GregSaunders

Agreed. Or maybe a versus episode with LOST IN AMERICA.

Released a year apart from each other, one reinvented the romantic comedy for modern audiences and the other did the same for action movies. Both were critical and commercial hits which kicked off the careers of their respective stars. And both prominently feature Christmas music. Which one had the greater influence? Which one is more rewatchable? Is it crazy to even compare the two?

I love THE MUSIC MAN and think it needs to join ROCKY HORROR (which is so far the only musical in the canon). The whole movie is worthy of consideration, but let me make my case for inclusion based on a single scene, the song "The Sadder But Wiser Girl" : It's a damn catchy tune perfectly performed by Robert Preston. It's got a wicked sense of humor. "I cheer, I rave for the virtue I'm too late to save...I hope, and I pray, for a Hester to win just one more 'A'" It's a great character bit. Harold Hill is a lecherous con-man who's planning to seduce the only person in town who can reveal him as a fraud. The staging is super-weird. Robert Preston and Buddy Hackett singing a song about women who love having sex to a ten year old girl in a barn?? The whole movie is terrific. It's got heart and humor, the music runs the gamut from bizarre to instantly iconic, and the plot is a perfect encapsulation of how marketing and politics work in a grand scale (invent a problem, sell a solution). Even if it overstays its welcome by 30 min (sorry in advance for the runtime, the last act can be a bit of a slog), I adore this movie.

There are a handful of movies that are so obvious that I'm surprised they haven't been discussed already (WIZARD OF OZ, WILLY WONKA, SINGIN' IN THE RAIN, A HARD DAYS NIGHT, GREASE), though I expect we'll see some more recent musicals that could prove to be controversial get discussed first (MOULIN ROUGE, CHICAGO, LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS, FROZEN).

The funny thing about "Marge vs. the Monorail" is that it seems like a Music Man parody on its surface, but the original is just as damning of its subjects. It's not a parody as much as an homage/remake. The people of Springfield are mindless sheep who are easily manipulated by a traveling salesman? That's THE MUSIC MAN, which spends the entire movie pushing the point that the citizens of River City Iowa are judgemental, close-minded people who will fall for the simplest flattery. In fact, the second song in the movie (Iowa Stubborn) could be summed up as "Welcome to town, we're terrible".