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I went to a Second City Toronto show in 1987. One of the skits was David Cronenberg's version of Anne of Green Gables. Anne was a space alien who could kill people with a zap from her pointed finger. Mike Myers played Anne.

I also feel like I was oversold on the horniness of the movie.

Agreed on all accounts. The meta stuff was really interesting but took me by surprise. So, I couldn't fully appreciate it because, by the time it kicked in heavily, I felt I had missed a lot. Cinco said this was better on a second watch and I have to assume he's right. Ben Vereen though. Amazing.

So, I've been trying to figure out what this movie is actually about. One theory I've had is that it's about white male mediocrity. Pippin himself bemoans his less than "extraordinary" existence and how he wants to do more, but he, by his own admission, kind of sucks at all of it. Ultimately, The Lead Player tells him that the best thing he can do is die in a spectacular fashion -- and he ends up fucking that up too. At least, that's what I got out of it. Of course there was a line cut from the performance. At the end, when asked how he's feeling, Pippin is supposed to reply, "Trapped, which isn't bad for a Musical Comedy." Fosse wanted that line to be "Trapped, but happy, which isn't bad for a Musical Comedy." Honestly, I like how this performance ended as it leaves his response ambiguous. However, I also like Fosse's rewrite since, if I'm right about white male mediocrity, it ends with him dissatisfied, but accepting his limitations.

Another thing I thought was really weird in the play was its references to casualties in WWI and WWII. I thought it might be building up to some sort of metaphor for Vietnam or the 60s but it never evolved into anything other than a vague muddle of cultural stuff. Perhaps if I saw this play in 1972, I would say “Yes! This captures the counterculture perfectly! jazz hands!” Watching it now as a time capsule from 1980, my reaction is “huh?????” Jazz hands!

That one lengthy sex scene was horny. I think a lot of the risque stuff was probably shocking at the time but pretty tame any time after the late 80s.

The funny part is the composer also wrote Godspell. It took him 30 years but he had a big hit with Wicked.

This was what got me. It really didn't feel artistic in any way. It felt very amateurish to me.

If you want the adult version of The Electric Company, this is it. We watched

excuse the bump but I just realized 3 DAYS UNTIL THE PRINCESS SWITCH SEQUEL!

This is the interpretation I had, which is an intriguing one, especially if the material were modernized and made less cheesy. I did like the ending. It seemed like it took away his final number (which I didn’t mind AT ALL). One essential rewrite would be for the play to stop referring to itself as a comedy when it’s not that funny.

I like small butts and I am lying.

Dress for the job you have, they probably already have a dress code, so just follow it. Contact Human Resources for more information.

This was actually way more watchable than I thought it would be, perhaps because I viewed it through a WTF lens and it felt like a wacky/tacky Vegas stage musical (PARTICULARLY the song from the grandma with the HUGE mic). I did like the meta part because it at least somewhat explained why Pippin was such a douche. Ben Vereen was great. William Katt (unfortunately) seemed like a blond surfer dude. But I made it through the whole thing (with a few surreptitious fast-forwards), which was a pleasant surprise. This is the first Bob Fosse production that I’ve ever seen (other than the rapidly edited Chicago). The choreography was...underwhelming and the stage show looked like it was shot in someone’s walk-in closet and the audience looked like mannequins. truly random thought: Love to see a David Lynch interpretation of this.

I think this was toned way down, maybe because it was filmed for Canadian television? This was done 9 years after the original premiered on Broadway.

Yes, they were both big hits. I haven't seen Godspell but it's on my possibles list. Fosse won multiple Tonys for Pippin and Ben Vereen won Best Leading Actor. (Fun fact from Wikipedia: A later Broadway revival had a female playing Ben Vereen's role and she won a Tony for Best Leading Actress. It's the only time there has been Best Leading Actor and Best Leading Actress wins for the same role.)

Yeah, my bad. Lol Honestly, I really like the first song and I liked a lot of the meta stuff, but mostly, this wasn’t very good. With Bob Fosse’s name attached I expected some pretty stellar choreography, but in all but a few cases, it was pretty lackluster. Also, Pippin, or Pepin the Hunchbacked, was a real person, but also kind of a non-entity. I was really confused as to why he was chosen as the protagonist — especially when it’s pretty much completely factionalized. It literally could have been about anyone. Was that the point of them trying to coax someone up on stage? Maybe...? All in all, I wouldn’t mind seeing a better version of this, but this version was...not great.

I own the DVD. It's one of my favorite bad movies. The fact that this was scheduled means I will die a sad man if this doesn't happen. I might have even saw this in a theater but I don't remember. I've always been fascinated by big budget scifi/horror/action genre films of this nature.

you're correct this was instructional. Fantastic!