Matches On a Bad Day

Started off the morning with breakfast and the original cast album for the Broadway Lion King. While you can't see the real drawing card of this show - the giant puppet animals that represent Timon, Pumbaa, and the animals on the savanna - on the CD, you can hear some of the wonderful songs. "The Morning Report" had been cut from the film...and according to Wikipedia, it would be dropped from later runs of the Broadway show, too. It's a cute number that has Simba pouncing on Zasu and Zasu giving Mufasa all the latest gossip, but it's better-served by dialogue. The searing "Endless Night" for the older Simba near the end of the show and "The Madness of King Scar," as we see Scar fall apart as he tries to run the Pridelands, are much better.

Prime Time Musicals is one of my Verasae Sarabande collections of rare material, and might be my favorite. This one takes songs from early TV musicals of the 50's and 60's. Though some of these have turned up in recent years, many early musicals written for television were filmed live and never recorded, or were shown once and erased or junked afterwards. The gorgeous "Ride On a Rainbow" from a musical version of Ruggles of Red Gap, "One Hand Tied Behind My Back" from No Man Can Tame Me, " "Strangers" from Androcles and the Lion, and a lovely "Listen to Your Heart" from a 1957 version of Pinocchio with Mickey Rooney are from broadcasts that have vanished into the mists of time. 

Worked on writing Maplepunzel while I listened to the CDs. Victor turns up at the tower one day with a badly bleeding hand. He caught his knuckle on the thorns climbing up Maple's hair. She uses the magic from her hair to heal it, to his shock. He eventually gives her an engagement ring, a family heirloom, proposing to her and asking her to come home to Wennaria with him. She's initially reluctant, due to Pavla, but he tells her that he loves her the way she is, and she remembers that, as much as she appreciates what her guardian has done for her, Pavla's love is more about control than kindness. Victor tells her he'll bring a rope she can climb down the next day. 

It had rained all morning. The rain was gone by quarter of 2, but I wasn't taking chances. I called Uber. I should have taken chances. They took 13 minutes to arrive, and the driver missed the entrance to the Acme and had to take more time going around. I ended up being late. The one going home came in 9 minutes. I guess there were fewer people out on a Sunday.

Work was a royal pain in the rear. They sent me out to do carts almost immediately. No matter how often I filled them, the carts kept emptying. The brush for the broom vanished too, and I had to figure out what to do about that. A manager had to find it for me, and I never did get it on right. At least the weather improved. It remained humid, but the sun came out later, and it was much cooler, barely in the 70's. 

When I got home, I took a shower, grabbed dinner, and put on tonight's Match Game episode. Though more than 90 percent of the series is available, a rarity for a game show from the 70's, some episodes have worn better over time than others. At least two episodes, including a nighttime one, featured a question about Confucius that came off as offensive then, let alone now. (Fred Travelena's bad Chinese accent and pushing his eyes to make him look Asian in the nighttime episode didn't help matters.) 

Although they've been somewhat better about it of late, Buzzr has traditionally been sensitive about the word "midget," either skipping episodes featuring a midget question, or editing them. Many Native American questions or jokes about Tonto and the Lone Ranger don't sound so hot nowadays, either. Some early episodes from 1973 and 1974 from before Charles Nelson Reilly became a regular featured a few gay slurs that would definitely not fly nowadays (including one from Brett). 

See how standards for comedy have changed over the years in this very funny and thought-provoking marathon!

Match Game Sunday Classics - Buzzr Skipped and Banned Marathon

Finished the night with another Varasae Sarabande lost musicals CD. Unsung Musicals is a series of CDs featuring songs from shows that made Broadway, but had such short runs, they were never recorded. I've had Unsung Musicals II for over 20 years now, and it's still my favorite of the entire batch. There's the charming "Everything In the World I Love" and the gentle ballad "One Promise Come True" from a failed musical version of "The Yearling," the title song of the barely-seen "Roadside," Rupert Holmes' "The Phantom" that would have been set in 30's New York, but was never written beyond that one song, the hilarious "That Man Is Doing His Worst to Make Good" from the very short-lived musical version of Carnival In Flanders, and "The Memory of Tonight" from a musical version of Arthur that has been seen elsewhere in the world, but has yet to make Broadway.