My fourteen-year-old is preparing to audition for ‘Grease’, and since she’s a nervous hummer/whistler/singer-under-her-breath, I’ve come to realize how incredibly catchy all the songs in that movie are. (Also how creepy Kenickie is, though she has replaced the line “Did she put up a fight?” in ‘Summer Lovin’ with “Did she call the police?” which never fails to crack us both up.) Still, the question of whether it’s the catchiest musical of all is a tough one, what with ‘The Major General Song’ and that one Kristy MacNicol pirate movie, leading to today’s understudy query…
The MS-QOTD (pronounced, as always, “misquoted”) had most of the libretto of ‘Rent’ stuck in my head for about a year-and-a-half, asking: What song-and-dance-style show is overall the catchiest musical of all?
6 Comments
I’m really not a musical guy, but one I at least remember well is Saturday Night Fever. Unless Michael Jackson music videos count as musical.
Well, you said it had to be song and dance, so that knocks out a lot. Song and dance? Look no further than Top Hat!
It’s got choreography from Hermes Pan and Astaire, great songs by Irving goddamn Berlin, and ostrich feathers!
Really, I picked it for the Cheek to Cheek ostrich feathers.
Catchy? Top Hat and Cheek to Cheek aren’t just catchy. They’re standards!
Did I mention Edward Everett Horton…
I’m gonna go with another one full of Berlin songs. It’s really the only “Christmas” movie I enjoy (maybe because it has a whopping 1 Christmas song in it!). But, White Christmas. The songs, the dancing, the costumes…it’s all great!
I’m a Holiday Inn guy, but Berlin is always welcome here!
Possibly because I love the show and was once the lead, I say Godspell.
Speaking as a musician who has done many shows doing everything there is to do, I would say Annie or Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Sir ALW has a way of getting a song stuck in your head.
I blame my wife for this: Mamma Mia. Abba songs are catchy to begin with. Line them all up in a row and finish with a full-cast rendition of Waterloo? That’s a recipe for magic.