Posts Tagged ‘Avenue Q lyric contest’

Larry O'Connor

Broadway’s ‘Avenue Q’ Follows Obama’s Marching Orders

by Larry O'Connor

avenueq

Back in February, my Big Hollywood colleague and super-funny-dude Tim Slagle wrote a series of posts on the Broadway musical “Avenue Q”.  The show was going through a mini-crisis/publicity stunt because one of the big punch lines to the song “For Now” was no longer valid:

A song called “For Now” has the puppets reassure each other that most things in life are temporary, like hair and sex. Until recently, one of those temporary things was “George Bush.” Knowing that Obama was to be shortly inaugurated, the producers and writers were perplexed for a replacement. I know it should be obvious to everyone else, but Broadway producers don’t think like you and I. So they threw a contest to decide a better verse.

Two weeks later, Slagle followed up with the big announcement of the new lyric: (more…)

Tim Slagle

‘Avenue Q’ Can’t Get Over George Bush

by Tim Slagle

What do you do when you lose a punchline? While Will Ferrell and Robin Williams try to squeeze every last joke out of an administration that left office over a month ago, Late Night hosts struggle to find something funny about the new guy. (In other news, Rich Little is still doing an impression of Richard Nixon.)

Two weeks ago, I did a story about how the Broadway show “Avenue Q” held a contest to find a lyric as funny as “George Bush is only for now.” Calls to the theater assured me that keeping the lyric Presidential wasn’t even an option. Your Mother in Law, This Show, Prop. 8 and Recession were the lines the producers were hoping to pay off. (more…)