<p>Sally Bowles. In twenty years, Rose.</p>
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<p>Yes! and Yes!</p>
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<p>To be honest, I was a huge Doogie Howser fan, but then NPH seemed to sort of disappear. Not long after Doogie Howser was canceled, I watched a series on PBS (either Frontline or Nova) that followed the lives of several medical students at Harvard Medical School. One of the young students reminded me so much of Doogie Howser in his looks and demeanor. NPH kind of disappeared from mainstream TV/film and so when his notoriety began to rise again, it was my kids who kept referring to NPH (and I had no idea who they were referring to because I watch very little regular TV on the main networks) and finally clued me back in that it was Neil Patrick Harris. HIMYM is just not at a good time for me to watch, and like I said, I just don’t watch a lot of major network TV, but I finally became aware of what a comeback he’d made, and started following his successes again. I absolutely LOVED his appearance on the Tony Awards! </p>
<p>But again, had my kids not clued me in to who NPH was, I’d be waaaaay behind the times right now!</p>
<p>But last night, I texted D2 (who is a theatre/vocal performance major) to let her know he was going to be on Glee. She does not/will not watch Glee unless there’s a guest star that she wants to see; she did ‘real’ showchoir in high school, and is very critical of Ryan Murphy’s style, the holes, the underdeveloped story lines, etc., so she is not a Glee fan. After I texted her, she replied, “I’ll watch it on hulu when I can skip all the other parts.”</p>
<p>Guess she’ll have to do the same next week when Lady Gaga is on (wait, is Lady Gaga going to be on, or is the show just a theme of her songs?) as she loves her almost as much as NPH. </p>
<p>Oh, and I’d known, too, for a couple of months there was an impending mother/daughter storyline.</p>
<p>Matthew Morrison is just wonderful. I saw him as Link in Hairspray, Fabrizio in Light in the Piazza (Tony nomination–and he was robbed IMHO) in Ten Million Miles and in South Pacific as Lt. Cable. I feel that they are using him to do a little too much dancing, not enough singing. And I feel bad because when he does come back to Broadway, he’s going to be marketed as the Glee guy. Half the reason that so many theater people are on Glee is because of his and Lea Michelle’s Broadway connections. She was the little girl in the original production of Ragtime, and she was Wendela in Spring Awakening along with Jonathan Groff (who is AKA Jesse). It makes their boy/girlfriend relationship kind of funny. It had an unhappy ending on the stage. NPH was unbelievable as the narrator/ Lee Harvey Oswald in Assassins and was Tobias in the concert version of Sweeney Todd that was on PBS. He was Roger in Rent in LA. That guy can sing and has amazing charisma. Glee is a great show because of the talent of the show folk. I suspect that the vast appeal may be because of the teeny/tweeny viewers. I look forward to it every week!</p>
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<p>Yes and no. He worked fairly steadily in film and tv through the years, just not as a regular. He was also busy doing theatre for many of those years.</p>
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<p>Neil was Mark, not Roger. </p>
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<p>Idina is 38 and Lea is 23. Like I said, a very young teen mom.</p>
<p>Idina Menzel as Rachel’s mom was very predictable, but I thought there was an outside chance that Rachel’s mom would turn out to be Sue. Wouldn’t that be interesting?</p>
<p>Loved Kevin McHale’s dance and the Matthew Morrison/NPH and Idina/Lea duets.</p>
<p>I just heard some speculation on TV that Susan Boyle may appear on Glee soon. Supposedly she will be cast as a cafeteria lady. :)</p>
<p>I just started watching, and I love the singing and dancing- I think using the Broadway talent was a great decision.</p>
<p>I can’t stand the plotlines and character development tho. I wish they could scratch it and start all over and make the stories a tiny bit more believable.</p>
<p>Welcome to Bollywood. (That’s what Glee is, except the actors have to sing their own parts.)</p>
<p>I kind of enjoy the ridiculous plots. They are so over the top but with just enough truth. These characters are extreme exagerations but it makes it fun. How else could you justify the singing & dancing in the school hall? I just love the talent!</p>
<p>Okay, I admit it - I watched *Safety Dance *two more times last night. When I was in bed, I could hear Son playing it again.</p>
<p>I really dont analyze plot lines, or age differences, past roles, etc. I just watch the show and enjoy it. I can share it with my daughters and their friends. Its fun, theres singing and dancing and some great characters/lines. Perhaps its junk food television…but for me, theres always room for a little junk food…</p>
<p>I think fans of the old Hollywood movie musical have fewer problems with the show. I mean, Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse [sp?] are in the park and there’s suddenly an invisible full orchestra…you’ve just got to go with it.</p>
<p>same here, missypie - Safety Dance and I Dreamed a Dream. Idina Menzel and Lea Michelle singing a duet of one my favorite Broadway songs - it doesn’t get much better than that!</p>
<p>I met a woman in her 70s at a dinner party recently and we discovered our shared love of Glee - we talked about it all through dinner, much to our husbands chagrin ;)</p>
<p>Another thing I love about Glee in general and numbers like *Safety Dance *in particular is that they are employing singers and dancers. I think most of us have run across a number of tremendously talented young people and know that there are so few paying jobs out there. (I LOVED NPH talking about his amusement park and cruise ship gigs!!!)</p>
<p>missypie - D and I try not to over analyze the characters and plots. We are huge fans of the old movie musicals where people just break into song and dance. My younger D did not start watching Glee with us, but has now become addicted to it also. Like you I am happy to see so many talented dancers used in numbers like Safety Dance.</p>
<p>The standard way of thinking about an Astaire/Rogers film is that when the emotions became too extreme for words, they’d break into song and when the emotions became too extreme for song, they’d break into dance. Glee goes with the same basic idea that song expresses more than dialogue and then that song and dance expresses more than song. With Glee, the equation is more song plus staging than song and dance but the basic idea is the same.</p>
<p>It isn’t just show tunes. Opera uses the same logic, from dialogue to sung dialogue to full throat singing. To take maybe the most well known, listen to the end of Pagliacci as the emotions build from the dialogue to his singing of dialogue to the heart-rending explosion of “Laugh, Pagliaccio, at your broken love/ Laugh at the grief that poisons your heart.” </p>
<p>Other shows are using surreal / real ideas. For example, How I Met Your Mother combines real, traditional sitcom scenes with weird flashbacks and inventive fantasies. The pseudo documentary style of The Office or Ugly Betty’s strange style or Desperate Housewives … these are all attempts to combine real and surreal elements. The genres otherwise become stale.</p>
<p>It is kind of odd for any student of film to look back and see we’re now mining silents and the early days of sound. Glee often reminds me of Goldiggers of 1933, which combines backstage realism with utterly insane numbers staged by Busby Berkeley. Just look at the opening: an essentially naked Ginger Rogers (this was pre-code) wearing a mesh dress of $20 gold pieces singing “We’re in the money” as the camera moves closer and closer until she’s in ultra closeup singing the song in pig latin.</p>
<p>"Perhaps its junk food television…but for me, theres always room for a little junk food… "</p>
<p>Yeah, I like the junk food part. But I don’t think the old Fred Astaire movies had stuff like the gay son trying to win dads love when he has it already… taking the singer who lost her voice to see a guy who is paralyzed to make her realize what is important…basically using the paralyzed guy as a plot device? The gym teacher who verbally abuses children… the high school counselour as a caricature with the prissy outifts, and worse yet, who seems to have all these crazy OCDs, etc.</p>
<p>I love the throwaway lines, the little jokes, and absolutely love the singing. I just think the “serious” plotlines don’t jive,don’t work, and I don’t care for being hit over the head with an anvil with the “serious” moments.</p>
<p>“Rah-rah-ah ah ah, Roma, Roma-ma, GaGa, ooh la la…”</p>
<p>Fun episode ! Fin in the red shower curtain was great!</p>
<p>Yes, really fun episode, although Kiss’ “Beth” is a snorer, in or out of makeup. The mother-daughter Broadway-belter version of “Poker Face” worked surprisingly well, too. And the girls’ costumes were all great, including Rachel’s geometric post-Mom minidress. I wish they could have gotten that on her before rather than after the “Bad Romance” number.</p>