Oh my god, you guys...

A few weeks ago MTV aired a performance of 'Legally Blonde: The Musical' straight from Broadway. Immediately after I watched it I promptly logged onto facebook and expressed my displeasure about what I saw. I couldn't imagine how it had won so many Tony's...I wasn't all that impressed, but I couldn't put my finger on why.

I realized after proclaiming my dislike of the show to a few friends, that this type of thing had happened before. Guess what other show I didn't like the first time I heard? 'Wicked.' Can you believe it? After hearing a few songs I liked I picked up the soundtrack at the store...and after my first time through it, I was upset that I'd wasted my money. But I listened to it again and found a few more things I liked. After a few more runs of it (ok - maybe hundreds more by now), it has become one of my all-time favorite shows. Sounds so much like that story in 'Mr. Holland's Opus'...doesn't it?

Now, I'm not saying 'Legally Blonde' is my new favorite musical...but thanks to that amazing invention of a DVR I was able to re-watch it to try to pinpoint the reasons for my disappointment - an lo and behold, I liked it quite a bit better the second time around.

Things That Made Me Go: 'Dear lord...this is ridiculous'

1. They went wayyyyyyy overboard with the impressively quick costume changes. Yes, we get it, you had an awesome budget and can afford the flashy and quick scene changes, etc. But the sorority girl sliding down the fireman's pole and ending up changed out of a robe by the time she hit the bottom? Kinda makes the quick change for Elle later on much less cool.

2. Could there BE anymore big production numbers? I count exactly 3 numbers in the entire show that don't include basically the entire company (2 very short reprises could also be added to that number). And this is out of 20 songs (including the 2 reprises)!!! It's just basically really loud all the time and a bunch of those songs end up having the scenery completely pulled away and blow out into huge dance numbers. Don't get me wrong - as a dancer, I love a good production number...but they would've been more powerful a little fewer and farther between.

3. This really didn't have anything to do with the actual show, but rather MTV being the horribly bad station that it has become. The hosts for the airing of this production were three teenage girls with absolutely no personality whatsoever but looked like Lindsay Lohan wannabes. I really had to fast-forward over their disgustingly lame intros after the return from commercials as well as their stilted interviews with cast members (which was unfortunate, because the cast seemed to be great and personable). That whole dressing to the show just made me want to yak through all the blatant sorority-girl moments in the show...cause even though they were meant to be overblown in the show, they didn't seem that far off...


Things That Made Me Go: 'Now this is a good show'

1. From about the point of the Gay or European number ('There! Right there!') through the rest of the show is pretty great. The best sequence, though, comes right after Callahan kisses Elle and she slaps him. I think it's party due to the great acting from Laura Bell Bundy, but at this moment you really forget that she's been a ditzy blonde for most of her life and she is just a girl dealing with a complete sleezeball the best she can...and the shock of how much of jerk this professor of hers was. I give a standing-O for this. Oh, and while I'm at it - Michael Rupert, who played Callahan, was flipping amazing. Perfect sleeze with the ego and damn fine singing voice to go along with it. I could see him as a great Billy Flynn if Chicago ever needs a kick in the butt again.

2. The Greek Chorus - while possibly too overused - is a hilarious concept. The great costuming for this show is also really apparent in that all the girls in the chorus had the same outfits as before but now in washed out grays/whites as opposed to the extremely bright colors from the beginning of the show.

3. The opening number was a great throw-back to the opening of 'Bye, Bye, Birdie'. The staging of the girls in the windows of the greek house is very similar to the idea for the phone tree spreading the gossip of Hugo pinning Kim. Too great of a way to draw the parallel to that classic teenage musical from the early 60s.

Oh - and I'm still torn about whether or not to like the little Irish dancy section. Should I be upset that they could've been really cool and done ACTUAL Irish dance moves? Or should I realize that it is probably more funny and in character for Paulette and her UPS guy (of course, with the rest of the cast...see #2 from my 'ridiculous' section) to dance in their not quite so accurate manor? I'm going to continue to mull over this for awhile....