Professor Grover
“Sesame Street” has always played well for our Eldest. A couple of days ago, he asked me, out of the blue from my point of view, “Who is William with the weird name?”
After a while, we sorted out who he meant and I told Eldest that he was a rather popular poet and playwright from old England. After explaining what a poet was, we went looking for some “Uncle Willie” scenes on the inet.
So here are the “Sesame Street” versions, followed by an “original” version.
“Sesame Street: Taming of the Shoe”
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cb6wG1DAvm4?feature=player_detailpage&w=640&h=360]
I have to say, most versions of “Taming the Shrew” that I found were dubbed in Russian, which was amusing to say the least. I was also rather annoyed that Elizabeth Taylor‘s “Taming the Shrew,” directed by Franco Zeffirelli was not on Netflix.
This version of “The Taming Of The Shrew” is the Elizabeth Taylor version. But the copy is crap, the audio is entirely off, and streamed from Russia, I think. But that’s pirates for ya. You can more than likely find a copy in your local library. It’s well worth seeing.
This version of “The Taming of the Shrew” was apparently published in 1929, and it looks it too. It was a rather amusing thing to watch though. Eldest dubbed Kate “Not a nice person.”
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6janVbUFOE?feature=player_detailpage&w=640&h=360]
You can find a script text here.
The “Monsterpiece Theater” “Much Ado About Nothing” is a play on the recurring “Charlie’s Restaurant” gag in which the little blue-green businessman Mr. Johnson is forever trying to get his lunch out of Grover.
“Monsterpiece Theater – Much Ado About Nothing”
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ror0PrNiPQM?feature=player_detailpage&w=640&h=360]
Here you will find the BBC production “Much Ado About Nothing – BBC Shakespeare Collection [1984]”
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yb-M2E_FfV8?feature=player_detailpage&w=640&h=360]
Incidentally, you can find many of the Shakespeare Plays here on YouTube as compiled by Everything Shakespeare.
You can find a script text here.
So lastly, we have “Monsterpiece Theater – Hamlet.” Hamlet is, or course, Shakespeare’s best known work, although, I personally like “King Lear” better.
As an aside, “Fool,” by Christopher Moore, is an extremely amusing retelling of Lear from the point of view of Lear’s fool.
So here is “Monsterpiece Theater – Hamlet.” And this one is funny, dispite having Elmo in it. Word.
You can find the PBS Video Great Performances version of “Hamlet” here. This is:
David Tennant and Patrick Stewart star in this adaptation of RSC’s 2008 production. Shakespeare’s immortal “To be, or not to be” takes on a whole new meaning (and medium) as classical stage and screen actors David Tennant and (recently-knighted) Sir Patrick Stewart reprise their roles for a modern-dress, film-for-television adaptation of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s (RSC) 2008 stage production of Hamlet.
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Watch Hamlet on PBS. See more from Great Performances.
