Granted that the man was 94, but still a sad day. Sherwood Schwartz, creator of 1970’s iconic television shows like Gilligan’s Island and The Brady Bunch, has died.
At times like this we like to celebrate such a person’s contribution to Shakespearean culture. It seems only fitting, then, to include this clip. You know what’s coming. Everybody, sing along. “I ask to be, or not to be, a rogue or peasant slave is what you see….”
( I hate that YouTube allows you to disable embedding of video clips. If they’d started out that way, they wouldn’t be what they are today. )
Bonus, here’s Marcia Brady as Juliet. Although that clip isn’t nearly as fun as the previous one. Although, as I listen more, interesting bits come up:
* Harold (Romeo) says that “he’s almost 15, same age as Romeo.”
* Juliet completely butchers that “is it thy arm thy hand thy foot thy face” line – I had to dig to figure out what she was supposed to be saying.
* Love the parents’ advice that “even the greatest actress in the world doesn’t change Shakespeare.”
* “If only she didn’t think she was junior high’s answer to Sarah Bernhardt.” Nice!
* One of the boys (Peter?) practices his line, “Hark! Who goes there!” but isn’t that Hamlet?
I need to get back to work, I could go through the whole episode like this.
That Harold Hecuba (Phil Silvers) episode of "Gilligan's Island" was such a witty parody of both "Hamlet" and opera, which included a beautiful take on "The Barcarole" ("Hamlet, Hamlet, do be a lamblet…") from Offenbach's "The Tales of Hoffmann."
As a child I like to think that I learned opera from Bugs Bunny ("Kill da wabbit, Kill da wabbit!") and Shakespeare from Gilligan's island 🙂