Openings
Recently, there has been discussion of classic openings such as The Dancing Flower Coming Down from the Rafters in Brooks-Rogers and Julius Caesar, this is your life! A new thread seems in order for a topic as important as openings.
Two quick housekeeping points:
1) Tomorrow is the last day that Maple Terrace will hold rooms for us. You can probably book rooms afterwards, but since you know you are coming, why risk it? The contact info can be found here.
2) The blog is a month old today. One month of talking to each other and the reunion is still on. Nothing short of a miracle.
Two quick housekeeping points:
1) Tomorrow is the last day that Maple Terrace will hold rooms for us. You can probably book rooms afterwards, but since you know you are coming, why risk it? The contact info can be found here.
2) The blog is a month old today. One month of talking to each other and the reunion is still on. Nothing short of a miracle.
posted by (d)avid at 12/14/2004 07:54:00 PM
8 Comments:
I bet Yo Yo Ma DOES love Def Leppard and vice versa. I heard Yo Yo Ma's next project is transcribing Pyromania and Hysteria for cello.
I can think of a number of good openings. One of the least creative might have been most appreciated by the audience, because it relied upon knowledge of the characters on stage.
SAC had sponsored an ill-advised "Williams Singled-Out" party. You remember "Singled-Out," right? That MTV show where the contestant picks attributes they want in their date and people are forced to walk off? Well, Emily Christiansen was our singled out contestant and the categories were appropriately screwed up. Here are a couple of samples:
"Truthful or Pathological Liar" Emily obviously wants someone truthful. The crowd of men just turned and looked at each other. Noone was walked off. So, I, being the host, started in on the next question, and Felipe finally walked off.
"Macho Harley Riding Hells Angels or Introverted Momma's Boys" Emily decided that she wanted an introverted Momma's boy and thereby eliminated Steve Ehrenberg and Jeff McMahon, who were extremely funny/disturbing in their attempt to show Emily what she was missing.
"Hands or Stumps" Emily thought about it, but decided that she wanted a date with hands. Peter had his hands tucked up in his sleeves the entire time and shouts, "A MAN DON'T NEED NO HANDS TO PLEASE A WOMAN!!"
As I said, not very creative, but the audience really dug it. I think part of the reason is that the jokes relied upon the audience's knowledge of the actors and they liked the fact that they got the inside joke (or, perhaps Jeff and Steve just look like "introverted Momma's boys" and Emily seems like the type of person who might actually want one. It works both ways, baby. The fact that Emily ended up picking Doorboy (who she was dating at the time) was just icing on the cake.
I had totally forgotten the cardboard-box-a-thon and the Tony-Randall-a-thon. After seeing the tape of that my sophomore year, I walked around saying under my breath, "Oscar! Oscar! Oscar!" and then giggling. I wonder how many potential dates turned me down as a result of this disturbing behavor? Oscar! *giggle* Oscar! *giggle*
Spring semester of my freshman year, we performed at the Downstage. Bad call. The audience was REALLY sparse (maybe 40 people? maybe?) and the audience sits so far away from the stage it is hard to maintain energy. The opening wasn't bad. It was a Family Feud episode (David played the big board and stood out on the stage as the audience came in -- just standing there motionless, about as arty as we got in those days). The two teams were classic dead people and pop culture icons. The question asked was, "What do you do when you get your hand slammed in the door?" The skit is most efficiently described by listing the characters, the actors, and the joke (character:actor:joke).
Pop culture team:
Robert Plant: Godmother: (Scream from Immigrant's Song)
Little Orphan Annie: The General: Think about tomorrow
Grover: Myself (I do a dead-on Grover voice): "Tell my mommy" (and when the answer is wrong, "G_d f&%king da$%it, sh&t mother f&%ker" -- haven't you always wanted to hear Grover swear?)
Classic Team:
Shakespeare: J-Ice: "Write a hundred sonnets" (although I have a feeling it might be a poet with a smack addiction)
The Virgin Mary: Betsy: "Eat a fistfull of wafers" (the most inside of the inside jokes)
Chairman Mao???: Scoop: Something about purging society of impure elements??? I don't remember to be honest. I'm pretty sure that Steve was the host, so Scoop must have been the last dead person.
Of course, most of us strike out. And the one we can't guess is "See Combination Pizza!"
Hmm ... in retrospect, the opening isn't very funny. Our standards must have been low that year. I do recall performing a stand up at the show (thereby confirming that our standards were low) dispelling misperceptions about Nebraska. 90% of it was taken from dumb-ass questions I had received that year. Two summers later I would re-use a lot of material on the bar circuit in Nebraska.
I'm sorry, Thandeka, fuck off. Good stuff.
I had completely blanked on Tenure or Fuck Off!! A couple more details. There was a panel of three judges: John Fagan was Jim J. Bullock and I don't remember the other two -- I suspect Hank Payne was one of the judges, Heather might have played Dean Edwards (orthe Vanna White character).
I played Thandeka and was the first contestant. When asked to list my publications, I rattled off the titles of two books and three edited volumes (which is most certainly untrue). My physical challenge was push ups. So for the rest of the opening I was in the corner doing push ups until I collapsed and Jason told me to Fuck Off!Julie played the second contestant, Isaac Einstein. Jim J. Bullock wanted her/him to cluck like a chicken. Julie then gave one of the most half-assed chicken clucking performances ever and was told to Fuck Off!Steve played Mark Rheinhardt and had to give a lecture while being bombarded by American Gladiator's Nitro. So Steve tried to lecture while Goose ran along the back of Currier ballroom throwing tennis balls at Steve and the chalkboard (which we later used for Gut Class -- about the only time I remember performing the skit in front of the audience. Strike that we performed it at Brooks-Rogers as well). Just as Jason was about to tell Mark Rheinhardt to Fuck Off! Sean Kelly rushed up and said something along the lines of "Wait! I have taken each one of Professor Rheinhardt's classes. He taught me about how to think about government and society. He showed me new worlds. He expanded my mind so much, I had to buy a new hat." (in the background the rest of the group was humming The Star Spangled Banner). Jason's response, "That's nice Sean, but on Tenure or Fuck Off, the opinion of the students don't count for anything. So, Professor Rheinhardt, Fuck Off!"
Joey Lawrence (played by Peter) was the last contestant on Tenure or Fuck off. He was subjected to the lightning round of questions:
Q: What did Hamlet feel when his father was killed?
A: Whoa!
Q: I don't remember.
A: Whoa!
Q: Demonstrate the doppler efffect.
A: Whoa, whoa!
Congratulations, Joey, you are the newest tenured faculty member at Williams. What are you going to do now?
Joey: I'm going to see COMBINATION PIZZA!
Worst conceived opening ever. I had totally forgotten about that opening. I need to go back and watch it. Mark and Sara were two people writing messages in the Daily Advisor (that is what DA stood for, right?). And then lots of people started writing in with faux Mark and Sara messages, "Sara, Mark says that you should go to student health and learn about the exciting new spermicides available." The joke was funny.
Fred running around doing the MC Hammer dance using his arms like a gorrila picking up oranges was also funny. Way too random to get. Poor, Fred. He did that at one practice and we insisted he do that to open our show. I feel vaguely guilty about it now.
Goose, you need to explain the plot. Unless of course, I was in charge of explicating the scenes. Enunciation was not always my strong suit. But I think I generally conveyed an infectious enthusiasm to make the audience think I was saying something funny. Actually, I'm not sure I ever said anything that could be construed as a joke. I mumbled ecstatically and looked humorous (wow, look at the hyperactive dork with bad hair and poorly fitting clothes. Is he having a stroke?).
Singing the mountains sounds funny in theory, but I can't think of an application where it would elicit laughter. Sigh.
Goose, did that opening have someone wrestling with Felipe dressed up as a post-modern nothingness (or the like)? Felipe had a blanket thrown over his head and wrestled with some hapless soul -- it was pretty funny. Or am I think of a different opening? In the opening I am think of, I also had to sword fight with Jeff McMahon.
"Tonight David will be attempting to break Wilt Chamberlain's scoring record," as if that weren' enough, Goose added, "After the show, he will break Wilt Chamberlain's other scoring record." Combo Za -- what do ya expect for a dollar?
I remember sitting in Baxter writing a person's comedy champion on the tickets. Cute idea. I don't think it mattered at all, but it was quirky and noone slapped me for writing my name on their ticket (truth be told, I never wrote my own name on a ticket for precisely that reason).
Rich was jacked. When you work on your arms as hard as he did and you look good, I say flaunt it.
But ... yes, it was kind of funny.
Drawing out the basketball analogy: was Rich the Dennis Rodman of Combo Za? Disruptive figure, but noone can deny his talent and collects 5 rings when it is all said and done? I'm now waiting for Rich's reality TV show on MTV -- we put twenty non-profit executives in the same office building. Each week they will vote each other out of the building. The one left standing will have earned $1 million for her/his charity. It could work. If choose lame enough non-profits, they might fight over $100,000 and the free publicity that the show would generate.
When I first met Rich he was a very buffed-up guy, and I learned later that his extreme arms only happened in the summer of '95 when he was working on a road crew. I'll let him tell the story if he wants to.
I also remember my first instinct when I saw him was to think he was Italian. Thank you, Za, for opening my eyes to the diversity of the Hebrew world.
Ragin: It was a Packers jacket. Packers!
WB: Ah, yes, the basketball opening. It was actually kind of brilliant -- I can think of nothing topical or collegiate or self-referential or satirical about it (except perhaps my own name "Garcia Minor")-- it was the kind of friendly clown comedy that would have made kids laugh, the kind of thing we resolutely never did. But somehow it just came right out -- simple, unobtrusive, successful comedy. Kind of odd that it never occured to us how out of character it was for us. That's one for the long-moribund history project: what kinds of comedy has Za practiced over the years and what sort of groups produced them? Of course what was great about that opening is that you were so juiced to make your entrance, your self-announcement came out, "Chris Wrecking Ball Gr-!" as you stepped on the cue you gave yourself. (by the way, surprised you haven't brought up the "Dawn of Comedy" opening -- funny and, astonishly enough, with perfect tech, as I saw it on the tape)
Steve: how come we don't hang? Talking about Mark Jackson and the classic Knicks of the '90's? Could go on for days....
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