Even though A Whole New World won the best song oscar for 1992, it’s not my favorite song by far from the movie (One Jump Ahead, Prince Ali, and the Prince Ali Reprise (the only time Jafar sings) are all clearly ahead).

The thing that always annoys me when the song comes up is in the following line:

Unbelievable sights
Indescribable feeling

…You just described the feeling as indescribable! This feeling wasn’t as indescribable as first advertised, was it, Jasmine?

I really do wonder if this would’ve annoyed me before I’d read Gödel, Escher, Bach, though.

I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is called a disgrace, two become a law firm, and three or more become a congress.

I have become known to many as the gayest heterosexual male history has ever known; In fact, several of my good friends are still waiting for me to cease this whole “womanizing” thing and finally come out of the closet.

The fact that I love musicals doesn’t help my case much.

One of my very favorite musicals is 1776, which is a creative/humorous retelling of the debate leading up to the declaration of independence.

1776 features John Adams as the irate underdog trying to rally a lethargic congress to get off it’s ass and declare war openly (a war which was already well underway, just not sanctioned officially). Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson are the supporting leads, Franklin being the comic relief and wise sage character rolled into one, and Jefferson being the also-protagonist foil to Adams (Adams keeps browbeating Jefferson even though they are allies in cause.)

There’s so much about this musical I’m totally gay for. There are founding fathers acting lewd (mostly Franklin) and drunk (mostly Stephen Hopkins of Rogue Island). There are biting exchanges of insults between the opposing camps, usually with a really wonderful current of mutual respect (excepting for Mr. Adams. Poor Johnny.) There are empassioned appeals to freedom and personal responsibility and a genuine sense of real patriotism (ah, but for the days when we fought for things that weren’t just good, but made sense.)

And there are also silly rhymes and catchy innuendo-laden tunes.

In the original Broadway production, John Adams was played by William Daniels (who you probably know better as Mr. Feeny, from Boy Meets World, or the voice of KITT in the original Knight Rider). In a much more recent 1997 revival of the play, Brent Spiner (who you probably know better as Lt. Commander Data) played the role. Awesome, but second string, actors playing the man who would become the first awesome, but second string, US president.

Oh, and there’s a song about slavery. Stay classy, 1776!

Through the wonders of the internet, I’ve found a listing of all upcoming venues where it’ll be playing! Sadly, this doesn’t appear to be an RSS-enabled listing, so I’ll have to feed it into my ancient page-pinging system to keep tabs on promising, nearby productions.