#Bugsy Malone Productions

[genderexamples]

Former gender:

9 y/o gangster who studied how to sit like a man by observing the men at church. Literally the only thing I am missing in this outfit is a fat cigar

[yasminhananis]

josh o’connor trying to get fka twigs attention in school. so real. and also they were in a production of bugsy malone together. like ?!!?

[thislovintime]

In Chicago, October 1983. Photo by Paul Natkin.

“‘I absolutely refused to do those [Monkees] songs for a long time,’ he says. ‘But now I know part of the reason people come is relive their early days. They expect it, and I can’t ask them to share my angst. Besides, they’re really not bad songs.’ […] ‘I had this abstract notion that a band should write and create their own music,’ he says. ‘I wanted to go on doing that, but I met a lot of resistance from the other guys, each for his own reason. The best I could get was the right to play on the albums. It took me a long time to get that straight and accept it with any amount of grace. ‘I was also starting to feel the sting of the accusations of being a plastic group,’ he says, ‘which is like criticizing a horse for not being a deer. The Monkees was a multimedia operation, a single integrated notion of a TV show, records and concerts. I understand John Lennon to have said he wouldn’t want to have tried to do what we did.’ And so Tork abandoned pop stardom but stayed in Los Angeles, dabbling in production and managing singer Judy Mayhan. ‘It didn’t work out,’ he admits. ‘I was very young, I believed that talent was its own reward and its own justification.’ […] ‘[M]y attitude up until two or three years ago was essentially, “It’s my life and I can do what I want so get off of my back." ‘At the same time I was very happy-go-lucky, breezing through life not getting too hung up over anything. That’s what got me the part [on the show]. It was kind of an interesting contrast, and now that I think about it really doesn’t jibe. I chose to profess that (The Monkees( held no attraction for me, but found that it held an attraction I wasn’t aware of.' […] ‘Mike and I call each other from time to time to tell each other jokes. I had a couple of sodas with [Micky] a few months ago, now he’s in London directing the stage version of Bugsy Malone and working in children’s television. And [Davy’s] still performing, as well as riding and breeding horses, something he’s always wanted to do.’ There has, he adds, been serious talk of a real Monkees reunion. ‘But nobody’s going to drop everything to do it, because at this point, it’s not going to rescue anyone. It wouldn’t be something we just throw together. I would demand seriously good new material, and so would Mike. It’d have to be worth our while in terms of money and audience — maybe a tour, a TV special or even a video, which of course Mike would want to have a large hand in.’ But what’s most important right now is credibility, Peter Tork’s credibility. ‘I have musical credentials,’ he says. ‘I want people to know I’m a showman. I don’t want to just remind them of the old days and send them home — I am an entertainer.’” - The Toronto Star, May 3, 1983 (x)

[chronically-chaotic-cryptid]

Hyper-specific poll inspired by real events!

*e.g the General Assembly or Security Council

[severalchain]

Bugsy Malone is a 1976 gangster musical comedy film written and directed by Alan Parker (in his feature film directorial debut). A co-production of United States and United Kingdom, it features an ensemble cast, featuring only child actors playing adult roles, with Jodie Foster, Scott Baio and John Cassisi in major roles. The film tells the story of the rise of "Bugsy Malone" and the battle for power between "Fat Sam" and "Dandy Dan".

OH GOD NOT BUGSY MALONE

[spotsandsocks]

Ok so no one asked but I was thinking about musicals and what I’ve been able to see over the years so I made a list. So this has taken over thirty years and most organised by other people and pretty much always in the cheap seats which are never actually that cheap anyway. I do live close enough to a big city and some big local theatres too so I’m a lucky spot and there’s more than I expected. Under the cut for anyone whose vaguely interested.

Professional Productions

Joseph and his amazing technical raincoat when I was ten - first musical I listened to the cassette (I know!!what’s that?) over and over for years I know pretty much every word

Les Miserables good songs - but like it says miserable

The Lion King it’s was ok but too much like the film to be exciting (sorry)

Frozen missed the first 20 minutes cos got the time wrong - the sets and the dress change are magnificent! Not too much like the film

Hairspray one of my favourites

Waitress had no idea what it was about but I loved it

Hamilton the most expensive tickets I’ve ever bought - took my daughter and her friend because they were obsessed

Chicago (on Broadway for 30th birthday trip)

Blood Brothers made me jump at end and then cry

The King and I with Trixi from call the midwife- amazing production. Cried again

9-5 in the underground theatre of the Savoy which was cool

Bugsy Malone a favourite film from my childhood took my kids

Bombay Dreams had to Google the name cos I’d forgotten seen in early 2000s but it was fantastic

The Rocky Horror Picture Show -dressed up for it when I was at uni very fun. Some people left at intermission not sure what they we’re expecting!

Anything goes or possibly Crazy for you- no memory of it really

Miss Saigon seen it twice, once from ‘the gods’ and couldn’t really see anything.

Guys and Dolls- had Ewan MacGregor in it which is why I went

Wicked reasonably good seats for this one excellent

Local amateur productions

Hairspray

Calamity Jane

Shrek - the strangest thing I’ve ever seen

Oklahoma

Little Shop Of Horrors

Singin in the rain was great and it rained on stage in my local theatre

West side story more than once

Local School Productions

The sound of music

West side story

My fair lady

Grease

Wizard of Oz

And finally Would Like to see

Six

Moulin Rouge booked for sept

Book of Morman

Mamma Mia

Everyone’s talking about Jamie

[nicelytousled]

saw that post that's like 'what time is it and what are you thinking about' and it's currently 23:34 and I am thinking about how it's a shame Claudia never gets to meet Benji because together they could turn about twenty other teenagers into vampires and put on a killer production of bugsy malone

[ginger-snap-talkin-nonsense]

🔥Bugsy Malone

I was in a middle school production of it once lol

[grgie]

thinking about that time i was twelve and backstage of my dance company's production of bugsy malone when i told one of the other dancers that i had just started at an all girls secondary school and she wrinkled her nose and said "isn't that only for lesbians" and at the time i was like no wtf but since graduating literally half the girls in my yeargroup are now some flavour of queer, including myself. like she was right but she didn't have to say it

[stranger-in-a-strange-new-world]

Costume department back at it with another episode of:

Long capes

Men in with low cut shirt

Haircut your mother would look at and say "that is not appropriate for school."

Lapels

Secondly school production of bugsy malone

🌟shiny buttons 🌟

Colour coordination

Lapels: the sequel

[davy-zeppeli]

15 & 30 <3

Hi Jo!!!! 💚💕

15: A song that is a cover by another artist

Probably 'You've Got a Friend' by James Taylor - I had a music box when I was younger that my nan gave to me and I never knew what song it played, until I heard this on a music box website and it clicked. I cried for a solid 5 minutes because it's a song that reminds me of my nan now. Originally by Carole King, but this version is very important to me.

30: A song that reminds you of yourself

Loaded question. I have two I can offer, one nice and one kinda sad:

'Magic' by Pilot - This just reminds me of growing up because I watched the shit out of the Magic Roundabout film. Also I just resonate a lot with the imagery in the song. There's a lost recording out there somewhere of me aged about 5 singing this on my mother's old radio show...

'Ordinary Fool' by Paul Williams - Not only do I uncomfortably feel the lyrics to this one, it also has a sentimental link because it was my character's song to sing when we did Bugsy Malone at school when I was younger. In the end they cut the song from our production and I never got to sing it, but I always think of it as my song because I should have gotten to sing it. I always liked the song, but I think I've connected a lot more with it now.

Thank you Jo!!!!

[taniushka12]

bugsy malone is great its like a primary school production but with a budget of a million dollars

[kattahj]

I finished watching KinnPorsche

Thoughts under a cut so that people who are likely to be upset can scroll by, because to the surprise of no one who read my initial reactions, this isn't a very positive review.

But to the surprise of at least me, it's not entirely negative either.

I kept wondering if it was a comedy. Mainly because some of the comedic bits are actually funny, and some of the dramatic bits are also funny. And while I don't buy the central romance, there was a sense of playfulness to some of the lighter scenes that was fun to watch.

Some of the moments I found funny: The trash fire, the deaths of Big and Ken, Tankhun & Arm going full Home Alone during the final shootout, and actually quite a bit of episode 6.

Then I thought, is it just camp? Is that what it is? What is it about this show that has made it so popular? And why am I, personally, still watching the whole thing?

So I have spent a lot more time trying to make sense of this show than I usually do with stuff I think is kind of shit.

Things KinnPorsche makes somewhat sense as:

A comedy

A LARP

A BDSM roleplay (the VegasPete stuff)

A high school production of Bugsy Malone with more sex and fewer songs

Thing KinnPorsche makes no sense as whatsoever:

A drama where I'm supposed to take any of it seriously.

I just didn't believe any of it. And I think I'm generally pretty good at believing stuff! I believed that Jinta could turn back time, that Win was possessing Lin's body, that White and Black were two different people, and that Uncle Jim was in his late thirties.

But I didn't believe that any of these people were who they said they were. (Except maybe Chay, but admittedly that's an easier role – he's just a teenager with a crush, and most of us have been teenagers with crushes at some point.) I didn't believe that the mafia were mafia, or that the bodyguards were bodyguards. I didn't believe that the people who were supposed to be in love were in love, or that the people who were supposed to be related were related. I didn't believe in their reaction to events, nor in the events themselves, though I still got a bit invested in the melodrama now and again. I certainly couldn't believe the background music.

I kept thinking, why THIS show? If you wanted a high suspense queer Thai drama, 3 Will Be Free was right there. Manner of Death was right there. And now there's Never Let Me Go, Laws of Attraction, and Triage, so there's even less reason.

Then – and this took me ten episodes or so – I thought, but what if you don't want any of that? You don't want to think about stuff like trafficking, organ theft, child murder, government corruption, miscarriage of justice, class issues, homophobia, transphobia, the treatment of sex workers, or the cycle of violence. You don't want to have to worry about getting to care for characters only to watch them die. (Except the hedgehog.) All you want are some sexy mafia tropes, a villain's lair or two, and hot guys making out. You want to watch murder and torture on screen and not feel anything other than mild amusement.

And, well, it's pretty much perfect for that, isn't it?

It just isn't really what I want.

[fabiansociety]

we've been watching these #100MovieMusicals for almost two years now (good lord), and i have to say i personally find a lot less to talk about in the genre that i did with the horror movies. i don't think this is *necessarily* inherent to the format, but I do think it's maybe inherent to the *movie* format. musicals are frequently big productions in ways that horror simply doesn't need to be, and requires actual skills in a way that horror movies don't.

not that creating horror doesn't require skills, but a lot of the horror movies we watched were made by amateur crews starring amateur actors, with bad sound and writing, and not only did that not detract from their effectiveness, it might have enhanced it — carnival of souls is the obvious example there. that's much harder to get away with in a musical; you need people who can sing OR dance OR both and you need songs that are actually good, and those are all skills that take a long more time and focus to develop. you need to record the performances better, you need to light the performances more, it's a lot harder to fall back on a fantastic high concept and a few striking visual images in the same way.

all of that costs money, and money means you end up with a more conservative project — small c conservative, the kind of conservative you get with giant action movies that have to fill seats and can't get risk offending anyone too much. you don't get the multiple layers of subversion and subtext as much, which makes the movies harder to talk about. there was some of that in horror — big budget horror is much more conservative than low budget horror — but the floor is so much higher for musicals.

also also most american movies musicals are white supremacist on a structural level, and while that's interesting as a historical fact, and much more obvious after watching so many of them in sequence like this, it's not as fun to dig into the way unpicking the sweaty sexual anxiety and queerness of horror is. like, by white supremacist, i don't mean that musicals are overtly racist (thought definitely that too, sometimes) but that they are inextricably bound to american minstrelsy traditions in ways that echo through the decades even as the blackface and black performers disappear. like, channing tatum's character in step up is performing blackness in a white body no less than al jolson was in the jazz singer; there's continuity there, the same way there's a continuity between frankenstein and the hitcher, but horror identifies with the oppressed in a way that musicals, generally speaking, do not.

there are definitely peaks and valleys, though. the 1970s were a fantastic decade for downbeat, experimental musicals, and maybe my personal high water mark for the format so far — that run of Fiddler, Willy Wonka, Nashville, Rocky Horror, Sholay, Bugsy Malone, and Saturday Night Fever was incredible, if hard to watch all in a row — and there hasn't been a decade without something interesting to dig into, but i don't get giddy about the saddest music in the world the way i did about the innocents.

[milliesfashionblogunit2]

PROHIBITION

The banning of the manufacturing of alcohol in America

The Prohibition Era began in 1920 when the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which banned the manufacture, transportation and sale of intoxicating liquors, went into effect with the passage of the Volstead Act. Despite the new legislation, Prohibition was difficult to enforce. The increase of the illegal production and sale of liquor (known as “bootlegging”), the proliferation of speakeasies (illegal drinking spots) and the accompanying rise in gang violence and organized crime led to waning support for Prohibition by the end of the 1920s. In early 1933, Congress adopted a resolution proposing a 21st Amendment to the Constitution that would repeal the 18th. The 21st Amendment was ratified on December 5, 1933, ending Prohibition.

The illegal manufacturing and sale of liquor (known as “bootlegging”) went on throughout the decade, along with the operation of “speakeasies” (stores or nightclubs selling alcohol), the smuggling of alcohol across state lines and the informal production of liquor (“moonshine” or “bathtub gin”) in private homes. In addition, the Prohibition era encouraged the rise of criminal activity associated with bootlegging. The most notorious example was the Chicago gangster Al Capone, who earned a staggering $60 million annually from bootleg operations and speakeasies. Such illegal operations fueled a corresponding rise in gang violence, including the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in Chicago in 1929, in which several men dressed as policemen (and believed to be have associated with Capone) shot and killed a group of men in an enemy gang.

Bugsy Malone was a film directed by Alan Parker that highlighted gangs and prohibition in the 20s. The film is based off of true events of gangsters and what happened during this period

Neither the Volstead Act nor the Eighteenth Amendment was enforced with great success. Indeed, entire illegal economies (bootlegging, speakeasies, and distilling operations) flourished. The earliest bootleggers began smuggling foreign-made commercial liquor into the United States from across the Canadian and Mexican borders and along the seacoasts from ships under foreign registry. Their favourite sources of supply were the Bahamas, Cuba, and the French islands of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, off the southern coast of Newfoundland. A favourite rendezvous of the rum-running ships was a point opposite Atlantic City, New Jersey, just outside the three-mile (five-km) limit beyond which the U.S. government lacked jurisdiction. The bootleggers anchored in that area and discharged their loads into high-powered craft that were built to outrace U.S. Coast Guard cutters. Bootlegging was so successful due to the fact that there was only a small amount of coastal guards compared to how far the coast of America is.

[britishassistant]

You can’t tell me that Yuu isn’t a theater/musical freak. I will die on the hill that is Yuu and Yuuken having inside jokes about musicals and the villains scrambling to watch the mentioned musicals so they can understand. Like Poison Queen being teased with Rocky Horror Picture Show, or Riddle having to reconsider his experiments with sentient plants after watching Little Shop of Horrors’ Original Ending. Not to mention Beauty and the Beast for Mallues, and maybe Chicago for Octo Dealer. Idk for the others quite yet, possibly Frozen just Hermès at the expense of Charon whose been listening to let it go FOR THREE WEEKS CHOOSE SOMETHING ELSE PLEASE ORTHO.

Thank you for the ask, dear anon!

My take is a little different— Yuu isn’t the musical kid, though they do enjoy old color musical movies like Singing in the Rain and Bugsy Malone, and ballet performances like The Nutcracker and Rusalka which they would watch with their parents.

Yuuken is.

He minored in theater studies in uni, and adores theater musicals like no other. When he and Yuu roomed together, he took it upon himself to educate them when he discovered they’d never really gotten invested in the theater side of things, so now he and Yuu can fire off Heathers, The Phantom of the Opera, Billy Elliot and Be More Chill themed inside jokes at the drop of a hat.

That, of course, only makes the supervillains even more determined to brush up on their musical history so that Yuuken doesn’t have an edge up over them in the fight for Yuu’s affections.

But would Ortho be able to watch Frozen and hold onto that earworm if Frozen is a product of the Disney corporation and the Disney corporation’s existence is questionable in this AU given that it is the basis for the very fabric of reality?🤔🤔🤔