Top Ten Tony Award Moments: #9 APPLAUSE, No Ovation

Today, we are taking a look at a clip from the 1971 Tony Awards in the title song from that year's Best Musical. The song is performed by the chorus members of the ALL ABOUT EVE musical, the Lauren Bacall-led APPLAUSE. This clip features a twenty-six-year-old Bonnie Franklin leading one of two featured numbers (and she was nominated for Best Featured Actress - losing out to Melba Moore for PURLIE) who would later find fame on the hit 80s sitcom ONE DAY AT A TIME...

APPLAUSE had all the makings of a truly great musical: a score by then-white-hot songwriting team Charles Strouse and Lee Adams, a book by legends Betty Comden and Adolf Green, and a leading lady the likes of whom simply don't exist anymore in Lauren Ball. Stars like her don't shine, they radiate. They just ARE, and Bacall was (and still is). Don't let the fact that she can't really sing fool you: she could put over a number as well as Merman, Callas or Lotte Lenya, for that matter. So here, with a nod to the currently-running shows of that time - among them CABARET, FIDDLER ON THE ROOF, HELLO,DOLLY, MAME - and many others in a fun parody sequence that is not a part of the original cast album for what we would assume would be questionable copyright issues given the uncanny homage. Also, viewer beware that there is some slight nudity in the form of some bare backsides at one point in the clip, but surely something broadcast on national television nearly forty years ago could not be held accountable for too much prurience. It's a bit of a desperate ploy in a bit of a desperate song from an even more desperate show. It just screams "Like me!" but one may find it hard to fully embrace the at-times pure camp and over-the-top elements on display in an entirely serious way. Take it for what it is: frivolous fun. Whatever the case with APPLAUSE, it truly seems they threw everything and the kitchen sink into this number - with interesting, if not entirely successful, results. Be sure to stay tuned past the seven minute mark for a quite unexpected surprise. Speaking of which: Bonnie Franklin sure could tap, but her other talents are seemingly a bit less pleasurable from an audience member's point of view judging by this clip. See if you don't agree. The over-the-top camp and hokey allure of this clip justify this as the sole, perhaps, for-diehards-only entry in our Top Ten Tony Moments countdown. After all, a little frothy fun never hurt anybody. 'Til tomorrow...