Trouble in River City.

So I have begun Phase I of my plan to instantiate a love of the musical "The Music Man" in the kids. This involves frequent, one might even say near-constant playing of the soundtrack to the Broadway version. It's such a charming set of songs, and so forward-thinking: the smart girl with a past is the heroine! That's brilliant. The song between Marion and her mother ending in the line "There's not a man alive who could hope to measure up to the blend of Paul Bunyan, Saint Pat and Noah Webster you've concocted for yourself out of your Irish imagination, your Iowa stubbornness and your library full of books!" - it's just really fun. And I like that Marion glosses over all sorts of possible tricky illicit adult situations with the line, "You'll find it in Balzac." I loved the play and the soundtrack, and thus played the music, so much as a child that I can still sing along with each song, which (let me assure you) never gets annoying *at all.* Phase II is going to involve watching the Matthew Broderick/Helen Chenowith made-for-TV movie, which Santa was kind enough to put in my stocking this year. I figure that if we all grow to love the actual play as much as I expect, we can track down a stage production and it will be all sorts of great good fun.