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'Freakin' Sweet! An Evening of Music and Comedy' @ The Ahmanson Theater
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Seth MacFarlane and Alex Bortstein shared a touching moment onstage at the Ahmanson Theater last week. Taking a short break from the long instrumentals of the Flash Gordon theme song, they trotted offstage together. Upon their return, Borstein wiped her mouth, fixed her hair, and stepped back to the mike...as MacFarlane zipped up his pants.
Not long after, they introduced their parents, sitting in the first few rows of the audience.
It was a quaint, family-friendly scene from "Freakin' Sweet! An Evening of Music and Comedy," starring MacFarlane, the “Family Guy” creator, and Borstein, both of whom voice a number of characters on the show, including Peter and Lois Griffin.
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As sign language interpreters kept up on the side of the stage, and MacFarlane went through at least three glasses of Jack Daniels (I guess that explains why he uses his own voice to do Brian, the alcoholic dog), the two made their way through 26 songs to correspond to letters in the alphabet. They covered - in their own twisted way - such classics as:
• The theme song from Animal House.
• "Jesse's Girl."
• "Edelweiss" (with which Borstein, a Jew, took issue as it glamorized Austria's role in the second world war).
• The Juicy Fruit song.
And in a particularly graphic moment for the sign language interpreters, they sang a stirring rendition of Lois and Peter's duet, "You Don't Eat My Pussy Anymore," (yes, it is sung to the tune of Barbra Streisand and Neil Diamond's "You Don't Bring Me Flowers." No doubt that's what Streisand was trying to say, anyway.)
The show was put up earlier this year at Carnegie Hall, and reviews of that production refer frequently to the sheer rebellion and the chaos rendered by MacFarlane and Borstein bringing their potty mouths inside the revered walls of the very serious and very important concert hall. (Some of the reviewers also revealed themselves to have been giant nerds in high school, referring to alcohol that they snuck in to the show, or how the obscenity of the show was really...enjoyable. You guys are so bad.)
But, at least they had the decency to recognize that the material was not necessarily appropriate for all venues. Because I have to confess that there was not one single moment, as I sat there and allowed the formidable and august Ahmanson Theater to be verbally violated, that I even thought to be offended.
Regardless of my laissez-faire Los Angeles attitude, though, the show was funny and highly entertaining, and I would like to express my personal gratitude for the Stewie rendition of "Rocket Man." As far as I'm concerned, the voice of Stewie can do no wrong.
Photo by PhotoOptik via Flickr
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