Fosse/Minnelli's landmark '72 "Liza with a Z" special outta the vault!

One question: is she confused with the Liza with a "C" or "G"?

Goddard, anyway.

It's Liza with 'Z' not Lisa with an 'S', 'Cause Lisa with an 'S' goes SSno'ZZ
It's 'Z' instead of 'S', 'Lie' instead of 'Lee', It's simple as can be, see, Liza
I'll do it again
It's Liza with 'Z' not Lisa with an 'S', 'Cause Lisa with an 'S' goes SSno'ZZ
It's 'Z' instead of 'S', 'Lie' instead of 'Lee', It's simple as can be, see, Liza

Now - if my name were Ada, I'd be Ada, even backwards I'd be Ada
Or if my name were Ruth, then I'd be Ruth because with Ruth what can you do
Or Sally, or Margaret or Ginger or Faye
But when you're a Liza you always have to say

Nn - It's Liza with 'Z' not Lisa with an 'S', 'Cause Lisa with an 'S' goes SSno'ZZ
It's 'Z' instead of 'S', 'Lie' instead of 'Lee', It's simple as can be, see, Liza

And you know, I'll still rep for Liza in "New York, New York."

The Times thing was a little mean ("riveting and ghastly") but I think the line about Liza starting her career "as an anachronism" is generally on target. Her mom's last career 'highlight' was likely the Carnegie Hall show / #1 album (1961?) which was awfully early in the rock era -- Judy spent the next 8 years resting on her laurels and sliding toward the grave. Liza hit Broadway in '64, I think, and films in '68/69, when her kind of razzmatazz was much further on the cultural margins, esp as far as producing NEW stars.

The show is fun -- "Ring Them Bells" is cute, and wasn't that Ann Reinking right up front among the "Bye Bye Blackbird" dancers? -- with only that psychodrama nursery-rhyme interpolation in the middle of "It Was a Good Time" being a huge cringe-maker (very early '70s). But let me play heretic and say that Fosse's signature '70s choreography, with the bowler hats, white gloves and thrusting, just looks damn silly! Maybe it's a casualty of decades of parody, but I've always preferred the random gyrations of the Juul Haalmeyer Dancers of SCTV.

Also, it's notable that while LM surely coulda sung and danced at the same time, she's synching whenever she's on the move because the technology didn't exist to body-mike her for TV (I'm guessing).

I think "cultural anachronism" is still a little off the mark, given that Streisand was on the rise throughout the '60s. At the least, Stanley could have come up with a better example of The New than Three Dog Night. And while Babs generally did a better job of moving toward rock than Liza did, it doesn't make either of them Mick Jagger (or Joe Tex, for that matter). But the culture in general was bigger by the early '70s, and you could argue that even Sonny and Cher were doing a similar showbizzy thing while still managing to make noise on AM radio with the kids' music. If she were looking to do more than take potshots at LM, Stanley could've found much bigger '70s anachronisms to target -- the Oscars themselves, for one.

what about streisand though? that was pretty much her time-line too.

It wasn't until '75 or so that guys like Andy Williams, Ray Conniff and who knows how many others released regular LPs of MOR covers of recent hits.

And "belters" also = Blood, Sweat & Tears. Interesting that on James Brown's late-'60s live albums, he does stuff like "That's Life" and "Spinning Wheel" amidst all the funk 'n' soul.

"with the kids' music" = "alongside the kids' music"

the instrumental version of "Spinning Wheel" on JB's Sex Machine cracks me up evertime. Too bad he didn't sing it!

I remember my country/classical loving Dad just GOING OFF on Judy Garland back then: "she's always singing in front of these GIANT LETTERS SPELLING OUT JUDY WHAT THE HELL IS THAT ALL ABOUT!?!"

lot of her appeal for a lot of people is that she does remind you of her mom.

There are a LOT of moms into gay husbands and public humiliation? (OK, I can see the second...)

Yeah on Streisand's contemporaneity, but ... she's different, and more 'pop' than Broadway despite her roots (tho Liza tried late with the Pet Shop Boys, and that was remaindered).

Andy Williams HAD a couple hits as late as '70-71 (drivel like the "Love Story" theme, maybe?). Bing Crosby covered "Hey Jude" soon after it was a hit (and there were similar disastrous leaps at the youth bandwagon; Sinatra's "Something" at least wasn't a total misfit).

Sinatra was no stranger to bandwagon-jumping; search "Everybody's Twistin'." His "Mrs. Robinson" is also a gas.

MC, I suspect yr pop didn't understand STARDOM!

Sinatra's "Something" is defensible, his "Mrs. Robinson" is a joke. He couldn't even get thru "Downtown" (hardly MC5 stuff, but just as ill-suited to him) without mocking the song!

OK ... Paul Simon fixated on "Jilly [Frank's restaurateur pal] loves you more than you will know."

I seem to recall Liza collaborated with Gene Simmons at some point?

According to IMDb, Simmons managed her for a while in the '80s. Wow.

Not necessarily. Most of the time, when I hear performers going "I love you / You love me" (ie, TRUMPETING IT), I reach for my revolver. What makes Liza's "Wow, yer really terrific!" over-the-topness tolerable in this special is she's 26. A friend went to see her do an outdoor show near Coney Island last summer ($3! -- still kicking myself for going to see CALEXICO instead), and he found her nonstop "I love you guys" a hoot...

I'm not a Liza fanatic or anything but I do like her - even stayed up till the unheard hour of 11:00pm watching "Cabaret" as a 7-year old back in '75 or so. And, yeah, "The Sterile Cuckoo". And "Arrested Development".

Available Audio Tracks: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo)
Includes Grammy-winning original Liza with a "Z" soundtrack on separate CD
Remarkably candid, full-length program commentary by Liza herself
Fan Q&A with Liza at the 2005 Toronto Film Festival
Liza's performance at the 2005 GLAAD Awards
Liza interviews legendary "Cabaret," New York, New York" and "Chicago" composer John Kander
The complete "Biography: Liza Minnelli" from A&E Network
Biographies of Liza Minnelli and Bob Fosse

the search for pieces turned up a two-minute version of ``Mein Herr'' from ``Cabaret'' that had been trimmed from the telecast.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/entertainment/columnists/charlie_mccollum/14191397.htm

Arick also was able to find the original sound tracks. (Just one number that night -- the energetic dance number ``Ring Them Bells'' -- had a prerecorded vocal.)

Hmmm, looked like more than that to me -- "I Gotcha" for one.

"In this era of over-zealous digital editing, when shots are rarely sustained for longer than six seconds, comprehension is often sacrificed to busy-ness as techie filmmakers cater to the public’s attention deficit. No worse examples exist than the recent movie musicals Chicago and Moulin Rouge, which both dishonored the legacy of Bob Fosse’s choreographic-editing. It is good that Liza with a Z reappears to remind film culture that coherence was integral to Fosse’s art...

Liza is no more her mother than Rob Marshall is Bob Fosse, but at least she’s the real thing, a star from the era before Madonna, when performers had to have talent."

http://nypress.com/19/14/film/ArmondWhite.cfm

and RING THEM BELLS!!

Apparently the special's exhumation resulted in Liza being mobbed at Sandra Bernhard's opening party (at Splash of course), which sent her home after a panic attack.

http://www.brooklynconcerts.com/seaside.html

still Fosse's most underrated achievement