I know that Fonzie played Hamlet, and Henry Winkler played Scrooge, but until this moment I’d never heard a peep about 1977’s Henry Winkler Meets William Shakespeare.
It appears to have been part of something called The CBS Festival of Lively Arts for Young People.
Look at the cast — Kevin Kline as Petruchio?! This would have been one of his earliest television roles.
Challenge extended, Bardfilm – find us some footage!
I actually saw that video way back when I was working for a theatrical summer program at Notre Dame Academy on Salisbury St. From what I remember, it was a decent kid-focused intro to Shakespeare with some awkward/cheesy bits. Looked like it was filmed in a day or two backstage at a show. It touched on stage combat which was cool. I'd love to find it again and take another look.
YouTube: https://youtu.be/ZmijNIL8xxw?feature=shared
Alas, I have nothing for you on this one. Nor can I find anything. Nor did I know anything until you posted this!
Will Henry Winkler's Ghost please post some more information?
Thanks!
kj
Sorry–I was thinking of Bob Crane. No offense, Mr. Winkler.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!
kj
"Will Henry Winkler's Ghost please post some more information?"
Did he died?
Actually he appears to be on Twitter, so what the heck, I asked him. I'll followup if there's any response. You just never know with celebrities, some will engage you, some are just online to plug their latest project.
I hope someone can find footage of this.
I'm sure Henry Winkler would be
happy to respond….he appears very personable on the chat shows in the UK that I've seen him on recently…he is Dyslexic, and so described how he would improvise to avoid reading cold from scripts at auditions…he has become a semi-regular in Christmas Pantos over here.
I showed the entire half-hour special as part of a substitute teaching job assignment about ten years ago, so rest assured that it is out there somewhere. Your best bet for stuff like this would be to seek out members of the teaching profession because I have seen quite a few obscure gems like this among their classroom tapes (like that awful CBS After School special about the Huck Finn controversy). I wish I had had the opportunity to borrow and make a copy of this tape because I never forgot it, and I hope that someone manages to find it and make footage available for the masses.
Hesitate to resurrect an old thread – but I've got a copy from an old VHS tape of a PBS broadcast. It's not easily postable, but I'll try to get it up at some point. Will post back here if/when I do. It definitely did its part to instill a life-long love of the theater in me!
this was made at a place in Stratford Connecticut I believe. Either way my two older brothers were in it and I was there with my mom at like 5 years old while it was going on and got to hang out with Henry (got the pictures to prove it). In 9th grade my English teacher in Michigan played this for my class on VHS…so somewhere there is footage. My family no longer knows where our copy is.
https://www.truetvmovies.net/store/p3648/_Henry_Winkler_Meets_William_Shakespeare_(20_Mar._1977)_Henry_Winkler.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmijNIL8xxw
Found it!! Been looking for this forever! Yay Internet 🙂