If you've started looking for musical material for the holiday season'

For the Rockefeller Center "scrawny Christmas tree" controversy.  Is it really worse than any earlier trees before they were decorated, or is it just hitting us as sad because it's 2020. 

'THE TREE'S LOOKING SAD' - Feliz Navidad PARODY-

https://youtu.be/f1CvD2Wh5V0

WE'LL UPDATE THE VIDEO BEFORE CHRISTMAS TO TAKE IN TREE AND OWL UPDATES.  

(Note:The "speaker's nightmare"cartoon at.0:31 in the video is stock material from shutterstock. com)

If you've started looking for musical material for the holiday season's performances:

"In the Season We Love" - music and lyrics by Fred Landau 

A happy shopper and grumpy shopper come to terms over NYC at Christmas time
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oyosuNj1jE

A sincere power ballad ANOTHER CHRISTMAS for after Christmas, wishing Christmas would ve back again

Music and lyrics by Fred Landau

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfenKQ7sj1E

And because it's so topical for holiday traveling, here's FLY ME IN THE NUDE about the full-body airline scanners

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gn3AcCmPL00

Yingele Rock - same-gender  marriage parody of Jingle Bell Rock - Hannukah 

https://youtu.be/W_eP-Q7aSgw

From 10 Christmases ago - This was an oldie: a Susan Boyle Christmas album parody - 10 years ago today

Glee / Susan Boyle parody - Do You Hear What I Hear spoof [counterpoint thx to "Autotune"] 

https://youtu.be/hLus365HxBw

 

Our videos about trying to find socially distant versions of musicals, laughing because if you don't laugh you might despair

 These were about trying to find socially distant versions of musicals, laughing because if you don't laugh you might despair. 

"MY FAR LADY"  The flower girl is given a mask sewn from flowers at a moment when she's tired of staying in.

"I've Sewn a Costume for Your Face"

https://youtu.be/x3RXDyle5sA

A 7-minute mini-musical - where we were in May

WHEN I'M STUCK AT HOME

https://youtu.be/s7mTdB7C8fg

Parody-song musical, as MJ plays a performer and her daughter making masks while not being able to perform during quarantine and dreaming about the roles she'd love to play- Make 'Em Masks, then Rose (Gypsy), Joanne (updated Company),Bianca/Lois Lane (Kiss Me Kate), and still "Home" a while longer (Dorothy)

If you know the Neil Young song "Gonna take a Lotta Love"

"It's Gonna Take a Lotta Gloves"

 https://youtu.be/P92NrXCxMBw

Where we were in September/October - planning to re-open, but better not.

https://youtu.be/8vp3LQ3x3so

Parodies That's Entertainment-MJ, You're So Vain-Carla, Rainbow Connection -KJ, We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together-Carla, Don't Sleep in the Subway-MJ, Your Smiling Face-KJ.

"TILL THERE IS HUGH" -  

about the Music Man ad and the hopeful spirit it's come to signify

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6p1lzm6Rdc

Asking the musical question: Doesn't 6 feet apart beat 6 feet under?

"With My Friend Killing Time"

https://youtu.be/zpXdp6iS40w

(This one not a parody - music and lyric by Fred Landau)

On Ben Brantley's end of an era as Times critic: I celebrated my favorite feature, Ben Brantley London Journal :

On Ben Brantley's end of an era as Times critic: I celebrated my favorite Ben Brantley London Journal reviews:

This was about the London Journal on Imelda Staunton's scorched-earth Rose in GYPSY:

"Some Roses have passed the torch, Got the flame yeah but not the scorch" - https://youtu.be/L3YPpAOMV_w

Music Man Parody update - "Till There Is Hugh" - also some videos I did with Sheree Sano reflecting (to me, anyway) a need for change this Election Day

 Parody update - "Till There Is Hugh"

"TILL THERE IS HUGH" - parody lyric by Fred Landau about the Music Man ad - for social distance era.

This video is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6p1lzm6Rdc

Thanks to Sheree Sano for vocal and putting the video together!

Also, these were some of the parody and tribute recordings Sheree and I have done together that reflect these last four years for better or worse, with the Donald attitudes taking hold.

What a One-Percent World - with Sec. Mnuchin

Tune of:  What a Wonderful World

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzMi9umls0g

Chatting Is a Show’s Best Friend

Tune of:  Diamonds Are a Girls Best Friend

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUa5GGeLdH8

PCs, Apps and Tweets - a good thing:  

Cher spoke her mind on the net and was a Broadway character in The Cher Show.

Tune of:  Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouMDcHTyhWw

Sur-charge - The new development, that money is all you need to be a VIP

Tune of: Sir Duke

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCl_-xMJE6w

On the political end - we reprise our FALL 2010 “Chrysanthemum Tea Party Overtures,” with a vocal and music production  created by Sheree  reflecting the Tea Party politics of that mid-term election year– 

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taiPOElxQdc

At 2:32 here - I got to duet with Sheree on non-parody song “Finale to Family Music”  (co-written by Marian Weiner &Fred Landau) - from a summer 2017 reading on location at a music venue in Mineola, Long Island.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLFfOPBzmag

For the Jewish holidays

 

"I Will Survive" parody lyric by Fred Landau - "I'll be Inscribed":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxTuhLayowQ
sungby  Jan Horvath

"Put Your Pain In the Hands of a Jew" - music by Skip Kennon, lyric by Fred Landau
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlzpDsd_q-k
sung by Neal Mayer.
Skip and I write this to submit for a show that had been described as "jokes used as Jewish novocaine" - the show dropped that concept, but recording this was a kick, looking back!

A parody update as re-opening is in full swing, for better or maybe better not. Let's hope.

 A parody update as re-opening is in full swing, for better or maybe better not.  Let's hope. 

The one-minute opening from the 7-minute Labor Day sequel (coming soon) to our "When I''m Stuck at Home" from May, which is still here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7mTdB7C8fg

 That's Entertainment parody -The world's in a stage, a stage where the money fights containment

https://youtu.be/S5fKULcm9Ig  with sing-along lyrics on the screen

A version with some photos is at 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuSeE_KIcVc&feature=yo

 

And here's the closing number.

 "Your Smiling Face" parody - Whenever I see you touch your face, I have to cry and yell- because I love you, yes I do. 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYqUFVLfxTM

 Also Labor Day today is also my father Nat Landau's 100th birthday and there were fun Broadway friends Bill Parry (who starred in the premiere of our Last Starfighter musical) and Maureen Silliman (who starred in our Actors Temple TRU presentation of Viva Max) there by Skype doing a fun birthday hello.  (Mom and Dad used to get on the Florida bus every year and haul their theater loving cookies to Coconut Grove because Maureen Silliman did a show at Coconut Grove.  Dad recalled Mom got so worried when Maureen was playing Marcia Lewis' part in Rags before Paper Mill that Maureen had put on 50 of more  pounds since she last saw Maureen.  Such relief when Mom saw the padded suit hanging in Maureen's dressing room.  )

 For people who know our family, Sept. 7th  is Nat Landau's 100th birthday.  We've been spreading out the wishes he's been getting over yesterday and today. A year ago, this had been planned for a party at (we hoped) their local Casita, but actually, there were people able to be there virtually who might not have been able to be at a real in-person party had that happened. Bill Parry & Maureen Silliman were at the Miami party today by remote (is it skype or skype-style video?) from NYC.  https://youtu.be/7c8mnxhJn5E

I won't publicly post any of the personal reminiscences online, so many wonderful thoughts from friends and from cousins of four generations, but I'll only post only the musical ones.

The Piaf forever stamp was 2012, and even then we were worried about how snail-like even "snail mail" was

 The Piaf forever stamp was 2012, and even then in that election year we were worried about how snail-like even "snail mail" was. The snail makes a guest appearance at 0:30 and this is believed to be the post office snail's first (and maybe only?) appearance in a La Môme parody video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5Z6iz4jPsw

Thank you to the amazing Jan Horvath for the vocal here. 

Also: This is from the bill and call log from a Miami lawyer for a Landau family estate and elder care matter who I hired August 10 2020 with a $15,000 retainer.

Theater connection: Look at August 14 - why is a lawyer for a Landau family matter talking to Jen Tepper, who is a Broadway producer who at the time I had a Human Rights issue with, and with whom this antitrust issue 

http://fred-and-the-economy.blogspot.com/2022/02/to-robyn-goodman-and-producers-of-other.html 

is going on since 2010. And for more than a half hour, and the lawyer writes that Jen gives him a "Better understanding."