CHICAGO's 1975 TV Commercial

[morosco]

and all that jazz

[PalJoey]

Oh, god, I remember...that seemed FILTHY.

And it's 60 seconds of near-naked chorus girls. No Chita. No Gwen.

[Jordan Catalano]

Thank you for posting this!!!!!

[ChildrenwillListen]

I don't know why that creeped me out. I like it the way it is now.

[Matt2]

Well that was... odd.

[ljay889]

Wow, could this be any more Fosse?

[morosco]

Those Fosse dancer bodies. So thin!

[qolbinau]

Makes the current revival seem so boring..

[morosco]

I might be wrong but I think the choreography they're doing is the "Where is Billy? We want Billy?" prelude to ALL I CARE ABOUT IS LOVE.

[Jordan Catalano]

It really is a shame Chita, Gwen and Jerry aren't in it, though.

[rosscoe(au)]

If you look at the following video ( at that one ends ) Chicago 1975 Jerry doing all I want is love.

[charlesjguiteau]

I love it! It's basically Tony Walton's famous poster of Chicago come to life AND it feels like the Porn palaces of Times Square (or more like 8th Avenue) that I remember from 1975 blended into one hot come-on. Ya gotta love the 70's!

[PalJoey]

For those who want to see stars, here's Chita and Gwen performing "Nowadays" and "Hot Honey Rag" on a Mike Douglas show in 1975:

http://youtu.be/4w5tRzTrqrA


And Jerry Orbach performing "Razzle Dazzle":

http://youtu.be/YLsM6PpOXbA

[PalJoey]

And here's the "We Want Billy" choreography and "All I Care About Is Love":

http://youtu.be/DjnjE66UGWY

[Patti LuPone FANatic]

That commercial does have a seemingly smarmy early 70's xxx porn vibe. The current revival is very much an improvement, I must say. from RC in Austin, Texas

[charlesjguiteau]

Au contraire, Patti, "That commercial does have a seemingly smarmy early 70's xxx porn vibe." and that's what makes it SUCH a good fit with the debauched 1920's setting of CHICAGO!

(Little lecture here:) Both periods were about breaking free of repressive eras that had come before-- at the onset of the 20's women could suddenly vote, dress without corsets, show their calves ("and roll my stockings down"), and reject the values of their parents in a way unthought of a generation before. So too in the '70's, the sexual revolution combined with women's lib and the pill to rewrite the rules between men and women like nothing America had seen till then. Cities were crumbling but places like Plato's Retreat and the Playboy Clubs flourished on the edges of society just as the speakeasies had half a century before (and that's just the straight hangouts!) Nothing in the antiseptically designed rehearsal-clothes revival of the mid-90's could possibly match the brilliantly threadbare looks of Pat Zipprodt's originals.

Fred Ebb nailed it when he sarcastically wrote:
"In fifty years or so,
It's gonna change, ya know,
But oh, it's heaven Nowadays!"

[rosscoe(au)]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjMMbm6pGXM&feature=related

Just need to add this as well, from the 46th street theatre

[Gothampc]

This ad is interesting because it doesn't give information about how to purchase tickets, just tells the name of the theater (no phone, no address).

I understand the 1970s concept of tv commercial as art, but why is this informatin missing from the commerical? Were they working under the assumption that New Yorkers would make the effort to look up the box office number or make an attempt to find the address of the theater and go to the box office?


eta: Was it a Fosse thing? I remember this Pippin commerical but I thought they gave box office info.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bo4Tz-4rkvs

[ClapYo'Hands]

Well, that was weirdness right there.

[EricMontreal22]

When the Chicago tour came to Vancouver I was a teen with no theatre friends and wanted to take my mom who is a huge dance nut. All she knew about Fosse was his stuff was sleazy and she had no interest--this would have completely turned her off. (She loves Fosse now)

[FindingNamo]

But the thing is, there was an adult culture in the '70s. That commercial fit in beautifully.