Mouse of Blues

It wouldn’t hurt us any if Michael Riedel is right in his prediction of fewer Disney Musicals in the future. It looks like “The Little Mermaid” might bomb. The commercial interest in these Disney Productions does not really seem to on the demise. We are only longing for a Broadway of substance with more offerings of plays. Anyway, Riedel has the low down on “The Little Mermaid.”

Mouse of Blues
August 31, 2007 — ON the heels of the fiasco that was “Tarzan” and the lumbering bore that is “Mary Poppins” comes Disney Theatrical’s latest stage cartoon, “The Little Mermaid” – which Variety has helpfully dubbed “a waterlogged misstep.”

The $15 million-plus musical, now trying out in Denver, doesn’t arrive in New York until November. So Disney’s got about a month to retool director Francesca Zambello’s baffling production.

But given Variety’s brutal review (which was written not by a local stringer but by the paper’s chief theater critic) and the show’s tepid industry word-of-mouth, theater people are starting to wonder: What’s gone wrong in the Magic Kingdom – and, if “Mermaid” flops, how much longer will Disney keep throwing its cartoons at Broadway stages?

Here’s What The Craig Scandal is Really About

Senator Larry Craig (R-Idaho) has made a mess for himself. He claims that he was wrong to admit to being guilty of anything. The public smells a rat. Never mind that the drive-by media is having a late summer feeding frenzy over almost nothing…2008 is a campaign year, and the democrats want to pick up another senate seat. Liz Mair of The American Spectator highlights the despicable tactics and motives of the democrats.  Tom Delay made the point repeatedly on Thursday that the Republicans deal with their scandalized politicians and the democrats re-elect theirs.

The American public was greeted this week with the latest in Republican scandal, when news emerged that Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho recently pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct charges related to his apparent solicitation of gay sex in the Minneapolis airport.

Craig has tried to pass off the guilty plea as an inconsequential mistake. But the public smells a rat, and just as Craig surely squirms, Sen. Chuck Schumer, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee surely laughs with glee. After all, Craig is up for re-election next year.