Happy Weekend!
Today is National Hug A Sheep Day, though I can’t imagine that too many of us will have an opportunity to do so. I have never personally hugged a sheep, but I did get to hold a baby pig once and it was a very good time. I think I would like to hug Ouessant sheep the most, on account of how they are very tiny and fluffy.
But let’s get to your presents for the week! In keeping with the theme of the month, I am bringing you some more Halloween bad-goodness!
First up, we have something called Pagan Invasion Volume 1: Halloween or Trick or Treat, a choice piece of Satanic Panic propaganda from 1991 — a year before the FBI’s report debunking the existence of Satanic ritual abuse — which purports to show the real Satanic purpose behind Halloween and trick or treating.
You are probably wondering “But Robyn, is there a man with a questionable hairstyle talking about how he was raised as a ‘generational Satanist’?” or “OK, but are there ‘Wicker Man’-esque scenes of ‘pagans’ doing rituals in the woods?” and the answer is yes on both accounts.
It’s just the first volume of a 13-part series that I am absolutely going to watch the shit out of. Hey, everyone needs a hobby!
Next up, we have the entire production of the notorious Broadway trainwreck that was 2002’s Dance of the Vampires, a rock musical based on Roman Polanski’s 1967 movie The Fearless Vampire Killers.
Now, here’s the thing — it actually should have been great (despite the whole Polanski thing). It was a huge hit in Germany (though, to be fair, so was David Hasselhoff), had a libretto by Jim Steinman of “writing all of Meatloaf’s songs” fame, and the production starred Michael Crawford, the original Phantom in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera.
It … was not. Crawford was concerned that his role was too close to the Phantom and thus wanted to take it and the whole thing in a bizarre camp/comedy/wannabe Mel Brooks direction, which was really just the start of the whole mess. Personalities and visions clashed all over the place, there was a flying graveyard and tons of robotic rats that never happened, no one could convince Crawford that he couldn’t have a big death scene in the first act because he had to take over the world in the second, Steinman gave up part-way through and as set designer David Gallo later explained, “Nobody knew what they wanted it to be.” It ended up being a half camp/half gothic horror hot mess.
By the time it opened on December 9, 2002, Steinman disavowed the whole thing, and by the time it closed, six weeks later, it had lost a total of $12 million. Michael Crawford literally never returned to Broadway again.
But because I don’t totally hate you, I’ll cue it up to the beginning of the second act, which starts with a reworking of Steinman’s Total Eclipse of the Heart.
Nota bene: The woman singing with him was a then-unknown Mandy Gonzalez, who debuted a few days ago in the role of Norma Desmond in the revival of Sunset Boulevard (she’ll be taking over the role from Nicole Scherzinger once a week from now on).
Also because I don’t hate you, I shall leave you with the great Megan Mullally as Lili Von Shtupp in the Broadway production of Young Frankenstein. You are welcome.
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