The stage musical is loosely based on the film but is equally based on the late Alan Menken's original concept: that the movie would be a Rat Pack tribute/throwback, with Aladdin as a screwball Crosby/Hope hero, the Genie as a Sammy Davis Jr singing comedian type, and the Forty Thieves as the Rat Pack proper.

Despite Phil Spector's insistence, none of the women would sing the original title, "Rape Baby."

Last summer I binged them, fondly remembering one from childhood. The series ends with the biggest abrupt cliffhanger since "How's Annie?"

Jebediah Atkinson of the literary world.

You've seen the Rylance productions I hope?

I've been riffing on dipping sauce remixing lately, usually starting by making a Big Mac sauce or a donkey sauce and then experimenting further. My current favorite blend is two dollops mayo, and then one of ketchup, aioli mustard, garlic, Worcestershire sauce, fresh ground pepper, a bit of sea salt and then Old Bay…

Clever!

There's fake news, there's "Fake News" and there's "FAKE NEWS." This is what the term fake news SHOULD actually mean- speculative, sensationalist clickbait that has been disproven or denied, but is still being published because it scratches an itch. It's not what fake news has BECOME- a euphemism for the Nazi concept…

"Her name is Alberta
She lives in Vancouver
She cooks like my mother
And sucks like my Hoover-
Heh…
I email her every single day
Just to make sure that everything's okay
It's a pity she lives so far away…
(In CANADA!)"

It helps/doesn't help that the generation of cartoon professionals that grew up on this stuff have created shows and media where this level of analysis DOES pay off to some extent- Adventure Time and Gravity Falls being the standard bearer. So what started as fan wank became an actual thing that exists, which forces…

Are you sick of Chicago and/or Cabaret yet? I love both shows objectively, but ever since in the past two or three years the rights to Chicago have been unrestricted, and they started licensing the "good version" of Cabaret, people seem to insist on staging them both every chance they get because they are…

Thomas Dolby being one of those.

And cue the chicken/egg about Ca Plane Pour Moi/Jet Boy Jet Girl.

Jazz combos and little people everywhere.

Has anyone since Weird Al made it from "nerdy outsider" to pop culture hero the way Lin did? Darren Criss went from "bro with an acoustic guitar on YouTube playing indie-style reinventions of Disney songs" to major Broadway star and Ryan Murphy protege, but he's a solid B or C lister, while Lin made it pretty much…

I know fellow nice-guy-outsider-nerd-turned-insider-star Lin-Manuel Miranda has done brief "hip-hoperas" examining public events in between his larger works. I wish he would do a piece about the perversion of Mac Tonight into alt-right icon MoonMan.

Much like Springsteen and Paul Simon were never poor colored boys.

I feel about her art like I feel about Sondheim and Steve Martin: "I can enjoy this from a distance, but something tells me spending any amount of time with you in person would be insufferable."

The Dolls are back together?

Fun fact: sound engineer and singer-songwriter Thomas Dolby isn't a flat-earth believer, but he owns the honorary chair of the Flat Earth society, due to his "save-the-environment" ballad in the mid-80s being called The Flat Earth.