#and that rhymes with P and that stands for pool

[gwydionae]

Anyone have that post about "you ask for better female characters but you couldn't even handle Katara" because after two episodes of the live action, I feel like I need to send it to the writers.

[wraith-of-thiodolf]

can you play any casino games and are you any good at them?

i mean lot of casino games dont need much skill (e.g. pachinko) but ive played poker and im not abysmal. decent at pool, which counts if you ask some folks

[baylardo]

based and cringe janeway music man fan pilled

[socksandsandals17]

Spend my days wasting away

Potential for greatness thrown out

Watching the water ebb and flow

In hope for my chance to grow

~~Katelyn

[dogesterone]

Trouble! And that starts with T and that rhymes with P and that stands for Pool!

[thelastspeecher]

I've been meaning to make this post for a while and I'm finally getting around to it.

In my humblest of opinions, "Ya Got Trouble" from The Music Man is one of the finest musical songs in history. Does it have the most swelling melody, wild harmonies, and an insane finish? No, but a song doesn't need those to be good. And in fact, how good it is despite lacking those traits just further proves how well it was written.

The most distinctive aspect of the song, something that we see a lot in The Music Man, is that there isn't actually a huge amount of singing. It does have music the entire time; the orchestra is chugging along quite excellently. But most of the song is rapid-fire speaking in a slightly sing-song manner. Rhyming doesn't really kick in until near the end, when there's proper singing. This doesn't make the song less engaging, however. In my opinion, this makes the song more interesting. Sometimes, proper musical songs can be boring. If you've listened to enough of them, you can predict the melody or the lyrics. But you can't do that with "Ya Got Trouble", because it doesn't have rhyming or much melody.

Tied into the sing-song speaking is the fact that it is a very difficult piece to perform from a technical standpoint! The speaking has to be at a specific pace and tone that takes a LOT of work. I've heard the song a million times and even memorized much of the lyrics, but the only parts of the song I can reliably perform along with when listening are when it slows down. Harold Hill is talking FAST. But he also has to be CLEAR. Combining speed, enunciation, and acting takes practice and skill.

Despite the singing not kicking in until the end, there's still a sort-of chorus, and it's the part that people who've heard the song know best. "Trouble with a capital T and that rhymes with P and that stands for pool!" It's so dang memorable and distinctive. The wording in general is done so well. It really does come off as it's supposed to: a conman playing to his audience until he has them eating out of his hands.

In addition, while a lot of the song contains cultural references that can be difficult for modern-day audiences to catch (the musical was written in 1957 and takes place in 1912), the general message still comes across incredibly well. You don't need to have heard of "Captain Billy's Whiz Bang" before to understand that it's some joke book full of "inappropriate" content for kids, because the song provides the context. With how many specific cultural references there are in the song, it's no small feat that the song is still intelligible.

Finally, and I'll admit this is a bit of a personal thing here, but when the singing does kick in near the end it's in the classical musical style. Nothing against the sound of modern musicals, but I do so enjoy the classical style you hear in pieces like Annie Get Your Gun, The Music Man, and The Sound of Music. Timeless harmonies and melodies.

[creature-wizard]

This song is a perfect illustration of how moral panics are sown.

Harold Hill wants to sell a product, but there's no market for it. So he creates one by fabricating a problem out of thin air. He proclaims that the pool table is a slippery slope to moral degradation. He claims that ordinary child behavior is proof that their society is already degrading. He presents himself as Just A Concerned Citizen and appeals to people's vanity ("now, I know that all of you folks are the right kind of parents!"). He creates connections that are absolute nonsense ("you got trouble with T and that rhymes with P and that stands for pool!"), but he's so charismatic that everyone just accepts them.

Of course, the pool table isn't a problem, and Harold Hill knows it. He just wants to make a profit. And so he sows a moral panic in order to make what he's offering seem impossible to turn down.

Political reactionaries do the same thing. They find anything and claim it's going to ruin society, that society's already in the process of being ruined, and if you want to stop it, you have to buy into what they're offering: fascism.

[aparticularbandit]

it is somehow already wednesday again? i'm gonna request Harximoff Music Man cause i have to know if you mean 'ya got trouble right here in river city 'music man

WIP Wednesday Game

....

Trouble with a capital T and that rhymes with P and that stands for pool, you say?

(I do indeed mean that Music Man! ...and our Agatha as Harold Hill is still on the train at the very beginning. Let me have this I love it so much already.)

Someone shoves into the seat next to Agatha – shoves her with the warm press of a hand on her arm – just as the train car starts to slow, to rattle and shake in that way that means they’re coming to a stop and, more importantly, means she’s going to feel nauseous and uncomfortable again, and Agatha startles awake, jumps, holds her briefcase tighter to her chest, pulls her hat a little more firmly down about her ears.  “Something the matter, dear?”  Her blue eyes glance up to the same man as before as he twirls the edge of his moustache around one finger again.  Something inside her clenches even tighter, and she tries not to grit her teeth.

“Just didn’t get your name, that’s all.”  The man removes his finger from his moustache and holds out his hand.  “Hayward.  Tyler Hayward.  I’m in the business of anvils.  Never know when you’re gonna need a good anvil.”

“Unless you’re a blacksmith, you’ll never ‘need a good anvil’, dear,” Agatha mutters under her breath.  She notes the way he raises one eyebrow and forces herself to smile.  “Didn’t get my name because I didn’t offer it, stranger.”  Her voice drops and becomes as husky as she can make it, as though if she tries hard enough he might mistake her for a man.  She nods past him.  “And this is my stop.”

Hayward stares at her, chuckles a bit.  “Westview?  New Jersey?  You’re really going to stop there, friend?”

You’re no friend of mine.

[spaceorphan18]

Oh we got trouble!

Right here in River City!

With a capital "T" and that rhymes with "P" and that stands for pool!

[dapurinthos]

thought of a title, didn't write the title down, forgot the title. so i ported in the apparently 23 311 words i had put into about seven different googledocs and ended up with:

in just over four months, which includes the 8000 words i know i'll be cutting (at the least).

absolutely devastated i can't port in the joke from angel of 'we have trouble with a capital t that rhymes with p that stands for prophecy' riffing off of the music man (wherein the word is pool) because trill doesn't rhyme with peth.

did make a height chart for the 33 - 32bby-era chapters and it's really kinda hilarious. thanks, claudia grey, for telling us that rael barely reaches qui-gon's shoulder, that's fantastic.

[wraith-of-thiodolf]

i miss playing pool

[fagtron2000]

Guys, if your man

Re-buckles his knickerbockers BELOW the knee

Has a nicotine stain on his index finger

Has a dime novel hidden in the corn crib

Starts to memorize jokes from Cap'n Billy's Whiz Bang

Has certain words creeping into his conversation like "SWELL" or "SO'S YOUR OLD MAN"

That's not your man, that's Trouble (with a capital T, and that rhymes with P, and that stands for pool!)

[frankterranella]

Ya Got Trouble, My Friends!

                         Robert Preston as Harold Hill in The Music Man

Since he announced his campaign for the Republican nomination, the campaign message from former President Donald Trump is dire. “We are a nation in decline. We are a failing nation.” (see, for example, https://youtu.be/dpQYYTguzAo) “But soon we will have greatness again,” he promises. Mr. Trump’s script casts himself as the one and only savior of the country.

As I have listened to this kind of rhetoric over and over and over, I knew in the back of my mind that I had heard it before from somewhere else, but where?

I found the answer on Broadway. I should have known that the lifelong-Manhattanite Trump would draw his playbook from a musical hero of his youth – that king of the flimflam men: Harold Hill!

If you think it’s a stretch, I invite you to watch the excellent film adaptation of “The Music Man.” A traveling salesman named Harold Hill comes into a peaceful Iowa farm town to sell them a boy’s band with instruments, uniforms, and personal instruction from “Professor” Harold Hill himself. But to make sales, he first has to convince the town that they need a boys’ band. So after he sees a new pool table being delivered to a local hall, he gets up on a platform in the middle of town and makes his pitch to the townspeople:

Either you're closing your eyes To a situation you do now wish to acknowledge Or you are not aware of the caliber of disaster indicated By the presence of a pool table in your community. Ya got trouble, my friend, right here, I say, trouble right here in River City. Trouble, oh we got trouble, Right here in River City! With a capital "T" That rhymes with "P" And that stands for Pool, That stands for pool. We've surely got trouble! Right here in River City, Right here! Gotta figger out a way To keep the young ones moral after school!

And of course, he has the solution to the problem the people didn’t even know they had, the problem of a pool hall that is going to corrupt their youth. They must keep the boys busy with a marching band. The cost of the instruments and the uniforms are a necessary investment in the morality and safety of their children. They need a band! And Professor Harold Hill just happens to be an experienced music teacher who invented the Think System for playing music (anything here sound familiar).

Eventually, the townsfolk catch on that Harold Hill is a charlatan. Some of them want to tar and feather him (whatever happened to that?), but many of them don’t want to admit they’ve been hoodwinked by a con man. So as soon as they hear primitive sounds coming out of the boys’ instruments, they go into denial about the scam and proclaim “Professor” Harold Hill their hero. The flimflam is complete.

Donald Trump is a master of this kind of manipulation. He says that there’s trouble in River City. “America is going to hell in a handbasket.” He has the solution. Donate to his campaign.  “President” Donald Trump will save the nation. 

But first there are pesky prosecutors out there who are metaphorically out to tar and feather him. Will Americans admit that this man was a mistake for the country, or will they double down on the flimflam? It’s going to be an interesting 16 months.

[mathgirl24]

Music Man - Ya Got Trouble

Trouble, oh we got trouble, Right here in River City! With a capital "T" That rhymes with "P" And that stands for pool, That stands for pool.

[lordakiyama]

"Ya got trouble,

Right here in River City!

With a capital 'T' and that rhymes with 'P' and that stands for Pool."

[dockilop]

Two towns made marion review

#Two towns made marion review how to#

And, like Preston, her performance is so good it's impossible to picture anyone else in the part. Jones personifies everything that is pure, moral and good, without being prudish, and it makes Marion a truly endearing character. The beautiful and talented Shirley Jones is terrific, as well, as `Marion the Librarian,' the young woman with a heart of gold who becomes a formidable opponent for Hill as he tries to charm his way past her suspicions of him. It certainly gave Preston a chance to demonstrate his amazing versatility, and he really made the most of it, carving out a niche for himself in cinematic history. He brings a mesmerizing presence to the screen in this role that is absolutely perfect Preston IS Harold Hill, and he makes him his own in such a way that it's impossible to visualize anyone else in the role. It's just a matter of charm, style and timing, and Preston imbues Hill with ‘em all, and more. Robert Preston gives the most memorable performance of his career as Hill, the silver-tongued salesman who can palaver past postulated proffered predicaments quicker'n an eggheaded egret's emblematized egression. And that's all the Professor needs because now they've got trouble, `With a capital ‘T' that rhymes with ‘P' and that stands for ‘Pool'!' With that, he's up and running and he's got everything timed, right down to the `Last wave of the conductor's hand on the last train out of town.' Yee-gods and great honk! River City, Iowa, is about to have their very own boy's band. One of his problems is solved when he runs into Marcellus Washburn (Buddy Hackett), a former shill of his, who mentions the new billiard table that just arrived in town. But right out of the chute, he runs into some problems: The Mayor of River City, George Shinn (Paul Ford) wants his credentials, the lovely young local piano teacher and librarian, Marion (Shirley Jones), has her doubts about him, and he lacks an `angle,' something to convince the local citizenry of the need for a `boys band' to get them out of the trouble they're in- even if there isn't any until he `creates' it. There's only one problem, and it's the fact that - as one of his fellow competitors puts it- `He don't know one note from another!' Alas, can it be the con is on? When he jumps train in River City to escape the wrath of an angry gathering of his peers, whom he has `Given a black eye' to in the territory, thanks to his dubious business practices, he sets about plying his trade on the good folks of middle America.

#Two towns made marion review how to#

`Professor Harold Hill,' as he calls himself this time around, is in the business of selling band instruments and uniforms, all with the guarantee that he will teach the youngsters of the parents who fork over the cash for his wares how to play. Iowa, that is, in this delightful adaptation of Meredith Wilson's long running Broadway musical, `The Music Man,' directed by Morton DaCosta and starring Robert Preston as the fast-talking, fleet-footed traveling salesman, Harold Hill. It's early in the Twentieth Century, and there's trouble, my friends, in River City.