Cheap Pippin (DVD) (David Sheehan) Price

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Customer Reviews of Pippin

Good show ruined by editing
Pippin is one of the best broadway shows of the 70's. Unfortunately, you'd never know it from this video of the show. While the cast is wonderful, the severe editing to make the show fit the length of a television broadcast ruins it. There are major jumps in story that completely delete songs, sections of songs, even complete scenes. And it's a major shame. William Katt makes a nice Pippin. He sings well and looks good in the part. Chita Rivera is great as Fastrada. She's..beautiful, devious, scheming, everything Fastrada should be. And what can be said about Ben Vereen. He's at the top of his form here in his Tony Award winning performance. Sound and video quality are good here. I just wish there were a special edition being issued that would put back everything that was cut out to fit the two hour time slot.

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Broadway it ain't, but...
I watched this video production with a certain amount of trepidation; after all, it was at the tender age of eight that I had first seen "Pippin" on Broadway, with the original cast. I was not disappointed in the final product of this video, either. Certainly, production values are uneven, and as the musical opened in 1973 and this video was shot in 1981, the material (and performers) suffer a bit from dating; in Chita Rivera's case, carbon-dating, perhaps. But it is still glorious fun to watch Fosse's hip-swishing choreography and pelvis-popping staging, the design staff's imaginative use of cloth and rope to construct castles and foliage, and Ben Vereen at his song-and-dance finest. The cast, including the "Greatest American Hero" (oh, God, am I dating MYSELF? Egad!) William Katt as Pippin, Chita Rivera reprising her role as Fastrada, and Martha Raye as Berthe, do commendable jobs with the material, which is as good as any Stephen Schwarz and Roger O. Hirson ever wrote. Sound quality is uneven, as is the video quality, but hey, this is 1981. They didn't even have Dolby Surround yet.

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The cast is better than the CD
That's right! I said it! John Rubinstein's voice is not strong enough to play Pippin. He sounds like Henry Gibson singing...anyone? Henry Gibson? "Laugh-In"? He was the voice of Wilbur in "Charlotte's Web?" No one? Okay, moving on...William Katt however not only sings "Corner of the Sky" he relishes it. He savors every note, and that's the way it must be sung. You wouldn't sing "Do You Hear the People Sing" unless you can handle it and you shouldn't sing "Corner" without some serious chops....or props...or snaps, or whatever the hell else it is that means "talent, abilities." I also think that Ben Vereen does better live than in the studio. That's right, I think Ben Vereen gave a better performance than Ben Vereen! Not even Ben Vereen could've matched Ben Vereen as a...no, this is silly. Look, the CD's fine, but the movie's better. The arrangements, the performances, and the fact that they cut my least favorite song "I Guess I'll Miss the Man."