Over the weekend I had the pleasure to be among the first several thousand guests at PizzeRizzo, the new Muppet-themed restaurant at Disney's Hollywood Studios in Orlando. There are several "easter eggs" hidden around the place, for the delight of Muppet geeks like myself. Here are a few:
The animated neon sign outside proclaims "THE CITY'S TOP RATED PIZZA". But every now and then some of the letters flicker off, making the sign momentarily read "IT'S RAT PIZZA"! The flickering lasts about 12 seconds, and happens approximately once per minute. So if you just happen to glance up at the sign for a few seconds, chances are you'll never see the secret message!
Tucked away on a shelf in the main lobby area is an ancient can of Wilkins Coffee.
And finally, the most incredible, subtle, layered easter egg I've ever seen anywhere: Upstairs at PizzeRizzo is the gloriously tacky "Rizzo's Deluxe Supreme Banquet Hall". Outside the Banquet Hall there's this sign:
This is an easter egg reference to The Muppets Take Manhattan, where Kermit encounters advertising executives named Jill, Bill, and Gil. Cute, huh? Ah, but underneath! If you look very closely, beneath the changeable letters on the sign, through the faux fading and dust, you'll see that this sign used to read: Pa Otter Memorial Service with tribute performance by The Frogtown Hollow Jubilee Jug Band.
You can read all about Pa Otter here. Kudos to the PizzeRizzo designers for including such an incredibly subtle, even touching, reference.
On September 29, 1946, Theatre Guild On The Air broadcast a radio adaptation of Thornton Wilder's Pulitzer Prize-winning play "Our Town". The adaptation was by Erik Barnouw, and the production featured Thornton Wilder himself.
Wilder played the role of the Stage Manager onstage numerous times in "Our Town", beginning as a replacement in the original Broadway production. As far as I know, this radio adaptation is the only surviving record of his performance. The cast features Dorothy McGuire as Emily, the role she understudied and performed during the original Broadway run. Original cast members Doro Merande and Arthur Allen are heard as Mrs. Soames and Professor Willard, respectively.
As grateful as I am to be able to hear and share this recording, I must say I think it's a poor adaptation of the play. Barnouw made his adaptation without knowing that Wilder himself would be performing the Stage Manager role (which Barnouw renamed "Narrator"), and the part is greatly rewritten. In his book Media Marathon, Barnouw writes of being very nervous during the first readthrough, but Wilder was apparently quite game about the whole enterprise. Wilder's performance is good, although it would be nice to hear him reading more of the lines he actually wrote. The syrupy, overblown music is also a serious detriment to the production.
Admittedly, it's an impossible task to reduce Wilder's three-act play to 60 minutes, and the play itself is granted only about 45 of those minutes, due to sponsor messages. It is, as they say, what it is. And here it is. The photo in the video below shows McGuire and Wilder, with John Craven (the original George Gibbs on Broadway).
The full cast of the radio production:
Emily: Dorothy McGuire
Narrator: Thornton Wilder
George: James Dobson
Dr. Gibbs: Cameron Prud'Homme
Mrs. Gibbs: Barbara Weeks
Mr. Webb: Bill Adams
Mrs. Webb: Dorothy Sands
Mrs. Soames: Doro Merande
Mr. Morgan: Will Geer
Simon Stimson: Philip Tonge
Professor Willard: Arthur Allen
