# Watching Music Man on TCM now. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 5, 2013, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-music-man-on-tcm-now/662677 "2013-07-05T00:22:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-music-man-on-tcm-now/662677/41 "2013-07-08T15:40:04Z")
> [@Jim\_s\_Son](#): > > IIRC In the early 1980s when Preston was getting some publicity for “Victor/Victoria”, he said he was ultimately cast as Professor Harold Hill as a last resort. They couldn’t find anyone so someone said wtf, let’s try Preston. The same thing with Rex Harrison in "My Fair Lady’. They tried virtually every English actor before they got someone who defined the role. I would not want to see anyone else in those two roles than I would want to anyone sitting on Dan Patch > > I hope, and I pray > For Hester to win just one more A > the sadder but wiser girl is the girl for me. I seriously doubt the Rex Harrison story is true, since he won the Tony Award when he originated and defined the role of Henry Higgins in the Broadway production of My Fair Lady. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-music-man-on-tcm-now/662677/42 "2013-07-08T15:41:57Z")
After _The Music Man_ Willson wrote _The Unsinkable Molly Brown_, which was a hit on stage and screen but a far lesser one than TMM, then a couple of forgotten musicals (one based on _Miracle on 34th St._ and one on Columbus). It’s surprising that the person behind such a runaway hit doesn’t have a bigger catalog of well known shows. Of course unlike Rodgers & Hammerstein and Lerner & Lowe & Rodgers & Hart and Kern & Hammerstein, he was a one man operation, which probably played a part. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-music-man-on-tcm-now/662677/43 "2013-07-08T16:54:59Z")
> [@epbrown01](#): > > Yeah, sounds like that old grinch, knocking up a young girl and leaving her virtually penniless. He _didn’t_ leave her penniless. He left all the books to her, instead of as part of the library bequest to the town, to guarantee she’d always have a job as librarian - the town couldn’t fire her. Working back a bit, IIRC from the footbridge scene that Marian is still only 26 (OK, a spinster for the times). That would mean she and Madison were doin’ it when she was still a teenager, or close to one, but those were prime marryin’ years. Presumably he died very shortly after knocking her up, and maybe neither of them even knew it. But she had a beneficial effect in other ways despite her tender years - the “man who didn’t have a friend in this town until \*she \*came here” suddenly became its greatest benefactor. BTW, has there ever been another actress who could arch an eyebrow as imperiously as La Gingold? ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-music-man-on-tcm-now/662677/44 "2013-07-08T17:31:41Z")
I watched it for the umpteenth time this week, with subtitles on. It’s a blast. I think Meredith Willson began his libretto by jotting down every antique, archaic, colloquial term from his childhood that came to his fevered imagination. Knickerbockers, hogshead cask and demi-john, Cap’n Billy’s Whiz Bang, Sen-Sen, Dan Patch, clear as a buttonhook in the well-water. In addition to the wonderful use of vocabulary, are all the musical jokes. Like “Goodnight My Someone/76 Trombones”…and the use of “Goodnight Ladies” as counterpoint to “Pick a Little”. And we’re so by-god stubborn we can stand touching noses for a week at a time and never see eye to eye… ---
**Author:** ![Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/prof.pepperwinkle/32/13627_2.png) [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-music-man-on-tcm-now/662677/45 "2013-07-08T17:38:04Z")
“Sister, sister, isn’t it the most scrumptious solid gold thing you ever saw? Oh sister!” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-music-man-on-tcm-now/662677.md?page=2)