Comments On: <em>Cats</em>! It's Exactly as Good as <em>Cats</em> by David Schmader http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2012/04/19/cats-its-exactly-as-good-as-cats Comments On: <em>Cats</em>! It's Exactly as Good as <em>Cats</em> by David Schmader en-us Copyright 2013 The Stranger. All rights reserved. This RSS file is offered to individuals, The Stranger readers, and non-commercial organizations only. Any commercial websites wishing to use this RSS file, please contact The Stranger. webmaster@thestranger.com (The Stranger Webmaster) Thu, 23 May 2013 00:00:01 -0700 Thu, 23 May 2013 01:15:00 -0700 Foundation http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss <![CDATA[Re: Cats! It's Exactly as Good as Cats]]>
I'm pretty biased. My parents own a cassette of me singing the entire soundtrack at age 3 or 4, my copy of Old Possum's guide to practical cats from the same era was falling apart by age 6 or 7, I was in my middle school production as a bit soloist in 6th grade, and I went to see it in New York with my dad and sister.

I'm a fan of the show. I'm also actually a fan of Andrew Lloyd Webber, possibly because he was my first exposure to pop/rock music outside of Jethro Tull, but I enjoy his soundtracks and musicals.

Cats is exactly what you'd hope it would be, if you like cats. Frenetic, running around, or falling asleep, and at the end of the day, it's in the same place it started, ready to do it all again tomorrow. Hopefully you had fun in the meantime.
Posted by Hanoumatoi]]> Fri, 20 Apr 2012 03:05:41 -0700 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Cats! It's Exactly as Good as Cats]]> Watching people pretend to be cats is the most hilariously fucked-up thing in the world. There's no right way to do it.

You've never watched Red Dwarf, then.
Posted by Some Old Nobodaddy Logged In]]> Thu, 19 Apr 2012 21:19:15 -0700 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Cats! It's Exactly as Good as Cats]]> Posted by gloomy gus]]> Thu, 19 Apr 2012 21:00:47 -0700 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Cats! It's Exactly as Good as Cats]]> Posted by floater]]> Thu, 19 Apr 2012 18:12:28 -0700 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Cats! It's Exactly as Good as Cats]]>
I'm assuming those words don't come up in the musical; I've never seen it.
Posted by Irena]]> Thu, 19 Apr 2012 18:01:32 -0700 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Cats! It's Exactly as Good as Cats]]> Red Lobster, White Trash and The Blue La…. It's a good plane read.

"For the benefit of the two or three other people in this society who don't know what Cats is about, here's the answer: It's about a bunch of cats. The cats jump around in a postnuclear junkyard for some two and a half hours, bumping and grinding to that curiously Mesozoic pop music for which Andrew Lloyd Webber is famous--the kind of full-tilt truckin' that sounds like the theme from "The Mod Squad." There's an Elvis impersonator cat, and a cat that looks like Cyndi Lauper, and a cat that looks like Phyllis Diller. All the other cast members look like Jon Bon Jovi with two weeks of facial growth.

Sure, Cats is allegedly based upon the works of T. S. Eliot, but from what I could tell, the show had about as much to do with the author of "The Waste Land" as those old Steve Reeves movies had to do with Euripides. Cats is what Grease would look like if all the cast members dressed up like KISS. To give you an idea of how bad Cats is, think of a musical where you're actually glad to hear "Memory" reprised a third time because all the other songs are so awful. Think of a musical where the songs are so bad that "Memory" starts to sound like "Ol' Man River" by comparison. That's how bad Cats is."

"Revisiting the horror in my mind later that evening, I consoled myself with the assurance that surely this would be the lowest point of my adventure, that nothing I subsequently experienced could possibly be in even the same league as Cats.

Then I cued up the Michael Bolton record.

So much for that theory."
Posted by bedipped]]> Thu, 19 Apr 2012 17:55:35 -0700 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Cats! It's Exactly as Good as Cats]]> Posted by Weekilter]]> Thu, 19 Apr 2012 17:45:21 -0700 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Cats! It's Exactly as Good as Cats]]> Posted by Dr_Awesome]]> Thu, 19 Apr 2012 17:35:22 -0700 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Cats! It's Exactly as Good as Cats]]>
Spoiler alert: It's Furrie Heaven.
Posted by Will in Seattle]]> Thu, 19 Apr 2012 16:49:14 -0700 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Cats! It's Exactly as Good as Cats]]> Posted by Bub]]> Thu, 19 Apr 2012 16:31:46 -0700 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Cats! It's Exactly as Good as Cats]]> Posted by mitten]]> Thu, 19 Apr 2012 16:29:08 -0700 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Cats! It's Exactly as Good as Cats]]>
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Q7-OFvul…
Posted by Chefgirl]]> Thu, 19 Apr 2012 16:27:28 -0700 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Cats! It's Exactly as Good as Cats]]>
Cats? Give me something I can eat...a Schnauzer...anything!


--Barack Obama at the theatre
Posted by Supreme Ruler Of The Universe]]> Thu, 19 Apr 2012 16:08:29 -0700 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Cats! It's Exactly as Good as Cats]]>
With rare exceptions -- if you're lucky, one song per show -- all Andrew Llyod Webster's music sounds like all the rest of Andrew Llyod Webster's music.

Whereas I'm a fan of T.S. Eliot poems.
Posted by judybrowni]]> Thu, 19 Apr 2012 15:58:40 -0700 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Cats! It's Exactly as Good as Cats]]> songs.it's a love story, cum messianic mess and involves finding the mythic' ax of life'. it does not have a freddie mercury in it.or anyone pretending to be freddie mercury. it does have an obligatory sing along to we will rock you, obligatory arm waving during we ' we are the champions' . it has a production number featuring the theme from 'flash gordon'. it was sheer torture. the audience LOVED it.
we should have seen 'cats'
thanks for your time.
Posted by reverend dr dj riz]]> Thu, 19 Apr 2012 15:58:17 -0700 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Cats! It's Exactly as Good as Cats]]> You are always a person pretending to be a cat.

A) Cat's are people. You meant to say "You are always a human pretending..."
B) I'm actually always a cat stuck in the body of human.
Posted by dwightmoodyforgetsthings]]> Thu, 19 Apr 2012 15:41:41 -0700 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Cats! It's Exactly as Good as Cats]]> Posted by Fnarf]]> Thu, 19 Apr 2012 15:31:23 -0700 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Cats! It's Exactly as Good as Cats]]> Posted by balderdash]]> Thu, 19 Apr 2012 15:25:08 -0700 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Cats! It's Exactly as Good as Cats]]> Time Magazine reviewed it in a 2-page spread.
The accompanying picture of Terrance V. Mann in his full Rum Tum Tugger bulge-tacular regalia ignighted (or at the very least fanned the flames of) my supergay fetish for "tight stuff."

And then I saw the music video...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eaXE9t7M…

Time to call the taxidermist!
Posted by EdlyRed]]> Thu, 19 Apr 2012 15:24:59 -0700 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Cats! It's Exactly as Good as Cats]]>
:-D
Posted by merry]]> Thu, 19 Apr 2012 15:23:14 -0700 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Cats! It's Exactly as Good as Cats]]> Posted by Beetlecat]]> Thu, 19 Apr 2012 15:19:40 -0700 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Cats! It's Exactly as Good as Cats]]>
Oh, and also: the tears of frustrated Libertarians. Just FYI. :-)
Posted by merry]]> Thu, 19 Apr 2012 15:14:32 -0700 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Cats! It's Exactly as Good as Cats]]> Cats the musical, though.)

@5: I'm still known to say occasionally, "It was much better than Cats. I'm going to see it again and again."
Posted by MLM]]> Thu, 19 Apr 2012 15:13:10 -0700 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Cats! It's Exactly as Good as Cats]]> Posted by ingopixel]]> Thu, 19 Apr 2012 15:12:02 -0700 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Cats! It's Exactly as Good as Cats]]> Posted by SeattleKim]]> Thu, 19 Apr 2012 15:07:54 -0700 The Stranger