Happy Days: The Musical

August 5th, 2006
Falcon Theatre, Burbank
Musical

Written by Gary Marshall, music by Paul Williams.
We actually enjoyed ourselves even more than we thought we would. I say this because, usually, when you attach the description of "family musical" to anything, it's the kiss of deathly boredom. It usually means the production is aimed (quite lowly/dumbed down) to children (like "Seussical: The Musical"). That was not the case this time.

Some inherrent problems ...like how do you make Fonzie cool AND have him sing ballads. But it worked. Frankly, Andy Karl (of Altar Boyz) was so engaging, I was willing to forgive just about anything.

There's a lot of music ~ a song for almost every major and secondary character. A couple times the pace suffered because of this. But again, my nostalgia for the TV series made it easy to wait patiently for the next bit of fun. There were so many throw-backs and in-jokes that made this feel like the TV series (but c'mon... a brunette Pinky Tuscadero? No. That I can't forgive... esp. since other women were wearing wigs).

The real highlight: Paul Vogt (aka Mrs. Garrett from Mad TV) playing one of the Malachi Brothers. We were laughing so hard. I had tears coming out of my eyes. OMG, he was funny!

An enjoyable evening. I think fans of the series will overlook a lot of what slows this musical down.