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[0:00] ♪ Musical number: "My Favorite Things" — performed by Unknown performer ♪

[0:17] Kevin David Thomas: Happy throwback Thursday, everybody.

[0:19] Robert W Schneider: It's Thursday, Rob.

[0:21] Kevin David Thomas: At least that's true.

[0:22] Robert W Schneider: I don't know how happy it is, but it's gonna be happy after this podcast.

[0:26] Kevin David Thomas: I hope so.

[0:27] Robert W Schneider: So folks, we are recording for history's sake when we listen to this many, many moons from now. We are recording on the Thursday after the election. As of now, there is still not a president that has been declared by the Electoral College yet, because you know that's how it works in a democracy, an electoral college. So we are just waiting for about five more states to come in. Somebody was like, it's like waiting for the high school cast list. You just keep checking every day, like by the door, like, am I in? Who am I playing? Why am I a senior and why am I playing ensemble? You know, stuff like that. It's been tough. How have you been coping, Kevin David Thomas, during this time?

[1:12] Kevin David Thomas: Much like most of the pandemic, having a child is like instant, you know, things to do. You are constantly distracted. He'll be 16 months old, as everybody who's listening knows, and every day's an adventure. That joy, that little bundle of happiness definitely keeps me, you know, sane. I'd be honest with you, it’s gonna sound a little Pollyanna, but our chats on the podcast help me. My teaching, our teaching, I love being in a room with students who still care about this business, even though the business is like for all intents and purposes dead. But they're still, I mean, it's like it's gone right now. I still love being in a room. I spent the entire day yesterday, I was there for like 13 hours with students who love it the way we do, and I find that to be very comforting. What about you? How are you staying sane, other than probably watching the news and reading?

[2:04] Robert W Schneider: No, that's pretty much it. I'm a news junkie. I'm also a true crime junkie, so I've been watching, you know, Dateline. I love it's Keith Morrison 24-7, which makes me so happy.

[2:21] Kevin David Thomas: Oh, have you ever watched Keith Morrison?

[2:23] Robert W Schneider: No, I don't know what this is. I know I've heard of Dateline because I think my mom watches it, but I don't know.

[2:28] Kevin David Thomas: Okay, so NBC has Dateline, and your mom, oh, you should—your mom will know. So what they do is it's like every episode, it's like an hour-long episode, and they focus on like a murder, a true crime that needs to be solved, right? And usually it's been solved years and years ago, so they're just telling you the whole story of how the cops put everything together. They have different hosts and different narrators, and most of them are pretty basic. What I mean by basic is they just name the facts. And then there's a guy named Keith Morrison, who is a white-haired individual, like, he's like white, white, white, white hair. His son-in-law is Matthew Perry from Friends.

[3:05] Robert W Schneider: I thought you were gonna say Matt Morrison.

[3:08] Kevin David Thomas: No, no, no, no. What I really like about him is, yes, you know, I mean, he's a Canadian broadcaster. Yes, he hosts and narrates these things in amazing ways. So he'll be like, and then she answered the door. Oh, but he always goes, but why? What was behind the door? And who could be knocking at 2 a.m.? He draws you in. And if you want a really great laugh, Bill Hader from SNL, who I just saw that he's like a huge fan of him or something.

[3:41] Robert W Schneider: Yes, he loves Keith Morrison and does a great Keith Morrison impression on SNL. But if you want some fun folks, go to YouTube and watch where they actually introduce Bill Hader to Keith Morrison. Bill Hader freaks out the same way we would if we were meeting, you know, Stephen Sondheim or Hal Prince. Bill Hader just in awe. But his big thing is, but why? No matter what, everyone else, no offense to the other people, they're all very lovely, but they're basic. They're like the doorbell rang, she got shot, the ad.

[4:07] Kevin David Thomas: Right.

[4:07] Robert W Schneider: You know, and he's giving you a whole performance here. Like he's giving you beats, he's giving you moments, he's giving you acting, like an arc to the scene.

[4:16] Kevin David Thomas: Yes, there's an arc with a little wry humor underneath.

[4:20] Robert W Schneider: I see.

[4:21] Kevin David Thomas: So I think he's—I don't check, I will have to check 'cause I love true crime as well, Rob. I do. And I will have to check it out.

[4:27] Robert W Schneider: Have you and Sudden maybe watched, and listeners maybe have you watched as well, the second season of Unsolved Mysteries that Netflix has just put out?

[4:35] Kevin David Thomas: It's funny, I thought you were gonna talk about that next. I just had a feeling.

[4:39] Robert W Schneider: I have not seen it. Is it good? Are you pleased? Or do you still watch—do you prefer the Robert Stack originals?

[4:45] Kevin David Thomas: Oh, well, you know what? Here's the thing. I am a huge Robert Stack fan. I will always prefer Robert Stack. What I really like about this new series is they honor Robert Stack. He's the last image you see in the theme song.

[4:55] Robert W Schneider: Oh, so it's like his ghost is hovering over the proceedings.

[4:59] Kevin David Thomas: And just as a reminder, folks, we're not awesome. I love that show. Because as we all remember, Robert Stack was fired during the dress rehearsal of La Cage aux Folles when he was a replacement.

[5:08] Robert W Schneider: There we go. So we're tying it all back together. Did we ever get a full story on that? Did anyone ever really tell us like the voice?

[5:12] Kevin David Thomas: Yes, it was Barry Brown.

[5:16] Robert W Schneider: Barry Brown's right.

[5:17] Kevin David Thomas: Who was right? A former listener, and he just said that Robert Stack just was not good.

[5:21] Robert W Schneider: Yeah.

[5:22] Kevin David Thomas: That he wasn't good. And Arthur Lawrence knew it, and I think Robert Stack even knew it. And Arthur Lawrence fired him in front of everyone. Robert Stack said, okay, very calmly, and like packed up and left. So, and I think if you read Arthur Lawrence's book, mainly on directing, which is just like mainly shitting on Sam Mendes, which is really what the book should be called. Because if you remember, it's just like shitting on Sam Mendes the whole time and his production of Gypsy, because nobody can direct it like Arthur Lawrence can direct it. Nobody, nobody. I will say I will go on record. I thought his Gypsy direction was fantastic, and I thought his West Side Story direction was atrocious.

Arthur Lawrence, you were talking about the revival of West Side Story, which was good. But luckily, Evo Von Hova came in with a video camera and was like, I can fix this. But so anyway, so Robert Stack was hired by the producer Alan Carr. And when everyone was like, he's so bad, Alan, he's like, but he can't be bad, he's from Pasadena. That's all he kept saying over and over again. He's from Pasadena, and nobody knew what that meant.

[6:24] Kevin David Thomas: That's so—it's like if you're from Pasadena, apparently you're incredibly talented. So congrats, Pasadena. So yeah, so I've been watching Unsolved Mysteries, I've been watching Dateline, I've been doing everything possible to avoid watching Steve Kornacki and his large interactive map, because nothing is changing. I find John King on CNN to be very boring and saying the same thing over and over again. And I'll be honest with you, I like to see whatever everyone else is saying. So I went to Fox News to see some of the results, and boy was I surprised when they declared Arizona for Biden first, like the first ones. And then the first thing what Trump said on his speech was, some network gave it to Biden, and I'm like, oh, daddy's angry.

[7:04] Kevin David Thomas: I know.

[7:04] Robert W Schneider: Daddy's angry, you've upset daddy, everybody, so you gotta fix that. So anyway, so yeah, so that's what I've been doing. I've been watching a lot of Keith Morrison, a lot of true crime, but excited to talk about favorite things today.

[7:15] Kevin David Thomas: Yes, yes, yes. And my favorite thing is a distraction, I will say. Mine is a nice little fluffy, fluffy little fun.

[7:22] Robert W Schneider: Because I thought I should have said that. I've been listening to show tunes as well, like that just helped me take me out of the mood, you know.

[7:28] Kevin David Thomas: Mine is fluffy and fun as well. So this will be good, everybody. So please heed our advice today in the world of fluff. Kevin, what's fluffy for you?

[7:35] Kevin David Thomas: So, mine is a cast album that is all of gosh, 33 minutes long, the way they used to make cast albums back in our day. Just like 12 songs, that was it. This show I have a feeling most of our listeners may have heard of, but I've probably not listened to in depth. It's a British musical. A rare—and I sort of got into this, Rob, because of our chats the last couple months about, you know, the British, the books that we've been reading, and like I admit that I've been very slow on my knowledge of British theater, original British theater, I should say, and not things that came from the United States and transferred over.

[8:10] Robert W Schneider: Go ahead.

[8:11] Kevin David Thomas: The longest running musical in Britain is There's a Fly in My Soup. It played for 42 years. This is a show like that. This is a show that played in the 1950s. This show that I'm gonna recommend the cast album, obviously. You're never gonna see a revival of this in the United States. It's never even played on Broadway. But the show I'm talking about is the 1954 smash hit that ran over, oh gosh, how 2,283 performances, that's five years, right? Huge, huge, huge, very British musical. A fluffy show called Salad Days.

[8:49] Robert W Schneider: Now, Salad Days, friends, is the period when you are young and inexperienced and carefree, and you know, it's like that time in your life, usually like right after high school or college, where you can only sort of make the decisions that you're making once. And this show is about these students that graduate from posh schools who graduate from their college. And they—someone gives them a piano to take care of. And it's a piano that whenever you play it, everybody has to sing and dance. It makes people sing and dance. And so they are now this young couple are now the guardians of this piano for a month, and then they have to, you know, take care of it. And it's—that's the base, I mean, it's as simple as that. I mean, they—the lovers graduate college, they're told to look after the piano, they lose the piano, and then they have to find it, and then the show's over. It's very—how do you lose a piano?

[9:41] Kevin David Thomas: Well, that's—well, the piano is on rollers, so it moves, I guess, in the show.

[9:47] Robert W Schneider: I see, I see.

[9:47] Kevin David Thomas: And the orchestration originally was only with a piano, so I'm sure it was just going all over the stage. Continue on there.

[9:59] Kevin David Thomas: This is a musical, but I cannot emphasize enough how wonderful and escapist it is. It's silly, it's frivolous. And I mean that in the best way. The music is by John Julian Slade, and Dorothy Reynolds wrote the book and music, book and lyrics. But interestingly enough, it's one of those shows that, like if we interviewed a lot of British people, I think this is a show that would come up much like Company comes up, or this is like the generation before Company, because this is 1954. But someone like, for instance, Cameron Mackintosh was a wee little lad who went with his aunt to the theater. Of course, you go with your aunt to the theater. And it left such an indelible impression on him when he was a kid that he says, you know what I want to do when I grow up?

I want to become a producer. I want to be—this is the show that—and to this day, he recognizes, he says that it holds a very, very special place in his heart. In fact, he was one of the people who revived it a couple of many years ago. So there's not much to say about it other than it's just flight fun. If you like Me and My Girl, if you like Irene, if you like one of my favorites from, you know, many decades ago is this sweet little gem of a show called Fine and Dandy that I've always loved the score to. Or Where's Charlie, Frank Loesser's first show? Where we are firmly rooted in like sort of like the English, you know, sort of music hall kind of world. One step past Gilbert and Sullivan, of course, but very whimsical, fun tunes.

I have to tell you though, that the songs are earworms. They are so contagious, so fun. It was written to be sort of like a sing-along type show, and this can't be sort of like playfulness is what you get. And yes, it's very, you know, classicist and it's the rich people, and it's all like very white and specific, which is how most of the theater-going audience in England at this time period were. And if you can just think of it as like a silly whimsical thing, I think you can have a great time. It'll be 33 minutes of just pure entertainment. And it's a show that maybe you have not listened to, but is certainly worth a listen and certainly worth the toe-tapping fun that it will go. There are a couple albums that you're going to find if you go to all your places, Spotify, or Apple Music or wherever you may go.

You can listen to the original, the 1954 recording. And just like anything, I tell my students this all the time, that sometimes you have to sort of Google translate the six decades that have gone on since 1954. That sometimes when you listen to these old songs, you're like, oh my gosh, this sounds so dated, and it's hard to like enjoy it. So I might send listeners to the 1976 album that was done. There's Elizabeth Seal who was in Irma La Douce, she was like the famous lead in that. But she's the lead in this and a couple other great singers. In that one, you can hear the sound. They also add drums and I think a bass, so it fills the orchestration out a little bit more because the show was never meant to be a fully orchestrated musical.

Or there was a 40th anniversary album that I couldn't, there's only a couple tracks on Spotify that you could check out, and that's definitely contemporary singers singing in the style of this like Me and My Girl kind of situation.

[13:05] Robert W Schneider: Uh but yeah, for a good time, check out Salad Days. It was a huge monster hit in the 50s in London, and then always is you know revived. It feels like parentally there. Um and uh and never really done in America, but that's okay. The songs are still fun and contagious, and uh you kind of wonder like what is a show like that where they're just trying to find a piano that makes people dance and sing. I mean, doesn't get any more escapist than that. Um so it's fun. So check it out. I just found the I I'm sorry what you were talking, I was looking up to see where I could find it. I couldn't find it on Apple Music, but I found it on Spotify.

[13:36] Kevin David Thomas: Okay, good Spotify friends. Go listen to it. It's fun, it's fun, frivolous, short, and cute. I have not listened to this show ever, so I'm very excited to jump into it. Thank you for the recommendation. You took us across the pond.

[13:49] Robert W Schneider: Oh, yeah. I thought I'd dabble over there a little bit.

[13:51] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah, I'm gonna go. Are you exploring a lot of West End musicals in this quarantine?

[13:55] Robert W Schneider: A little bit, but not I'm not making an over-effort. I still have gotta read this. I've still got to read the book, uh the The Broadway to London or Buffalo.

[14:03] Kevin David Thomas: Oh, yeah, West End to Broadway.

[14:05] Robert W Schneider: Yes, I still, it's on my shelf. But I think I imagine when I read that, I'm gonna want to like dig in a little bit more. But um, but this has always been I've always had this album in my collection, and I thought, let me finally listen to this. Why is everyone why has this been was this such a big hit? And I I can see why. I think one of our listeners, uh Kevin Daly, he's a huge West Ender. Like he knows. Well, he goes there every year, and he's yeah, and Kevin knows a lot. And he's actually my, you know, I've I've said this many times on the podcast, but over the years, because I've known him for for 10 years or so. Um, he's he's sort of been my like Jedi master when it comes to uh learning material.

Like he's the one that says, Oh, Robert and Elizabeth, you should check out this musical. No one knows it, you know, and stuff like that. We should do a favorite a favorite thing where we have Kevin on, and he can like say these are 10 West End musicals you should oh I love that. You should know. So let's reach out to Kevin. We'll make a note to do that.

[14:56] Robert W Schneider: Um in the meantime, though, I'll tell you about my favorite thing because mine is very fluffy, and mine is very, very escapist. Um, but it's also I think I'm gonna go on record. I think it's a fantastic musical that did not get the credit that it deserved when it first came out for a myriad of reasons. Um, and I recently re-watched it. I didn't listen to it, I re-watched it. And I'll tell you, and I'll tell you what this is. So we have a fantastic listener who thank god has become a friend to us and to the podcast. His name is Chad Campbell. Chad doesn't live too far away from me, so every once in a while he'll come over and we'll do a quarantine Broadway watch of something. And so he was like, Hey, you know what I haven't seen in a while?

[15:40] Kevin David Thomas: Legally Blonde.

[15:42] Robert W Schneider: So let's watch Legally Blonde. It was the musical. The musical, the MTV version of Legally Blonde.

[15:48] Kevin David Thomas: Oh, yeah.

[15:49] Robert W Schneider: So if you remember, folks, this was in 2007. Um, not that they had opened in April and 2007, then in October 2007, they they filmed the a live performance, a couple of live performances of Legally Blonde edited together in one show, and they screened it, screened it on MTV. There was a lot of controversy because people were like, Why why are you showing something that's still running? Because now once people see it, they're not gonna want to come uh and see it in person and pay the prices. And they were wrong. It actually encouraged people to come and see this show. Did we interview Hal Luftig?

[16:21] Kevin David Thomas: I think Hal Luftig was behind the behind it.

[16:24] Robert W Schneider: I think it was a part of it. Yeah, yes, go back and listen to our interview with Hal Luftig and can tell you some more about this. So anyway, so I had seen the show actually a couple of years ago at the New York Film Academy that you had music directed, Kevin. And I was it was I'll be honest with you, it was hard to really focus on the show that night because uh an hour earlier they had confirmed Brett Kavanaugh and they had sworn Brett Kavanaugh in on the Supreme Court. So everyone in that audience just I mean, the show was lovely that we all had our minds in different places, so you really weren't able to focus on the show all that much, especially the scene when they go to like to I think like a frat party and uh they're all looking around at the people drinking beer and acting crazy, and they're like, just think somebody here could be the next president or be on the supreme court.

And that did not that was a very visceral reaction from the audience that night. So I wanted to go back and explore this show with fresh eyes, and I have to tell you, I think you can say what you want about the show, you can like it. You don't have to like it. I think the construction of the show is a masterclass in what a mus in what musical theater construction should be.

[17:24] I think that the score by Lawrence O'Keefe and Nell Benjamin is fantastic. We have such great songs, as we know, as Oh My God, you guys, which is one of the best opening numbers of a musical. Come at me if you don't, if you don't agree. We have uh keep it positive. Uh we have um uh Ireland, sung by the great Orfe. Um but we have a really fantastic, and I'm sure Kevin, you working on it, you probably were able to appreciate more nuances and intricacies of the score that maybe we don't get to hear on the first time. But a really big shout out to Heather Hawk, who did the um the book, the book of the musical. It's a very fantastic book. You know, there's this thing where if you're taking a movie, uh, and it was a novel first, but we really know it as the Reese Witherspoon movie more than anything.

Why are you gonna take this movie and why are you gonna musicalize it? What are you adding to the story that the that uh it's not there in other source material? And Legally Blonde, I think does add a lot. It gives it a bigger heart. It takes it really out of cartoon territory. No, Reese Witherspoon is a brilliant actress, and everyone in the movie Legally Blonde is fantastic and brilliant. But the musical gives it a heart and makes you root, I think for Elle even more than in the movie. Um, so I really, really enjoyed Legally Blonde when I watched it again.

[18:39] So, folks, I would encourage you to go and watch the Pro Shot MTV with the original cast, which includes Laura Bell Bundy as L, uh Orfe, Christian Borle, Michael Rupert, who we've had on as a guest who sings. Um didn't Leslie Kritzer take over, isn't this?

[18:55] Kevin David Thomas: Oh, or no, yeah, it is Leslie, isn't it?

[18:58] Robert W Schneider: Well, I mean, when you yeah, I mean, listen to this. These are just some of the people that are in the uh quote unquote ensemble. You like the the named people. I'm not, I shouldn't say ensemble, but other supporting characters. Kate Shindle, Nikki Snelson, Natalie Joy Johnson, Leslie Kritzer, Annalee Ashford, the Queen of Moore, uh, Andy Carl. Like this is so these all these people all went off to do some really fantastic, fantastic things afterwards. Um, I think the set piece in act two of the trial, gay or European, is absolutely hysterical. Um, so I for mine this week is Legally Blonde. And you know, if you're if you like this Legally Blonde MTV version, don't worry because a couple of months later, folks, they did Legally Blonde, The Search for L Woods.

[19:44] For L Woods, where they look for Elle Woods, and they found someone to play her. The winner was Bailey Hanks, and Bailey got to take over for Laura Bell Bundy. I appreciate Legally Blonde for a number of reasons. I appreciate it for the fact, like I said, it uh it's just a brilliant, I think it's a really brilliantly constructed musical. And I know it got mixed reviews when it came out. Okay. Um, and it also got a bunch of Tony nominations, but I'm very angry. May I explain to you why I'm angry? It got it got nominations for score, for book, uh, a lot of the actors, a lot of the design. But guess where it did not get a nomination?

[20:22] Kevin David Thomas: Best musical.

[20:24] Robert W Schneider: You're kidding me.

[20:26] Kevin David Thomas: No, and when Chad reminded me of this, I was like, that can't be right. So I looked, I was like, let me look this up. Here were the shows that were nominated this year, that year, which was 2007. Uh Spring Awakening, which won, uh, Curtains, Gray Gardens, and Mary Poppins. I can think of one show, one show that did not get a book or score nomination. They got nominated for best musical. And I am sorry, a flying woman and a big house does not a best musical make.

[20:58] Robert W Schneider: Does to those Disney producers, though.

[21:01] Kevin David Thomas: Noah, no offense. I I find Legally Blonde to be 10 times more engaging than Mary Poppins.

[21:08] Robert W Schneider: And I'm so sorry. Some of those shows that are on there, I'm like, how did you get on this list? And Legally Blonde did not.

[21:14] Kevin David Thomas: Yes, I said it. One show, I will not, I'm not gonna say anything.

[21:17] Robert W Schneider: I'm gonna say one show had a really fantastic act two. Didn't have to see act one.

[21:24] Kevin David Thomas: And there was another show on there. I'm not gonna- that's all I'm gonna say.

[21:27] Robert W Schneider: That's all I'm gonna say.

[21:29] Kevin David Thomas: That's all I'm gonna say. Act one was so invented.

[21:30] Robert W Schneider: I mean, it was like, yeah. You can all get you can all guess.

[21:33] Kevin David Thomas: You can all guess.

[21:34] Robert W Schneider: Because it can be any of those. Um, and listen, I like I do like all of these shows that are on there. I really do. But I was just like, how did Legally Blonde not make this this grouping?

[21:44] Kevin David Thomas: How didn't Legally Blonde not make it?

[21:45] Robert W Schneider: No, it was weird. And I think that the industry, I remember because I was I mean, I was here in New York, obviously at that time and working. I I feel like the industry didn't want to like it. Do you know you know those shows that come to town on you and you can you just get the feeling that the industry is like, oh no, this isn't this isn't our Broadway theater?

[22:01] Kevin David Thomas: It's that's too entertaining.

[22:04] Robert W Schneider: Do you mean like uh for example, where there's only one available original score for a musical that could be nominated for a Tony Award, and they say no, we're not gonna nominate that one original score that's possible for a Tony Award?

[22:17] Kevin David Thomas: Is that what you mean?

[22:18] Robert W Schneider: Yeah, or could you possibly maybe talk a little bit earlier where we go?

[22:23] Kevin David Thomas: Well, just because this show is about a sponge, we won't give this person the Tony Award because he plays the sponge, but let's give it to this other person.

[22:31] Robert W Schneider: Ass off who that yesterday because that you know Trump's trying to claim states, and I said, Well, good. Can Ethan Slater claim his Tony Award now? Because Ethan, take your Tony Award back.

[22:42] Kevin David Thomas: Because Ethan, that is your Tony Award.

[22:46] Robert W Schneider: I love Tony Shalhoub, but Tony, you need to send it to you, you.

[22:50] Kevin David Thomas: You need to send it to Ethan.

[22:50] Robert W Schneider: You got Mrs. Mazel. You don't even have a full song.

[22:54] Kevin David Thomas: You got Mrs. Mazel.

[22:55] Robert W Schneider: Why do why do you gotta take all the good stuff and you're so funny on Mrs. Mazel?

[22:58] Kevin David Thomas: You can have Monk, you can have Wings, you can have your Emmys, you can even have your female version of the The Odd Couple where you and Louis Stadlin played Latinx characters.

[23:07] Robert W Schneider: We're not gonna talk about that.

[23:08] Kevin David Thomas: Oh my gosh.

[23:09] Robert W Schneider: Let's give the Tony back.

[23:11] Kevin David Thomas: Please, Tony.

[23:12] Robert W Schneider: Tony, please.

[23:13] Kevin David Thomas: Tony, Tony, Tony.

[23:16] Robert W Schneider: I like it.

[23:17] Kevin David Thomas: Stiff.

[23:18] Robert W Schneider: Oh Tony, Tony.

[23:20] Kevin David Thomas: Tony.

[23:21] Robert W Schneider: Wow, this is getting niche, and I love it.

[23:22] Kevin David Thomas: I would encourage everyone, though, to go back, take a take another look at it. Um, and if like if you like it, go where did you watch it?

[23:29] Robert W Schneider: Uh, yes, it is on YouTube. It's Legally Blonde, the Musical Pro Shot MTV.

[23:34] Kevin David Thomas: It's all on YouTube.

[23:36] Robert W Schneider: Great. Um, as one as one long movie. And you know, I'm looking forward to seeing. I would love to see a revival of this. I would love to see a revival where maybe Elle is not cast to look just like um Reese Witherspoon.

[23:39] Kevin David Thomas: I would love to see more diversity in this in this production.

[23:51] Robert W Schneider: Uh, and I think that will happen. But overall, I think it's a fantastic show. I think it is one of those shows where the musical does improve on the movie, although the movie I think is pretty fantastic. Um, and you get to see some really fantastic performances. Uh Christian Borle, I think is an incredible actor and does a really great job. Laura Bell Bundy takes what could easily be a very two-dimensional role and makes it gives it four dimensions. Love seeing Michael Rupert in anything. Andy Carl is brilliant. Like a tiny bit part, and so funny, and just runs away with it. And Orfe, which is, you know, what I really like about Orfe is you're watching somebody who marches to the beat of their own drummer and makes big serious, and that's a positive thing. It makes big, bold, unconventional choices.

[24:35] Kevin David Thomas: And in an age where everyone always tries to imitate someone else, it's so nice to see somebody who is so original.

[24:41] Robert W Schneider: Jennifer Coolidge in the movie does an amazing job of creating the character of Paulette, right? We are if you're like that, she's a funky person too, right?

[24:49] Kevin David Thomas: So she is.

[24:51] Robert W Schneider: And so instead, instead of being like, well, we'll eat which is could they could have easily done well just imitate Jennifer Coolidge because that's what everyone's expecting. They were like, no, well, we'll come up with our own spin on it. And Jen and Orfe does an amazing, amazing job of that.

[25:03] Kevin David Thomas: So Legally Blonde, MTV, that's my favorite thing for the week. It's great escapism. I love it.

[25:10] Robert W Schneider: Fantastic. And it and then listen to the 33-minute cast album, Salad Days, if you want a little more escapism. Before or after you're Legally Blonde.

[25:18] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah. Well, I'm so proud, Kevin, because this week we really kept it positive.

[25:25] Robert W Schneider: Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens.

[25:29] Kevin David Thomas: Bright copper kettles and worn woolen mittens.

[25:34] Robert W Schneider: Brown paper packages tied up with strings.

[25:38] Kevin David Thomas: These are a few of my favorite things.

[25:47] Robert W Schneider: These are a few of my favorite things.