The Dancing Stars madness has now a Cruise-dimension with Katie Holmes doing the Get Happy dance a la Judy Garland!
Every now and then, the Friday Break gets tuned to the news channel. Today I thought it was fun to get a piece of Get Happy with Judy Garland from the movie Summer Stock. Thank you for this wonderful week and your beautiful comments! I hope you’ll have the best weekend yet and don’t forget to Get Happy! (more info and a video with Katie Holmes singing and dancing Get Happy right after the jump!)
Even if it’s a joyful tune, Get Happy is indissolubly associated with Judy Garland, an absolute epitome of vaudeville-ish life, with tragic ups and downs, addictions and insecurities! Another one of those great artists whose life ended too soon because of various more or less legal substance abuse. Judy Garland was practically born on the stage with both parents being vaudeville artists – that (and her sisters) put her on the theater’s stage at the young age of 3.
Judy Garland sung Get Happy for the Summer Stock movie (1950) but the song dates back in 1930. Written by Ted Koehler and composed by Harold Arlen, it was first performed by the 30s legendary songbird Ruth Etting (The Nine-Fifteen Revue, 1930). The song has been covered so many times, performed on so many stages by so many dancers and still nobody rocked it better than Judy! (there’s even a video footage of Michael Jackson doing the Get Happy dance in the 70s – you can watch it here)
Now here comes Katie Holmes who rehearsed this Judy Garland homage for The Dizzy Feet Foundation (which enables children to receive mainly art related scholarships) and finally got to perform it last night. This special “So You Think You Can Dance” moment was thoroughly planned and the result was obviously, luckily, a positive one. Katie manages an honorable performance, both singing and dancing Judy Garland’s Get Happy from Summer Stock. There’s nothing bugging me about her stage happiness (besides the too obvious extensions, but hey, nobody’s perfect!) so I’m impatiently waiting for your reaction! (via 1, 2)
6 comments
Okay, I watched So you think you can Dance” (its the only reality show that I like) last night and to tell you the truth I was not impressed by Katie’s performance, it was rather “MEH” to me. Besides there is no way she could compare to Judy Garland’s version. They should have asked Liza to do it, she would have been infinitely better. The DizzyFeet foundation was and is a good thing but the way they promoted Katie being on the show you would think that it was the performance of all performances.
Right, nobody’s perfect and of course nobody can do this song like Judy. But we’ve no clue how Ruth Etting’s performance was at the time of course.
Katie did not a bad job in my view. I would never had expect her to dance and sing like this so at least that was a surprise to me! She’s always so stiff. Nice for a change to see her like that.
A nice surprise was also the Michael Jackson version. Thanks so much I’ve never knew he had done it too! What an artist he was….(sorry, I’m still kinda sad about Michael, he and Judy, they’ve a lot in common…..).
Oh, and there’s another version of Get Happy by Rufus Wainwright. I love that version too. Rufus really loves Judy . I’m a big fan of Rufus Wainwright you see. And he is able, in my view, to catch that vaudeville feel. See YouTube for those who are curious.
And another thing, fashion wise, ha, Miss Judy did even the pantless look better than all the entertainers whom tries to pull that off lately!! That subtle elegance and the way she worked the hat: bravo to the late great Judy!
Nice song Kpriss, this one sticks in my head for the weekend: So hallelujah, come on get happy….lalalalala la……and get ready for the judgement day-y-y!!!
You know, I wasn’t all that impressed by the performance but like Adriana said, it’s nice to see Katie look un-stiff! Her routine wasn’t difficult at all, so I imagine that’s why she pulled it off like she did. If you recall it, there was a cameo appearance of Katie doing a dance in a TV series or something similar (I know it made a buzz on the Internet) and she was infinitely worse than this DizzyFeet Judy Garland thing.
Either way, I’m happy you liked Judy Garland’s original version, she’s magic!
Ellington, you’re so right! They should’ve asked Liza to do her mother’s routine! It would have been so right! Didn’t you notice that every-Katie thing is promoted like crazy? It must have something to do with their church. She’s a clean image for them, so they’re taking every opportunity to push her forward.
Yeaaaah! The pantless queen! (you know, Judy was quite an icon for the gay community… I wonder if this pantless thing could have anything to do with that…hmmm)
one little detail – was I the only one bothered by Katie’s over inflated ego? She was doing that dance with an awfully superior expression on her face like she was proving herself through this Get Happy thing. Like a bet or something. (her closing expression, wasn’t it strange?)
Of course the pantless thing has a lot to do with the gay community. Tell me all about it but as long as the boys are amused, I’m not complaining…as long as they stick to the good ones that is….like the old stars as Judy! I wonder if Liza today would have been that good to be honest. I’m questioning that?
I wasn’t bothered by Katie’s over inflated ego because that’s all I see of late with so may entertainers. Not just entertainers, also designers, photographers, models etc. etc. Even bloggers! Lol, also commenters hahaha…No not you blogger Kpriss! We all know, I assume whom I’m talking about. I wonder why that is by the way? They fail to impress me and I fail to understand all that ego-go-on-thing….but, hallelujah come on get happy….:-X
Katie was promoted for a spot she did on the short lived but not too bad tv show called “Eli Stone”. It starred Jonny Lee Miller. She was so meh in that too, she sang and danced in a dream sequence. Yes they promote her, why I have not a clue. She is not at all interesting, except for the fact that she married Tom Crusie and even that is stretching it a bit.
Her dance routine was not challenging at all and it was nothing to write home about. As for her superior look well that’s all she’s got of late.
Katie must have attend a higher rank in the world of the Thetans. Something we don’t know about and don’t want to know about?
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