Pun Salad

They don't make 'em like this anymore. (Well, La La Land, which I liked a lot, but that was, sheesh, eight years ago.)

When I was in Iowa last week, my sister took me to see a small-stage production of The Music Man at the Okoboji Summer Theatre. It was a lot of fun, and I hadn't seen the movie in decades, but I remembered quite a few of my favorite bits: the mayor's daughter saying "Ye Gods!", the mayor's wife saying "Balzac"; Harold Hill's wonderful patter; and early on, the song sung by the townspeople (which turns out to have a name: "Iowa Stubborn"), with my favorite lyric:

Never fails to bring a smile to my face.

And there's something special about seeing The Music Man in Iowa, a mere 117 miles away from Mason City, Meredith Wilson's inspiration for River City. (Thank you, Google Maps.)

Anyway, that caused me to do a rare DVD checkout from the Portsmouth Public Library, so I could compare and contrast. Each had its special qualities.

The stage company did a great job, but they didn't even try to duplicate the movie's "76 Trombones" finale; that would have been daunting.