights ear­li­er at a fundrais­er for Musi­Cares. Still, a fair amount of chutz­pah was nec­es­sary.

Nat­u­ral­ly, a hand­ful of opera purists refused to fall under the spell, even when Franklin hit that cel­e­brat­ed high B, but they seem to com­prise a minor­i­ty.

Pavarot­ti, whom Sting pre­sent­ed with a liv­ing Leg­end Gram­my imme­di­ate­ly fol­low­ing Franklin’s per­for­mance, died in 2007.

As for that oth­er Gram­my leg­end, Franklin reprised “Nes­sun Dor­ma” for Pope Fran­cis in Philadel­phia last fall, again putting her per­son­al stamp on it by switch­ing from Ital­ian to Eng­lish mid­way through.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Pavarot­ti Sings with Lou Reed, Sting, James Brown and Oth­er Friends

Duel­ing Divas: Aretha Franklin and Dionne War­wick Sing Two Clas­sic Ver­sions of ‘I Say a Lit­tle Prayer’

The Queen of Soul Con­quers Europe: Aretha Franklin in Ams­ter­dam, 1968

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

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John Astin, From The Addams Family, Recites “The Raven” as Edgar Allan Poe

in Literature, Poetry, Television, Theatre | December 28th, 2015

How fit­ting that the head of The Addams Fam­i­ly would har­bor a life­long obses­sion with author Edgar Allan Poe.

In the spir­it of full dis­clo­sure, we should clar­i­fy that the true Poe fan­boy is not the fic­tion­al Gomez Addams, but rather the first actor to bring the char­ac­ter to life, John Astin, of tele­vi­sion fame.

Astin’s intro­duc­tion to the Mas­ter of the Macabre came as a child, when his moth­er retold him the sto­ry of “The Mur­ders in the Rue Morgue,” fol­low­ing it up with a copy of “The Pur­loined Let­ter.”

His fas­ci­na­tion with those tales foment­ed a rav­en­ous (sor­ry) appetite for all things Poe.

As Astin told the Bal­ti­more Sun:

His dis­cov­er­ies about human nature were so right, and so accu­rate, that it’s almost a won­der to read, or reread. There are con­tin­u­al­ly dis­cov­er­ies, in the read­ing of Poe, about humankind.

Now the direc­tor of Johns Hop­kins’ Under­grad­u­ate Pro­gram in The­atre Arts and Stud­ies, Astin col­lab­o­rat­ed with writ­ers Ron Magid and Paul Day Clemens on Edgar Allan Poe — Once Upon a Mid­night, a one-man show that toured exten­sive­ly through­out the late 90s and ear­ly 2000s. In addi­tion to get­ting across a pas­sel of grim bio­graph­i­cal details, the play­wrights tasked Astin’s Poe with an unabridged recita­tion of his best known poem, “The Raven,” above.

Philip Bran­des, review­ing a per­for­mance in the Los Ange­les Times wrote:

Recit­ing “The Raven” in its entire­ty, Astin can­not afford to milk each line for atmos­phere à la Vin­cent Price; it would take him most of the sec­ond act.

Instead, he races through the poem as an author would in recall­ing his own famil­iar words, grad­u­al­ly get­ting caught up in their pow­er and fin­ish­ing on a dra­mat­ic crescen­do.

Pow­er­ful stuff. Nev­er­more!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Great Stan Lee Reads Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven”

5 Hours of Edgar Allan Poe Sto­ries Read by Vin­cent Price & Basil Rath­bone

Gus­tave Doré’s Splen­did Illus­tra­tions of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” (1884)

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

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Alan Watts Introduces America to Meditation & Eastern Philosophy: Watch the 1960 TV Show, Eastern Wisdom and Modern Life

in Life, Philosophy, Television | December 25th, 2015

Alan Watts moved from his native Lon­don to New York in 1938, then even­tu­al­ly head­ed west, to San Fran­cis­co in the ear­ly 1950s. On the left coast, he start­ed teach­ing at the Acad­e­my of Asian Stud­ies, wrote his best­seller Way of Zen, and began deliv­er­ing a long-run­ning series of talks about east­ern phi­los­o­phy on KPFA radio in Berke­ley. Dur­ing these years, Watts became one of the fore­most pop­u­lar­iz­ers of Zen Bud­dhism, Hin­duism, and Tao­ism, which made him some­thing of a celebri­ty, espe­cial­ly when the 60s coun­ter­cul­ture move­ment kicked into gear.

Now, 40 years and change after his death, you can find no short­age of vin­tage Watts’ media online (includ­ing this archive of stream­ing lec­tures). And today we’re fea­tur­ing an episode from a TV series called East­ern Wis­dom and Mod­ern Life, which aired in San Fran­cis­co cir­ca 1960. “The Silent Mind” runs 28 min­utes, and it offered Amer­i­can view­ers an intro­duc­tion to the phi­los­o­phy and prac­tice of med­i­ta­tion, some­thing still con­sid­ered exot­ic at the time. His­to­ry in the mak­ing. You’re watch­ing it hap­pen right here. Find more med­i­ta­tion and Alan Watts resources below.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Wis­dom of Alan Watts in Four Thought-Pro­vok­ing Ani­ma­tions

The Zen Teach­ings of Alan Watts: A Free Audio Archive of His Enlight­en­ing Lec­tures

Free Guid­ed Med­i­ta­tions From UCLA: Boost Your Aware­ness & Ease Your Stress

Med­i­ta­tion 101: A Short, Ani­mat­ed Beginner’s Guide

Son­ny Rollins Describes How 50 Years of Prac­tic­ing Yoga Made Him a Bet­ter Musi­cian

David Lynch Explains How Med­i­ta­tion Enhances Our Cre­ativ­i­ty

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Muhammad Ali Sings in Broadway’s First Black Power Musical (1970)

in History, Politics, Sports, Television, Theatre | December 18th, 2015

The Great White Way is lit­tered with flops.

Crit­ic Frank Rich evis­cer­at­ed a 1988 musi­cal based on Stephen King’s Car­rie, lament­ing that a poten­tial camp mas­ter­piece wound up as “a typ­i­cal musi­cal-the­ater botch.”

Pro­duc­er David Mer­rick pulled the plug on a 1966 musi­cal adap­ta­tion of Break­fast at Tiffany’s star­ring Mary Tyler Moore long before its offi­cial open­ing night, thus spar­ing the dra­ma crit­ics and the pub­lic “an excru­ci­at­ing­ly bor­ing evening.”

And then there is 1970’s Big Time Buck White, activist Oscar Brown, Jr.’s adap­ta­tion of Joseph Dolan Tuotti’s play. It fea­tured Muham­mad Ali—tem­porar­i­ly benched from box­ing for draft evasion—in the tit­u­lar role of a mil­i­tant lec­tur­er, deliv­er­ing a Black Pow­er mes­sage to a char­ac­ter named Whitey.

The pri­mar­i­ly white Broad­way-going audi­ence that embraced the coun­ter­cul­tur­al “Trib­al Love-Rock Musi­cal” Hair two years ear­li­er with­held its love. In a col­or­blind world, we might be able to chalk that up to the champ’s sub-par singing chops or some clunky lyrics, but it would be a mis­take to turn a blind eye to the polit­i­cal cli­mate.

(Eight years lat­er, Ain’t Mis­be­havin’, a trib­ute to Fats Waller and the Harlem Renais­sance was a bonafide hit.)

Big Time Buck White ran for just sev­en per­for­mances, post­ing its clos­ing notice well in advance of its Jan­u­ary 18th appear­ance on the Ed Sul­li­van Show, above.

These days, the pro­duc­ers would prob­a­bly scram­ble to find a replace­ment, but Sul­li­van, a staunch sup­port­er of Civ­il Rights, hon­ored the book­ing, com­mand­ing his stu­dio audi­ence to give the cos­tumed play­ers “a fine recep­tion.”

After­ward, the champ thanked Sul­li­van for invit­ing him and “the group” so that view­ers who didn’t get a chance to could see “what type of play i was par­tic­i­pat­ing in.”

A bit of triv­ia. Play­bill cred­its actor Don­ald Suther­land, in the role of Black Man. He may be a movie star, but he’s some­thing of a Broad­way flop him­self, his only oth­er cred­it that of Hum­bert Hum­bert in 1980’s Loli­ta, Peo­ple Magazine’s Bomb of the Year.

Above is anoth­er scene from the musi­cal, shared by Ali’s admir­er, Mike Tyson.

via Messy N Chic

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Art of The Black Pan­thers: A Short Doc­u­men­tary on the Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Artist Emory Dou­glas

Dick Van Dyke, Paul Lyn­de & the Orig­i­nal Cast of Bye Bye Birdie Appear on The Ed Sul­li­van Show (1961)

Leonard Cohen’s 1983 Musi­cal for Cana­di­an Tele­vi­sion: I Am a Hotel

Watch Stephen Sond­heim Teach a Kid How to Sing “Send In the Clowns”

David Byrne Dis­cuss­es Here Lies Love, His Dis­co Musi­cal with Fat­boy Slim on the Life of Imel­da Mar­cos

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

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Frank Zappa’s Experimental Advertisements For Luden’s Cough Drops, Remington Razors & Portland General Electric

in Music, Television | December 15th, 2015

Frank Zap­pa was kind of a con­trol freak. But the way he tells it in a 1968 Rolling Stone inter­view, if he hadn’t been, he wouldn’t have had much of a career. In the mid-six­ties, he took over the mer­chan­dis­ing and adver­tis­ing of his albums. “We wouldn’t have sold any records if we had left it up to the com­pa­ny,” he says, “They fig­ured we were odd-ball. One shot nov­el­ty a‑go-go. But we weren’t. We had to show them ways they could make mon­ey on the prod­uct.”

It’s that entre­pre­neur­ial atti­tude and abil­i­ty to take over that makes Zap­pa one of the most suc­cess­ful cap­i­tal­ists in exper­i­men­tal music. In 1967, he even found­ed his own ad agency, called Nifty Tough & Bitchin’, and made print and radio ads for Hagstrom Gui­tars, Pan­ther Com­bo Organs, and Rem­ing­ton Razor Blades. (He also record­ed a bizarre radio ad for Remington’s elec­tric razor with Lin­da Ronstadt—see a fan-made video below).

That same year, ani­ma­tor and film­mak­er Ed See­man hired Zap­pa to score an ad for Luden’s Cough Drops. You can see the pre­dictably weird results up top. Accord­ing to See­man, Zap­pa “request­ed $2,000 plus a stu­dio for a day with a wide vari­ety of instru­ments plus a guy to do cough sounds.” The ad went on to win a Clio award for “Best Use of Sound.”

After the ad wrapped, Zap­pa tapped See­man to shoot 14 hours of footage over two years for a film project Zap­pa intend­ed to pro­duce called Uncle Meat (not to be con­fused with the album of the same name). The film was nev­er com­plet­ed, and Zap­pa only released the footage on video in 1987 (it has yet to see a DVD release).

The growth of the award-win­ning ad into a rare cult film—that doesn’t real­ly exist in any final form—goes to show how Zappa’s musi­cal tal­ent for free asso­ci­a­tion extend­ed to all of his cre­ative endeav­ors. Every­thing he touched took root and grew into sev­er­al oth­er branch­ing projects, all of them fas­ci­nat­ing to vary­ing degrees. He joked that he was in it for the mon­ey, but the mon­ey he made in com­mer­cial ven­tures seem­ing­ly gave him the free­dom to pur­sue any idea that popped into his head.

See­man, who became a great Zap­pa admir­er, went on to edit footage from Uncle Meat into a “40 minute impres­sion­is­tic col­lage” set to Zappa’s “Who are The Brain Police” that Dan­ger­ous Minds describes as meld­ing “Zappa’s cyn­i­cal world view (per­haps prophet­ic) with a spook­i­ly psy­che­del­ic sound that cre­ates a per­fect para­noid whole” (see an excerpt above). Zap­pa didn’t do much more ad work after this com­mer­cial­ly cre­ative burst, out­side of the pro­mo­tion of his own records. That is, until two years before his death from can­cer. In 1991, Zap­pa appeared in the iron­ic anti-ad for Port­land Gen­er­al Elec­tric in which he says he told the com­pa­ny “I refuse to sell your prod­uct.” Four years lat­er, we saw the release of a posthu­mous Zap­pa best-of. Its title: Strict­ly Com­mer­cial.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

In One of his Final Inter­views, Frank Zap­pa Pro­nounces Him­self “Total­ly Unre­pen­tant”

Stream 82 Hours of Frank Zap­pa Music: Free Playlists of Songs He Com­posed & Per­formed

Frank Zap­pa Debates Cen­sor­ship on CNN’s Cross­fire (1986)

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

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Downton Abbey Actors Perform Scene from the Show with American Accents

in Comedy, Television | December 14th, 2015

How­ev­er stiff they may seem on the show, the cast of Down­ton Abbey can let down its hair and have some fun. Last Christ­mas, they put togeth­er a fun par­o­dy episode, where, bor­row­ing from It’s a Won­der­ful Life, they asked us to imag­ine what dai­ly life at the Abbey would look like if Lady Grantham spent her days cavort­ing with George Clooney rather than Lord Grantham.

Now, right before the show’s final sea­son starts air­ing in the US on Jan­u­ary 3, sev­er­al cast mem­bers are giv­ing us anoth­er sce­nario to con­sid­er: What would it look if Down­ton Abbey was per­formed only with Amer­i­can accents? Appear­ing on The Late Show with Stephen Col­bert, Michelle Dock­ery (Lady Mary Craw­ley), Hugh Bon­neville (Lord Grantham) and Allen Leech (Tom Bran­som) per­formed an actu­al scene in their best Amer­i­can accents, and it’s a sight to behold. Par­tic­u­lar­ly Allen, he’s a trip.

Fol­low Open Cul­ture on Face­book and Twit­ter and share intel­li­gent media with your friends. Or bet­ter yet, sign up for our dai­ly email and get a dai­ly dose of Open Cul­ture in your inbox. And if you want to make sure that our posts def­i­nite­ly appear in your Face­book news­feed, just fol­low these sim­ple steps.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A Fun Par­o­dy of Down­ton Abbey Fea­tures George Clooney & the Cast of the Show

Three Actress­es from Down­ton Abbey Play a Raunchy Card Game (NSFW)

One Woman, 17 British Accents

Watch Meryl Streep Have Fun with Accents: Bronx, Pol­ish, Irish, Aus­tralian, Yid­dish & More

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Hear Sun Ra, the Avant-Garde Jazz Legend, Play on a 1966 Batman and Robin Album for Kids

in Comics/Cartoons, Music, Television | December 11th, 2015

In the mid 1960s, when the Bat­man TV show was in full swing, a New Jer­sey toy com­pa­ny released a chil­dren’s record of Bat­man & Robin songs. Called The Sen­sa­tion­al Gui­tars Of Dan & Dale, Bat­man & Robin, the album fea­tured, as WFMU’s Beware of the Blog notes, “one of the great­est uncred­it­ed ses­sion com­bos of all time, includ­ing the core of Sun Ra’s Arkestra and Al Koop­er’s Blues Project.” Anony­mous­ly, Sun Ra played on organ, Jim­my Owens on trum­pet, Tom McIn­tosh on trom­bone & Dan­ny Kalb on gui­tar.

Oth­er than the well-known Bat­man and Robin themes (above), the kid’s album was cre­at­ed around music that had fall­en into the pub­lic domain–e.g. Chopin’s Polon­aise Op. 53, Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Sym­pho­ny and the love theme from Romeo and Juli­et. Over at WFMU, you can hear var­i­ous tracks, includ­ing Bat­man’s Bat­marang, Bat­man and Robin Over The Roofs, Flight of the Bat­man, The Rid­dler’s Retreat, Jok­er is Wild, Pen­guin’s Umbrel­la, and more. Enjoy.

Fol­low Open Cul­ture on Face­book and Twit­ter and share intel­li­gent media with your friends. Or bet­ter yet, sign up for our dai­ly email and get a dai­ly dose of Open Cul­ture in your inbox. And if you want to make sure that our posts def­i­nite­ly appear in your Face­book news­feed, just fol­low these sim­ple steps.

via WFMU

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Sun Ra’s Full Lec­ture & Read­ing List From His 1971 UC Berke­ley Course, “The Black Man in the Cos­mos”

Sun Ra Plays a Music Ther­a­py Gig at a Men­tal Hos­pi­tal; Inspires Patient to Talk for the First Time in Years

Hear Sun Ra’s 1971 UC Berke­ley Lec­ture “The Pow­er of Words”

A Sun Ra Christ­mas: Hear His 1976 Radio Broad­cast of Poet­ry and Music

The Evo­lu­tion of Bat­man in Cin­e­ma: From 1939 to Present

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Casablanca’s Hilarious Alternative Final Scene Featuring Saturday Night Live’s Kate McKinnon: Pragmatism Carries the Day!

in Comedy, Film, Television | December 11th, 2015

The clas­sic film Casablan­ca is peren­ni­al­ly ripe for par­o­dy, but for some rea­son, its spoofs usu­al­ly con­fine them­selves to Rick­’s Café Améri­cain. It’s rare that any­one gets fun­ny with the famous final scene, where (spoil­er!) Humphrey Bog­a­rt’s Rick sac­ri­fices his per­son­al hap­pi­ness, insist­ing that his beloved board a plane that will safe­ly car­ry her and her hus­band, a leader of the Czech Resis­tance, away from Vichy-con­tolled Casablan­ca.

There are excep­tions of course.

Bugs Bun­ny…

The Simp­sons…

Woody Allen…

Sat­ur­day Night Live’s Kate McK­in­non bests them all with a dewy-eyed Ingrid Bergman impres­sion nail­ing the Swedish-born actress’ glo­ri­ous­ly cin­e­mat­ic mid­dle Atlantic accent, described by writer Trey Tay­lor in The Atlantic as a learned “hybrid of Britain’s Received Pro­nun­ci­a­tion and stan­dard Amer­i­can Eng­lish as it exists today.”

It’s a refresh­ing change to see the Ilsa char­ac­ter dri­ving the laughs.

McKinnon’s scene part­ner, J.K. Sim­mons, gives an equal­ly cred­i­ble per­for­mance as Bogart’s Rick. The award-win­ning actor has demon­stra­ble com­ic chops, but for this sketch, the writ­ers wise­ly had him play it dead seri­ous.

The play­ers are fur­ther abet­ted by the design team’s faith­ful exe­cu­tion of the orig­i­nal, includ­ing cos­tumes by Tom Broeck­er and Eric Jus­t­ian. Who wouldn’t want to wear that hat?

Much of Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein, and Howard Koch’s orig­i­nal dia­logue was left intact. It’s repro­duced below for your scruti­ny, along with Bog­a­rt and Bergman’s per­for­mance.

You’ll notice one sig­nif­i­cant line reas­sign­ment, neces­si­tat­ed by this Ilsa’s prag­mat­ic response to the pos­si­bil­i­ty of wind­ing up in a con­cen­tra­tion camp.

As in the orig­i­nal, love does not tri­umph, but they’ll always have Paris.

INT./EXT. AIRPORT HANGAR — NIGHT

Rick takes the let­ters of tran­sit out of his pock­et and

hands them to Renault, who turns and walks toward the hangar.

RICK

If you don’t mind, you fill in the names. That will make it even more offi­cial.

RENAULT

You think of every­thing, don’t you?

RICK

(qui­et­ly And the names are Mr. and Mrs. Vic­tor Las­z­lo.

Renault stops dead in his tracks, and turns around.  Both Ilsa and Renault look at Rick with aston­ish­ment.

ILSA

But why my name, Richard?

RICK

Because you’re get­ting on that plane.

ILSA

(con­fused)  I don’t under­stand. What about you?

RICK

I’m stay­ing here with him ’til the plane gets safe­ly away.

Rick­’s inten­tion sud­den­ly dawns on Ilsa.

ILSA

No, Richard, no. What has hap­pened to you? Last night we said —

RICK

Last night we said a great many things. You said I was to do the  think­ing for both of us. Well, I’ve done a lot of it since then and it all adds up to one thing. You’re get­ting on that plane with Vic­tor where you belong.

ILSA

 (protest­ing) But Richard, no, I, I —

RICK

You’ve got to lis­ten to me. Do you have any idea what you’d have to look for­ward to if you stayed here? Nine chances out of ten we’d both wind up in a con­cen­tra­tion camp. Isn’t that true, Louis?

 Renault coun­ter­signs the papers.

RENAULT

I’m afraid Major Strass­er would insist.

ILSA

You’re say­ing this only to make me go.

RICK

I’m say­ing it because it’s true. Inside of us we both know you belong with Vic­tor. You’re part

of his work, the thing that keeps him going. If that plane leaves the ground and you’re not with

him, you’ll regret it.

ILSA

No.

RICK

Maybe not today, maybe not tomor­row, but soon, and for the rest of your life.

ILSA

But what about us?

RICK

We’ll always have Paris. We did­n’t have, we’d lost it, until you came to Casablan­ca. We got it back last night.

ILSA

And I said I would nev­er leave you.

RICK

And you nev­er will. But I’ve got a job to do, too. Where I’m going you can’t fol­low. What I’ve got to do you can’t be any part of. Ilsa, I’m no good at being noble, but it does­n’t take much to see that the prob­lems of three lit­tle peo­ple don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Some­day you’ll under­stand that.  Now, now…

Ilsa’s eyes well up with tears.  Rick puts his hand to her chin and rais­es her face to meet his own.

RICK

Here’s look­ing at you, kid.

If McKinnon’s take on Ingrid Bergman leaves you scream­ing for more, here are Hillary Rod­ham Clin­ton, Justin Bieber and Ellen DeGeneres.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch Twin Beaks, Sesame Street’s Par­o­dy of David Lynch’s Icon­ic TV Show (1990)

A Fun Par­o­dy of Down­ton Abbey Fea­tures George Clooney & the Cast of the Show

The Bea­t­les Per­form in a Spoof of Shakespeare’s A Mid­sum­mer Night’s Dream, 1964

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

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