Hellzapoppin'

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Hellzapoppin'
Original Broadway window card
Music Sammy Fain
Charles Tobias
Lyrics Sammy Fain
Charles Tobias
Book Harold "Chic" Johnson
John "Ole" Olsen
Productions 1938 Broadway
1941 Film

Hellzapoppin' was a musical revue which was a Broadway hit, running from 22 September 1938 to 17 December 1941, and was at the time the longest-running Broadway musical with 1,404 performances — one of only three plays to run more than 500 performances in the 1930s.

A comedy hodgepodge full of sight gags and slapstick, the show was continually rewritten throughout its run to remain topical (its opening scene was Hitler speaking in a Yiddish accent). A circus atmosphere prevailed, with dwarfs, clowns, trained pigeons and audience participation adding to the merriment. The book was by Olsen and Johnson, a comedy team consisting of John "Ole" Olsen and Harold "Chic" Johnson.

Olsen and Johnson led a large cast of entertainers: Billy Adams, the Hawaiian music of Ray Kinney and the Aloha Maids, the comedy team Barto & Mann (Dewey Barto and George Mann), Bergh and Moore, singing group The Charioteers, identical-twin dancers Bettymae and Beverly Crane, Walter Nilsson, J. C. Olsen, celebrity impersonators The Radio Rogues, Reed, Dean and Reed (Bonnie Reed, Syd Dean, and Mel Reed), Roberta and Ray, Hal Sherman, The Starlings, Dorothy Thomas, Shirley Wayne, June Winters, and Whitey's Steppers (also known as Whitey's Lindy Hoppers).

The songs (decidedly less a factor for the show's success than its comedy), included:

  • "Blow a Balloon Up to the Moon"
  • "Fuddle-Dee-Duddle"
  • "It's Time To Say Aloha"
  • "When McGregor Sings Off Key"
  • "Boomps-a-Daisy (I Like a Bustle that Bends)"
  • "We Won't Let It Happen Here"
  • "When You Look in Your Looking Glass"

Songs and lyrics featured during the run include work by Sammy Fain and Charles Tobias, Don George, Teddy Hall, Annette Mills, Gonzalo Curiel, and Oscar Hammerstein II.

The show opened at the original 46th Street Theatre, and moved later in its run to the Winter Garden Theatre and the Majestic Theatre, and spawned several successful sequels. During the late 1940s, the show went on the road, appearing in smaller towns throughout the US. Its format was reduced in size, but continued in the same style of sight gags, risque humor, and audience involvement.

The television show Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In (1968-1973) was an attempt to replicate the fast-paced, anything-can-happen atmosphere for a new generation.

[edit] Film

A movie version was made by Universal Pictures in 1941, directed by H.C. Potter. In the film, Ole and Chic are working for Miracle Pictures (their slogan "If it's a good picture, it's a Miracle!"). A mousy screenwriter (Elisha Cook, Jr.) outlines his script for the screen adaptation of Hellzapoppin', and the rest of the movie depicts Cook's crazy script.

The cast includes Ole Olsen and Chic Johnson (playing themselves), Martha Raye, Mischa Auer, Shemp Howard (between stints with the Three Stooges), Hugh Herbert, and The Six Hits. The credits for the movie assert that "any resemblance between Hellzapoppin' and a motion picture are coincidental"—a truth that is perhaps responsible for it being less successful than the stage show which engendered it. The film does have some great visual humor, however, including a number of special effects that couldn't be duplicated on stage.

The dance scenes from the movie are some of the best-known Lindy Hop scenes from the Swing Era, and they have made the film popular among modern Lindy hoppers. One frenetic routine is performed by Whitey's Lindy Hoppers, and another notable dance scene features Martha Raye and Dean Collins.

At the present, Hellzapoppin' (like almost all Olsen and Johnson films) is hard to find on commercial DVD. Universal released the film commercially in England on region 2 format(release date 2007). The film is scheduled for screening at the non-profit Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention in September of 2008.

"Pig Foot Pete", an Academy Award nominee for Best Song in 1942 (it lost to "White Christmas"), was attributed in its nomination to Hellzapoppin', but it never appeared in that film. It actually appeared in the Abbott and Costello movie, Keep 'Em Flying.

[edit] External links