Shonky Showtunes Moments of Shame
Yes, this is a Showtunes Post. NO, DON’T STOP READING! Today is my birthday! I don’t want no diamond rings. I don’t want a fancy car or even a horse and cart. All I want for my birthday is for YOU to PLEASE read the following and participate in the funtimes at the end. Thankyou!
They’re on your televisions. They’re in your cinemas. They occupy some kind of semi-decent position on the Ladder of Cool. But did you know they have a… Shonky Showtunes Moment of Shame?**
Let’s see…
Victor Garber
A.k.a. Jack Bristow. He personifies manly angst as he strides across your tv in the so-cool-it’s-hot drama ‘Alias’. But did you know he was…
Jesus in the movie of Godspell? Prepare ye the way of his floaty tenor voice, wild ginger afro, and cutting-edge ‘70s wardrobe!
Shonk-o-meter: 8.5/10. Garber delivers, but the movie bites the big one.
Jack Nicholson
“I’m a badass. I’m a smoothy! I’m a bad bad smooth crazy man, look at me!
But did you know I was… 
Partial to a bit of paisley-shirt-action, sitar-strumming and the serenading of Babs Streisand in the movie ‘On a Clear Day You Can See Forever’? They cut my song, but thanks to the magic of the internet, you can listen to my dulcet tones right here!”
Shonk-o-meter:9/10.It's a movie about a reincarnated woman with ESP. And did I mention about the Streisand?
Russell Crowe
Errrgh! Grunt! Beef! Anger! Aussie Bloke! Manly! Punch-Ons! Etc!
But boys and girls, look…
Russell in Australia's 'Rocky Horror Picture Show'!
This role was clearly all about the wearing of tight stonewashed jeans, striped tracky-daks and muscle-man shirts. I'm not really feeling his conviction in that bottom pose, though. And the mob behind him display all the polished sparkle of the Bundoora Heights annual production of 'The Mikado.' Is the guy next to him asleep? And is the one behind him wearing Spock ears?
Shonk-o-meter: 9.5/10. Dance, Russell, Dance! (And .5 for the mullet, ya gibbon.)
Jason Alexander
A quarter of tv ‘s most famous comedy team. But did you know he did…
THIS? You haven't lived till you've seen him dance to 'Put On a Happy Face!'
And earlier in his career - look, Zoe!
It’s musical nuns!
Shonk-o-meter: 8/10. Pretty shonktastic, Jase.
Sarah Jessica Parker
is known for being a style maven. You know, manolos, pashminas, newsboy hats and other things that careless girls like me don’t really understand (I mean, what the hell is a ‘baguette bag’ anyway? Or a ‘maven’ for that matter?). However, she was not always thus. Did you know she was…
Annie on Broadway? Here she is with Yul Brynner's bizarro-world twin. Although you could argue that even then she was maven-ing it up, with the guy who played Miss Hannigan totally ripping off the cut of her wig for himself. Biatch!
Shonk-o-meter: 6/10. No doubt she was adorable, so 5 points for the hair, and 1 for the collar.
Paul McCrane
played arrogant, Robert ‘Rocket’ Romano to one-armed, scene-stealing perfection on 'ER'. But did you know he was…
Montgomery in the classic ‘80s movie 'Fame'? From cute, gay and vulnerable, to angry one-armed and weird. Now that's range!
Shonk-o-meter: 7.5/10. The movie is, as they say, a cult classic, but— Paul, is that a fez on your head? The fuck?
Jodie Foster
Ocsars, Intelligence, Acclaim, the Fluent Speaking of French, etc. Freakishly good as a kiddy prostitute in Taxi Driver, but did you know…
She also slutted it up for the screen musical 'Bugsy Malone’? Good Lord, can you say bedroom eyes? She was 14!!
Shonk-o-meter - 8/10. The kids mime along to adults singing. It’s creepy. Jodie is again a hooker (implied) with totally jailbait lyrics. Plus extra points for starring Scott Baio.
Um. Here's where I was going to include some shonky photos of a young, tap-dancing Catherine Zeta-Jones. But then I realised it would be more of a challenge to find a moment from her past that WASN'T shonky. Gold-digging Welsh bogan. Bah!
B.D. Wong 
SVU fans know him as the icily intelligent Dr Huang. However, did you know he was...
A lispy, blanket-sucking Linus in 'You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown?' Yes, REALLY.
Shonk-o-meter: 7/10. I like this show. But go here and listen to ‘My Blanket and Me’. SVU will never be the same.
And finally, Buffy fans - beware. You know Anthony Head as earnest librarian Giles, he of the uptight manner and perennially wrinkled brow.
But as 1.0 would say, lady fans, compose thyselves, for did you know he was…
Frank-n-Furter in the West End version of Rocky Horror some time in the ‘80s? (Possibly the first Frank'n'Furter ever to look like the bastard love child of Brownwyn Bishop and a Klingon.)
Shonk-o-meter: OFF. THE. FREAKING. RADAR!!!
The Jelly Verdict
And aided by extra points he earns for gadding about the West End as recently as last year looking like this...
Sorry, Anthony - you are our winner!
Right, so now it’s your turn. Your birthday present to me will be to share your own Shonky Showtunes Moments of Shame!
Come on. ‘Fess up. It might have been a school play, a rock eisteddfod or the panto at the annual church picnic. There are so many bloggers who are prone to theatrics, hyperbole, show-offery and 'acting the goat' that I refuse to believe there is not some shonk among us.***
Were you the slut in West Side Story, or Peter Pan, or the third tree from the right in Sherwood Forest? If this post proves anything its that Shonky Showtunes Shame can be found in the most unlikely places – heck, maybe Joel Parsons belted his heart out as the lead in Pippin or Desci was a snowflake in the Nutcracker before she, uh, drifted.
Hey, some people have virtual spa parties, and some… really don’t. I’m turning old today. Allow me my fun.
**Shonky Showtunes Moment of Shame - The Rules: Showtunes moment should not be too recent. It should not feature anyone who is actually well known for their showtunes work. It should ideally feature some kind of embarrassing costume or hairstyle. It should be the kind of Moment where upon seeing it you gasp, ‘Oh my god, is that so-and-so in a unitard?’
***It must be actual shonk. If you had real talent and got paid for it, it doesn’t count!
Oh, and in case there’s some humourless showtunes fan out there dipping their… fingers into their poisoned… uh, keyboards (that analogy doesn’t really work for computers, does it?), can I have it on record that this is a JOKE and I am the hugest fan ever of this shit so don’t go leaving any irate comments about me slagging off musicals, ok?
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34 comments:
The pressure is incredible . . .
I log on, and find that not only have I been linked to, but I have to divulge shonky showtunes of the past.
From Kindergarten until I was 13 or 14, I was in pretty much every school play & Christmas musical there was. As a result, they all blur into one big mush.
However, the one which will probably come back and haunt me is the 1994 home video tape of me singing some incredibly high pitched solo about the baby Jesus - I could not sing at all, I think I was just the only kid dumb enough to volunteer . . .
We didn't even own a VCR back then, but my Mum was so proud she still got a copy off of a family who not only had a VCR but also a video camera.
I was 7. End of year school concert. I didn't actually sing the song. It was just a tape of Froggy Went a Courtin' and as the story unfolded kids would come onstage in costume and act out the lyrics.
I played a chicken who ate too much cake at the wedding reception.
I came on wearing a yellow papier-mache chicken head and pretended to eat lots of cake and then throw up - live on stage!
This wasn't shonky at all however but rather Rock, since it was 1972 and therefore my vomiting on stage was fully contemporaneous with Iggy Pop.
Happy 24th Miss Jelly!
PS: that first picture of Anthony Head as Frankenfurter will haunt me forever.
Happy birthday Jelly
And SWEET JAYSUS. What a classic post. :) I knew about Messrs. Head and Alexander, but the one of B. D. Wong as Linus is fucking CRACKING ME UP.
Shonkiness: I was playing Mary in the grade two Nativity play/musical thingy, and we did four performances, and in three of them I FORGOT TO PICK UP THE STUPID JESUS DOLL. Fortunately I remembered for the one we did at the old folks' home.
And then I went and did theatre at matric. Haw haw.
I have been thinking about this post ALL afternoon. For one I keep admiring your internet research skills for tracking down such obscure parts for those actors particularly that guy on Alias! Then I thought I have nothing to fess up - I was an angel with my sister in a nativity play age 5 - we fought the whole time. But what about you Jelly - you MUST have something to fess up too, such a fan of the musical genre surely you were an active participant in some musical some time in the past.
Nice post Jelly! And a happy happy birthday!
That picture of SJP in Annie is so great. The dog cleary stands out as the most attractive.
No showtunes story but I did have to swing my thing on stage with 120 odd 12 year old girls in a giant white frilly mass batmitzvah ceremony. It was all about the song and dance, very light on the religion.
I also played the part of "Pearl" in Summer of the Seventeenth Doll to critical acclaim. The whole audience laughed uproariously everytime I opened my mouth, which put me off greatly as I was sure I wasn't playing a comic role.
What a wonderful idea! I'll link to it worthwith...
As for my Shonky Showtunes Moments of Shame, well... where to start?
Chronologically?
I was 6, we were in a Club Med for two weeks in the summer, Greece or Corsica or something equally hot and dry and salty. My parents liked the vacation from my brother and I, I suspect. We kids put on a production of "the Frogs", not bad for French kids, eh? I was the starring role, and I didn't show up! I was in the audience, sitting next to me mum, eagerly awaiting the entrance of the main character, and had not realized that I was the one supposed to walk on stage. Ooops. At least the Shonky Frogboy costume was easy to slip on over my bathing suit.
After that, once we'd moved to the US, we had yearly school plays, which tended to be sedate (12 angry men, you know) except one production of a King Arthur written by the teacher, in which I got to be a Conan-like dimwitted muscle-bound axe-wielding barbarian. I was supposed to count to three and of course, made a five minute production out of it. Little kiddies in the audience would join in with me. My moment of glory.
Sadly, no pictures.
Happy Birthday, Jelly!
In hindsight it was pretty shonky but I thought I did a good job of it at the time. I've been Billy in ANYTHING GOES and HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSON for the Red Cliffs Musical Society. Mildura is a small town and one had to fill the time somehow.
I can still belt out a Cole Porter tune when called upon.
You'll be appalled to know that I posted about the Jason Alexander fiasco way back in December 2002. Of course I didn't know what it was at the time and just let rip with the sort of uninformed waffle and unbridled passion that marked the early days of TSP.
Adam 1.0
Hahah! Doing well so far bloggers. I am very very excited. I am especially thrilled by Bruce (a.k.a. 'Trey') - I am a big Cole Porter fan and 'Anything Goes' was the first show I ever saw. You'd be so easy to love, Trey!
The only one to let me down so far is 1.0, from whom I expected some high-larious story of self-embarrasment. Come on, 'goat.'
Oh, and Lushlife - I have sooo many moments to choose from, how can I pick just one? But since you insist. Um.
I'm going to go for my role as a dancer in 'Guys and Dolls' when I was 15. My friends and I had to strip to lacy underwear for the 'Take Back Your Mink' number, something we all made a horrendous fuss about at the time, but when I think back to the skinny wonders that were our early teen bodies I can't believe we didn't tear them off with glee and shimmy like mad things. Regrets, I've had a few.
Also, I was somewhat in love with one of the male dancers and would constantly try and edge closer him while we performed. The result was that he accidently punched me in the eye mid-gesture, knocking me flat on my back and giving me a nasty shiner. Yeah, I was a natural talent, all right.
What the fuck?
Victor Garber is supposed to be Jesus?
It looks like Richard Simmons fucked a Care Bear.
As for myself, I got to do the loin-cloth thing at high school on stage playing the servant in South Pacific (considering I'd also put the sound together for the whole thing I thought it was a bit much to ask at the time..).
They wanted to put me in blackface, too, ffs.. I wouldn't have a bar of it at first, but caved in at the last minute and compromised.. it was more, err, beige-face than black-face though, being a pale bastard and all.
Then after being reluctant to even be involved in the going-on-stage bit, I proceeded to spend the whole time trying my darndest to up-stage the poor dude playing Emile.
Fake polynesian-french accents are something I loath to this day.
Before I turned on the performing arts with a vengeance I was forced into a fiasco of a Grade 3 play. In a turn that says everything about me I can't even remember what the play was called but I can remember that it was the night Melbourne didn't win the Olympics and was held at Hawthorn Town Hall.
My main/only contribution was to run on, dance with some girl for a couple of minutes in a wanky chorus line of annoying children and then piss off again. The controvery was that she was supposedly the sex symbol of our class and all the guys were dying to dance with her. Naturally I didn't actually care for such objectification of women at an early age (either that or I was totally set to be gay until I discovered pr0n) and ended up causing serious bitterness amongst the boys of Grade 3 at St. Josephs Primary School, Hawthorn. 1990 - what a shit year.
The only other notable performance related fiasco I can recall was a band concert in grade 6 where I was given the piss easy task of playing the bass drum and still managed to mess it up by dropping the stick. Thankfully nobody noticed but I was on my hands and knees belting the thing with my hand while I looked for it. I eventually found it just as the piece finished. We left the stage and the idiot music teacher then proceeded to knock said drum off stage and into a wall. She even did a "drum roll" gag afterwards. Farcical. Not having to attend this sort of shit is yet another perk to not breeding.
Adam 1.0
P.S - This is the biggest comment I've ever let rip with. Feel honoured.
When I was in the Hospital Repertory Society's production of The Pajama Game...
Do I really need to go on? Is there a shonkier opening line? I don't think so...
Hmmm, ok, when I was in the Hospital Repertory Society's production of The Pajama Game we had the typical amateur theatre finale&bows - the reprise of Seven and a Half Cents and the title song - when of course we would all file onto the tiny stage and "sing" and "dance" in our PJs.
So this one night, inexplicably, my tasteful red nightshirt was missing. And by "inexplicably" I mean because I left it at home because I'm an idiot.
Now, I'm not fat but I'm not actually skinny either. How to explain... Imagine you're making a 6ft vaguely man-shaped loaf of bread. You've kneaded the dough and it's just started to rise. Now put it in knee-length white-with-little-red-hearts "Valentine's Day" stretch cotton boxer shorts. Throw in some stage lighting and a sash that reads "Prez" and there you have it: my moment of glory.
So, um.... If you need me, I'll be in my trailer.
Happy birthday, MMWAHHHHxxxx
happy belated birthday Jellyfish.
i was lead star in joseph and his technicolour dream coat.
ahem... and when i say lead star. i mean i was one of four grade 1er's that carried a ginormous carboard star and had fairy lights in our hair. but i was the lead!
yeah, i know sad ain't i?
PS: Zeldzame tapirgeboorte in de Zoo
Happy birthday Jelly.
No musicals, I'm afraid, but I did make a rather impressive Lady Bracknell at the uni college production of The Importance of Being Earnest. My delivery of "A handbag!" just knocked 'em dead, even if I do say so myself.
And here is a little
Sarah Michelle Gellar themed present for you.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY JELLY!!!
I'll even forgive the raping of Giles' memory. Sigh.
Ok, here are the more memorable ones:
* kinder nativity play. I WAS a christmas tree, I threw a tantrum and got to be Mary. heh. (What? my then 'boyfriend' Nicholas was playing Joseph!)
* Grade 4 or 5 school play, I was Mrs Darling in Peter Pan, but my 1337 homemade constume made me look like the wrestler from days of olde, the Ultimate Warrior* Year 10, fat old moustache-toutin' spat wearin' italian man, Pietro Checci. My accent was horrendous.
* Year 11, Musical, annie get your gun. Chorus line, bit parts as a dirty old man and a drunk.
Haunting, isn't it? xo
Well, you wrote and insisted I come back here and do this.
I, an attention seeking only child Leo, have hundreds of utterly shonkmeistric moments.
I won a beautiful baby contest at about 14 mths.
Played air guitar to Metallica while fake blood spewed from my mouth in front of Jesuits in Yr 11.
Balked at playing romantic role in Antigone in yr 12 drama because unstated reason was fear I'd get a constant boner from extended scenes cuddled up to Becky Tibbets- our class hotstuff who didn't wear underwear.
Tripped getting onstage for Uni Battle of Bands and landed on shin, splitting it open and dropping stuff everywhere. Played gig with blood soaking through jeans, over boot onto stage. Pulled off two awesome screams!
Won "Dumbest Question" award in Court Chrissie party for asking Judge: Is your honour concerned that YOU might be the parent of this child?"
Did a duet on Billie Jean with a drunk Fijian dude- in Fiji. Pretty much emptied the bar.
And worst of all, forgot the words to an original I wrote when I played it 2 weeks ago at an open mike night...
Ahem. Only because you asked me to come here, young lady....
Well, I had vague memories of being involved in some sort of sing song musical thingo in Year Four involving a large book and coloured shirts.
So I just Googled what I remembered and it turns out I was in a frickin religious play called Psalty's Christmas Calamity. In the play, there was singing and dancing and I got to fold laundry with one of the two school studs who grew up to be a short, stumpy little thing with excessive back hair and a drinking problem. So there you go.
There was also a SECOND (I hope, or this Christmas pageant thingo was freakish) musical where I can't remember WHAT role I played, but had to sing the lines "Beef jerky! Beef jerky! It's a wonderful food, you can eat it!"
Other stage 'moments' include
- being an effiminate cooking show presenter in year five
- being jessica fletcher in an overcoat (ho ho ho, because my name is JESSICA) in year six
- being a maniacal, violent hairdresser who mimed ABBA's Mamma Mia in year eight (on career's day, inexplicably)
And ummm... that's all I can remember. Nothing like Godspell or Rocky Horror, alas. And I generally sucked.
"I just Googled what I remembered"
Imagine what *that* site's Google referrer's are:
'Gaylord kiddie Jesus musical with huge books and colourful shirts'
'Wiggles-meets-Neverending-Story musical for young psalm-lovers'
'Junior showtunes characters fold laundry for God'
Devestated there's a Christian musical I don't know. I must produce it myself. I can't wait.
Happy boithday Jelly-oir!
I'm going to print that picture of Giles as Frankenfurter and then say to my Buffy obsessed friend 'Hey, check this out.' and then show him, and spoil the memory of the Giles-man forever, and laugh evily, for I am an evil twin and we do that kind of thing.
Speaking of the Rocky Horror Picture Show, half the teachers at my primary school were gay and performed the 'Timewarp' every year without fail at the school play.
Best. School. Ever.
Jelly, happy birthday, I hope your rellies gave you lots of gold 104 tshirts and bunnings vouchers and jesus clocks. x mallrat
The Shonk is on it's way. I have done a lotta performing. I will look for a good embarrassing pic.
Happy birthday, J.
I want to share, I really do, but I can't think of any moments that suffice.
This is because I was a crap actor, and once I stopped being small and cute I didn't even get chorus parts as completely covered-up aliens any more.
Then I joined the lighting crew, until one fateful night I pressed a mysterious button on the console and plunged the whole Hall into 45 minutes of darkness in a rehearsal for West Side Story or Amadeus or something.
Sigh.
Heh, Catherine Zeta-Jones?
http://www.theage.com.au/ffxImage/urlpicture_id_1050777341211_2003/04/24/zeta,0.jpg
She was also engaged to John Leslie. Make of that what you will.
Heh, Catherine Zeta-Jones?
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/jones.jsrpages/pics2/2cjspartacus.jpg
She was also engaged to John Leslie. Make of that what you will.
Mr Glammer, welcome aboard, but Catherine Shonk is all too easy to find! I want Blogger Shonk!
Thanks for visiting none the less.
Oh, I have a trevor trove of shonk. Much of it relates to wardrobe malfunctions during the intensely camp lip-synching competition we had through high school.
Year 7: me and Emah perform "The Man I Love". She was the singer. I (aged 12) was the man she loved. People laughed when I came onstage.
Year 8: I did "I Should Be So Lucky" wearing a lime-green tube miniskirt with no underpants. It kept rolling up precariously. Not sure if the audience saw my other lips synching. I also had ill-fitting shoes, one of which went flying across the stage during my spectacular final high-kick. I was too embarrassed to go back on and get it.
Year 9: I did "Mickey" by Toni Basil, dressed as a cheerleader with my friends as my backing dancers. We hadn't rehearsed so they just ran around like headless chickens with pompoms. I was wearing my netball skirt inside out (because it had patches sewn on it) but the fastening obviously didn't work so I had to fasten it with the only readily available object - a paperclip.
I could feel my skirt coming undone during the song and, rather than have it fall off, I decided to rip it off, whirl it round my head and throw it into the audience. The (almost entirely female and teenage) audience whooped and cheered like horny US Marines.
(But wait, there's more...)
Year 10: I thought it would be really funny to do "Humping Around" by Bobby Brown... dressed as a camel. The best I could do was get three friends, strap pillows to our backs, drape brown blankets over and wear brown tights, and then make the world's shonkiest puppet camel heads out of icecream containers the night before.
Of course the blankets started slipping off, revealing the arse of the German exchange student I'd roped into being the back end of my camel.
Year 11: sliding around on top of a piano, Fabulous Baker Boys style, to Sarah Vaughan's "Darn That Dream" and flirting with my pianist, played by my longsuffering friend Fiona who'd been a camel the year before...
You know when I think about all this it's a miracle I'm not gay.
Year 12: I was in two acts. First a bunch of us did "Fame". We had this move where we were supposed to run into the centre of the stage, meshing into one straight line, and jumping into the air on the "Fame!" line. Except I smashed into my friend Lynda.
Then we did a Channel 9 run during the guitar solo, except I was wearing stockings and fell over on my arse right at the front of the stage.
The second act was me by myself doing Jane Russell's "Ain't There Anyone Here For Love?" from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. I managed not to humiliate myself any more, if you don't count mouthing lines like: "I like big muscles and red corpuscles/I like a beautiful hunk of man"
God, this is the tip of the iceberg, but I feel I can't omit last year's Fringe Festival fiasco, where during my rap show I ended up simulating fellatio on an audience member and then turned around wiping my mouth.
Oh, I just remembered after all this magnificence sparked a little reverie.
I won the pretend roller skating competition in 4th class. Howzat!
Pretend roller skating? Good lord. And you think schools that subject the kids to nuns with guitars are bad!
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