Pass or Fail?

Congratulations to Bradford Bear, Susan Berlin, Brigadude, Christine Caccipuoti, Jason Flum, Jim Hindman, David Mitchell, Arthur Robinson, AnyaToes, and Bud Wilkinson. They’ve all been admitted to Broadway University’s incoming class, having passed their entrance exams. They were asked not only to recognize famous names from the past, present, and future but to name the songs and the shows from which the quotations below were taken.

Special congratulations to Roger Calderon. He created a test of his own, which showed me that these things are a lot harder when you’re not the one coming up with the questions! But here are the questions and answers to my exam:

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1. “Please take our advice. We aren’t the Lunts. I’m not Fanny Brice.” (“If Mama Was Married,” Gypsy)

2. “I knew Leo G. Carroll was over a barrel.” (“Science Fiction Double Feature,” The Rocky Horror Show)

3. “When you’re through, Mrs. Pugh comes to take it away.” (“I Think I’m Gonna Like It Here,” Annie)

4. “I never saw myself as a Solomon or Socrates. I knew who I was: One of your dime-a-dozen mediocrities.” (“Wonderful,” Wicked)

5. “For Sharon I’m carin’, but Susan I’m choosin’.” (“When I’m Not Near the Girl I Love,” Finian’s Rainbow)

6. “Another thousand dollars, a matinee, a Pinter play, perhaps a piece of
Mahler’s.” (“The Ladies Who Lunch,” Company)

7. “Oh, what an actor Long live Max Factor ” (“My Fortune Is My Face,” Fade Out, Fade In)

8. “Gladstone and Disraeli will be singing ‘Aoeli, Aoeli'” (“Butler in the Abbey,” Darling of the Day)
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9. “It isn’t Aimee Semple, or even Shirley Temple.” (“It’s You,” Dames at Sea)

10. “For a modern Don Juan and Sir Lancelot, I don’t seem to get out of my pants a lot.” (“Pillar to Post,” Henry, Sweet Henry)

11. “We all sit ’round King Arthur’s table; Freud, and Cain, and Abel.” (“Home, Sweet Heaven,” High Spirits)

12. Cagney belting Bogie, Edward G. — nyah nyah — with his stogie.” (“The Late, Late Show,” Do Re Mi)

13. “We’ll join the Astors at Tony Pastor’s.” (“Put on Your Sunday Clothes,” Hello, Dolly!)

14. “Nobody’s gonna baby ya. Be like Florence Nightingale, or Florence of Arabia.” (“I Can,” Bajour)

15. “The songs were rotten, the book was stinkin’. What he did to Shakespeare, Booth did to Lincoln.” (“Opening Night,” The Producers)

16. “Answer my weary query, Timothy Leary dearie.” (“Manchester,
England,” Hair)

17. “Speak of Jericho, speak of Job. Speak of Joseph’s colorful robe.” (“Dr. Brock,” Tenderloin)

18 “The newspapers call you the goddess of sex. If you are a goddess, I’m Oedipus Rex.” (“You Are Not Real,” The Apple Tree)

19. “Did she lose one of her combs? Gad, he’s changed me from a woman to a lousy Sherlock Holmes.” (“Humming,” Carnival)

20. “As I told Conrad Hilton, it gives us that built-in appeal.” (“Style,” The Magic Show)

21. “We all go to church, and we all despise John Birch.” (“Not Anymore,” Raisin)

22. “I feel half Tijuana, half Boston — partly Jane Fonda and partly Jane Austen.” (“But Alive,” Applause)

23. “I get ill from one cigarette. Keep your filthy paws off my silky drawers. Would you pull that stuff with Annette?” (“Look at Me, I’m Sandra Dee,” Grease)

24. “Don’t be a louse like your brother Miltie. He doesn’t know the meaning of guilty.” (“Go Visit Your Grandmother,” 70, Girls, 70)

25. “He loves to mow and weed. I cook like Betty Crocker and I look like Donna Reed.” (“Somewhere That’s Green,” Little Shop of Horrors)

26. “Or we’d have been left bereft of F.D.R.” (“How I Saved Roosevelt,” Assassins)

27. “Going to work with Cukor. Paramount is paradise, movies from A to Zukor.” (“Let’s Have Lunch,” Sunset Boulevard)

28. “Ginsberg, Dylan, Cunningham and Cage; Lenny Bruce, Langston Hughes, to the stage.” (“La Vie Boheme,” Rent)

29. “And Jacob Rosenbloom thought he was safe up in his room.” (“Cop Song,” Urinetown)

30. “You can start with a bagel and end up with Conrad Nagel.” (“In the Movies,” Saturday Night)

31. “Here’s to Tin Pan Alley. A Yankee rally. A show like Sally.” (“Homesick Blues,” Gentlemen Prefer Blondes / Lorelei)

32. “I have read the great Kabala, and I simply worship Allah.” (“Zip,” Pal Joey)

33. “You were with someone else but Warren? Was he bashful or was he foreign?” (“On the S.S. Bernard Cohn,” On a Clear Day You Can See Forever)

34. “Sitting pretty in the caddy with P. Daddy.” (“Great Big Stuff,” Dirty Rotten Scoundrels)

35. “I’m gonna Vince Van Gogh ’em and Henry Thoreau ’em.” (“Show You a Thing or Two,” Bat Boy)

36. “You’re Inferno’s Dante. You’re the nose on the great Durante.” (“You’re the Top,” Anything Goes)

37. “But who needs Albert Schweitzer when the lights’re low?” (“Can That Boy Fox Trot?”, dropped from Follies)

38. “Ninety minutes of Doris Day. There was nothing to do but pray.” (“What Do We Do? We Fly,” Do I Hear a Waltz?)

39. “Garbo, Hepburn, Miss Lucy Ball. Surely you remember them all.” (“When I’m Drunk I’m Beautiful,” Prettybelle)

40. “I wonder what my chances are. I wish I looked like Teri Garr.” (“Until Tomorrow Night,” Smile)

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[To contact Peter Filichia directly, e-mail him at pfilichia@theatermania.com]