The Pickwick Club discussion

Fellow Pickwickians! This topic was Everyman's idea. I will start this off to give everyone a general idea of what goes here:

On the show Friends, formerly airing one hour prior to Seinfeld on NBC on Thursday nights, Joey was auditioning for a musical supposed to be based on A Tale of Two Cities. However, when he went into the audition, they were singing about pick-pocketing. I believe the lines were: "You have to pick a pocket or two (ooh-ooh)." I actually believe that the writers and producers either flubbed this up and twisted the two works, Oliver Twist and A Tale, together. Or, they knew what they were doing, but thought nobody would notice. Perhaps, they wanted to use that song, which could have come from a 1960 musical, Oliver!, which was later made into a movie (1969). Going with this theory, there was a joke about Joey misunderstanding the reference to "Two Cities" and thinking he could pick the cities. One of his friends informed him that the two cities were already chosen, being Paris and London, of course. It is my opinion that they wanted the song, and the joke, so they combined the two works to achieve the dual effect. I certainly don't remember any pick-pockets in A Tale, and if there were, it was not nearly as important of a topic as it was in Oliver Twist, in which I should think a musical based on the latter would have a song about picking pockets!

Jonathan wrote: ""You have to pick a pocket or two (ooh-ooh)." I actually believe that the writers and producers either flubbed this up and twisted the two works, Oliver Twist and A Tale, together. Or, they knew what they were doing, but thought nobody would notice. "

That's from one of the songs in the musical Oliver, based on OT.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HazQl...

Everyman wrote: "Jonathan wrote: ""You have to pick a pocket or two (ooh-ooh)." I actually believe that the writers and producers either flubbed this up and twisted the two works, Oliver Twist and A Tale, together...."

As I suspected. Thank you for the resource.

I just purchased Oliver! today. Remastered and all that, but I think it's the one from 1969.

Adam wrote: "You have a treat coming. The casting was very well done for that one."

I don't typically like musicals. Is there a terrible lot of singing?

Jonathan wrote: "Adam wrote: "You have a treat coming. The casting was very well done for that one."

I don't typically like musicals. Is there a terrible lot of singing?"

Pretty much, yes. But also a lot of action.

Adam wrote: "You have a treat coming. The casting was very well done for that one."

Carol Reed (the film's director) really was a genius. He was the same guy that did The Third Man with Joseph Cotton and Orson Welles.

I just watched an animated version of "The Chimes," Dickens's Christmas novella of 1844. Although it is set on New Year's Eve, it is not strictly a holiday story, but does fulfill the annual promise of a ghost story (or "goblin story," as the subtitle proclaims). Like "A Christmas Carol" and Oliver Twist, it satirizes prevailing attitudes toward the poor by putting them into the mouths of petty officials and others in the middle rungs of socioeconomic status, who are all too eager to see the unfortunate poor "made an example of" and incarcerated. In "The Chimes" these hectoring voices promote empathy with the central characters, while the voices of the "goblins" caution the aged father, Toby (Trotty) Veck, against hopelessness. In this short animated film, the great Derek Jacobi does the voice characterization for Veck. For any who are interested, the film is available on VHS at this link: http://www.amazon.com/The-Chimes-VHS-...

I'm enjoying the Oliver Twist readalong tremendously and reading all the discussions with much interest--thanks!

Jonathan wrote: "Adam wrote: "You have a treat coming. The casting was very well done for that one."

I don't typically like musicals. Is there a terrible lot of singing?"

Yes.