and now a round of That's Sad, That's Whoa Awesome

[spatch]

Anna Russell, musical comedienne I remember most for her Ring Cycle and Gilbert & Sullivan parodies, has died at the age of 94. I confess I didn't know she'd lived through to the 2000s, as she exists solely in that musical niche of my memory along with Victor Borge and Flanders & Swann, warbling funny tunes with piano accompaniment through pips and pops of vinyl recordings.

That's sad.

On a completely unrelated note, Jim Henson's Fraggle Rock is being developed into a feature-length movie. And who will be executive producer? Ahmet Zappa, of all people.

That's ... whoa. Awesome.

Comments

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

Ahmet Zappa sounds like he should BE a Fraggle. Or maybe a pair of Fraggles.

Work your cares away,
Dancing's for another day.
Let the Fraggles play,
-- We're Ahmet, Zappa, Wembley, Boober, Red!

[spatch]

I never got to see that, no, but for some reason kept getting credited in VLO programs well into the late 90s, tho the last show I worked with them on was I think The Gondoliers in 1993.

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

I'm sad she died, but amazed she survived that long; I'd figured her long dead.

"You'll have to excuse me -- my quartet singing isn't what it used to be..."

[toonhead-npl.livejournal.com]

And they're going into "outer space" by the looks of things. OOOOH.

I wonder if it'll do well? My feeling is the rest of the Muppet franchise doesn't have quite the pull it once did, especially in the movies. (Wasn't their last movie made for TV?)

Hopefully the nostalgia for the Fraggles can overcome this. It's certainly been long enough since we've seen anything new and Fraggley.

[heliopsis.livejournal.com]

Oh Anna! She was wonderful, funny and talented. I got to see her on her First Farewell Tour in Calgary back in the '80s; she was in her 70's then, and gave a side-splitting three hour performance. The audience was exhausted from laughing, I don't know how she managed to do it. She didn't play the bagpipe, explaining that she no longer had the wind for it, so she had a bagpipe player march out on stage for the demonstration.

Thank you for sharing this. I'll have to play some of her at the cast party.

[spatch]

Oh, that sounds like it was a wonderful experience. I would've loved to have seen her perform live.

And even if it's just in my head, I still always cry "Dance!" after the last sung note of any G&S finale because of her.

[limax.livejournal.com]

Man... I hadn't heard that she passed away. I've got two of her CDs, which unfortunately are missing some of the cuts from the LPs. I will have to listen to her today as tribute.