Homer watched Oklahoma last night. Being from Oklahoma, I've seen this musical on stage or film at least 237 times. Unless I'm mistaken, I believe it's a requirement for the Oklahoma Public Education system to see various productions of this musical ad nauseum. At this point, I think I'd rather gnaw off my own arm than see it again.

One summer when I was but a wee cheap blue guitarist, I was in the pit orchestra for the local community theater's production of Oklahoma. I played the mallet percussion: marimba, glockenspiel, etc.

You know what the person who plays the mallet percussion in the pit orchestra of Oklahoma does? Sits and watches the show A LOT because the mallet percussion only has about 42 measure of musical to play for the entire score. For weeks, I would sit for what felt like an eternity and then stand up, play my one measure of quarter notes and sit for another 18-20 minutes to wait for another.

I did however, by the time the show opened, have the WHOLE musical memorized since I had to sit through it soooooo many times. This made it easy to point out the cast's mistakes.

I'm convince that the guy who played Jud Fry was drunk every night, because each night he fucked up the auction scene. He said a different amount for his life savings every single time. One night he miraculously won Laurey's box lunch (dirty!) by underbidding the highest bid with like a paltry 37 cents or something. I'm not certain, but I'm pretty sure the rest of the cast hated him.