Fifty Million Frenchies Kissing A Lot Of Frogs: About Those Frogs… and Other Animals
In this series of posts, I’ve tried my best to introduce you to the French musical theatre scene and I hope it interested you. This last post, however, will be about a more international topic.
I feel that one of the greatest things when you do theatre is the ability to be silly. In a rehearsal room, you can do anything you want, try things out, or spend twenty minutes inspecting your right big toe or dancing terribly badly. And all this doesn’t matter, because the other people accept it completely. It’s so liberating. Why do we always have to be serious and look respectable? Why are movies and plays written for a children’s audience dismissed as dumb and easy? These restrictions are only limiting our imaginations. Don’t get me wrong: I love tragic, serious, and dark pieces of musical theatre, and I am tired of saying to my family that musical theatre is not just silly, ridiculous and meaningless. But I also believe it’s not wrong for a song or a show to be silly, ridiculous and meaningless. So here is an homage to silliness with 10 animal songs that are brilliantly silly and still fantastically clever.
“Los Pinguinos” (Marcy Heisler/Zina Goldrich):
This love song about penguins makes me cry of laughter every single time! Performed by Jill Abramovitz:
“Velociraptor” (Joe Iconis):
The absurdity of every single line in this song makes it not only funny but also incredibly poetic. Performed by Liz Lark Brown:
“Chanson de l’autruche” (Emilie Jolie, Philippe Chatel):
This song is a really nice homage to Broadway and a song about an ostrich who only dreams of doing tap dance on a New York stage. What more can you ask?
La panthère noire en peluche (Le Soldat Rose, Louis Chedid, Pierre-Dominique Burgaud):
This song is about a black panther cuddly toy that spends its time sleeping, playing, eating, and saying how wonderful its life is.
The One Feather Tail of Miss Gertrude McFuzz (Seussical, Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty)
This playlist was definitely lacking bird characters. So let Miss Gertrude McFuzz break your heart.
“Party Hat” (Joe Iconis):
Another cat song, but what a great one! This song sums up exactly what I feel when I finally have a day without rehearsal for some project. Performed by MK Lawson and Eric William Morris:
“Snoopy” (You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown, Clark Gesner):
This is one of the sweetest songs I’ve ever heard. It never fails to put me in a good mood.
Reluctantly (Monstersongs, Rob Rokicki)
A dragon may not be a real animal but this song is so sweet that I had to put it on the list. Performed by Rob Rokicki:
We can notice some inequalities here: looks like felines are very present (especially with Cats and The Lion King being so popular). Mammals in general are actually used a lot. But fish and insects don’t get represented as much. I know some animals are considered cuter than others, but like the UAPS (Ugly Animals Preservation Society), I firmly believe that everyone deserves their place in the spotlight. Anyone want to write a song about a scorpion?
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