Starlight Express: Difference between revisions
Content added Content deleted
m (Mass update links) |
m (Mass update links) |
||
Line 1:
{{work}}
After the success of ''[[Cats]]'' in 1981, [[Andrew Lloyd Webber]] began looking into writing a musical based on the ''[[Thomas the Tank Engine]]'' stories, with his kids in mind, but couldn't get the amount of creative control he wanted. Instead, he pulled up a few older ideas he'd had proposed to him in the 1970s -- among them, a musical version of ''The Little Engine That Could'' and a new version of ''[[Cinderella (
The protagonist of the story is Rusty, a hard-working young steam engine and [[Butt Monkey]] of the rail yard in which he works, who's constantly mocked by the [[Jerk Jock]] diesel engine Greaseball. Rusty has a big crush on Pearl, the pretty observation car, but Pearl has impossibly high standards for the engine of her dreams, and Rusty doesn't cut it as far as she's concerned.
Line 39:
* [[Depraved Homosexual]]: C.B., in some productions (and often in fan works).
* [[Double Entendre]]: Virtually half of the lyrics in the libretto are train-related sex puns (though the younger members of the audience probably won't understand them).
* [[Fan Service
* [[The Fifties]]: Greaseball's entire shtick is a combination of this and [[The Eighties]] (which, when the show first premiered, of course, was simply contemporary).
* [[Final Love Duet]]: "Only You" in the original London production, Las Vegas, and all the tours. "Next Time You Fall In Love" in the revamped London version.
* [[Four-Girl Ensemble]]: Ashley is the [[Cool Big Sis]], Buffy is the closest to [[The Ladette]], Dinah borders on [[The Ditz]], and Pearl... well, when asked what she plans on doing, she responds [[Really Gets Around|"Whaddya think?"]]
* [[Fridge Horror]]: Finding out the truth about [[Ax Crazy|C.B.]] puts a whole new spin on [[Stalker
* [[Funny Foreigner]]: While the international engines are all presented as being extremely representative of their countries, only Bobo the TGV crosses into this category.
* [[Getting Crap Past the Radar]]: So, ''so'' much.
Line 50:
* [[Green Aesop]]: Appears pretty heavily averted from a modern standpoint, where audiences would expect an environmentally clean electric engine like Electra to be the hero.
* [[Hair of Gold]]: Dinah, though she was originally a brunette. That didn't last long.
* [[Hooker
* [[Husky Russkie]]: Turnov, the Russian engine. Yes, there has been fan art of him informing the Rockies that he "must break you".
* [[Jerk Jock]]: All the locomotives except for Rusty and Poppa exhibit this trope to some degree, with Greaseball being the most outrageous example.
Line 66:
* [[Psycho for Hire]]: C.B. is in theory one of these. He's actually completely evil -- when Greaseball reminds him to remember whose side he's on, C.B. just grins and says "I'm on mine."
* [[Psycho Lesbian]]: Wrench, according to most of the fandom. It doesn't help that in the German production, Wrench is considered ''so'' butch that her first understudy is a ''man''.
* [[Shout-Out]]: The three box cars in the original production were named ''[[Rocky (
** Dinah's song "U.N.C.O.U.P.L.E.D." (or [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1EqAbJJmpE "G.E.K.U.P.P.E.L.T", as it is in German]) is a shoutout to Tammy Wynette's [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9J7XE-ctMU "D.I.V.O.R.C.E".]
** Was itself shouted out to on ''[[Futurama]]'' once (an intergalactic delivery train car was called the Starlight Express).
*** And on ''[[
** Don't forget the infamous (in the fandom anyway) [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYH9gZJnj9c ''Family Guy'' reference].
* [[Sissy Villain]]: Electra is Rusty's Sissy ''Rival'', to contrast with the ultra-macho Greaseball.
| |||