How did you get around the lyrics in Greased Lightning? As I remember it, the song describes male teenage aspirations for an interesting evening with local girls, and doesn’t leave much to the imagination. I guess I’m hoping you took some editorial license.

Thanks for the links and the hair-raising details of your experiences in road shows. I am aghast. It is clear that miracles still exist, because it is a miracle any of us are still active after undergoing that kind of abuse as youth.

For another side (the good side) of youthful stage productions, you can go to newera.lds.org, select the June, 2007 issue, and look for the article entitled Bringing Abish to Life. It gives details about what a stake in the Seattle area did, and it sounds pretty good.

One of our greatest hits was the song we sung during our “Pioneer Story” in which Jello swept the Mormon world. It was our rendition of the “Hello, hello” primary song.

Here are the lyrics for those interested:

Jello, jello. Jello, jello.
We made it out of bond marrow.
Jello, jello. Jello, jello.
We made it out of meat.

We cooked it up until it was gel.
And then we gave it a very fruity smell…

Jello, jello. Jello, jello.
We made it out of meat.
Let’s eat!

When I was 12 our ward tried to put on a show where the theme was “What if Fat was Attractive”. The characters were to be in padded suits and it was full of fat jokes. I remember we were supposed to sing “She’s Big and Round” to the tune of “I get Around” by the Beach Boys. The bishop got wind of it and put the breaks on the production half way through the rehearsals because he thought it might hurt some peoples feelings. Ironically, they replaced the fat script with one with all Hispanic characters. The plot involved King Chimichanga and Queen Margarita trying to marry off their daughter Princess Sopaipilla to suitors with names like Don Enchilada, Senor Jalapeño, and Greedy Gringo. She agreed to marry the one who made the spiciest taco. I’m not sure how a bunch of white kids from the suburbs speaking in bad Mexican accents like Speedy Gonzalez and dancing around in sombreros to La Cucaracha was more culturally sensitive than making fun of fat people. I guess we’ve come along way since 1982.

Most of the road shows I’ve been involved with they just changed lyrics to popular songs (a la Weird Al Yankovic) to fit the play. The last road show I was in, we had an over achieving young women’s president who actually wrote all original music for the entire show. I assume she spent hundreds of hours at the piano writing it. I remember her well because all during the production she was backstage in hysterics because we were “doing it all wrong” and “ruining the whole show”. The night of the actual play she just ran out of the gym crying. This was also the road show where the young women broke in the bickering clicks over jealousy about who got the leading parts in the show. I guess some people just take road shows too seriously.

Now that I think about it, I don’t think I was improved spiritually or culturally by my road show experiences. I’m not sure what the point was.

Roadshows, Part V

Roadshows, Part VI