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November 30, 2012 1:16 PM

In 1994, Tony Randall and Mandy Patinkin's car broke down outside David Letterman's studio and they needed a place to rehearse. Did Dave mind if they used the stage? Great take it away Mandy!

Mandy had been on Letterman before, as Cher.

posted by Potomac Avenue (38 comments total)

Trivia: today is Mandy Patinkin's 60th birthday. He also briefly starred in a production of my husband's musical, Captains Courageous.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 1:17 PM on November 30, 2012 [2 favorites]

This is such a fantastic running gag! I love how Mandy can deliver a completely serious performance that requires him to hang on for an entire schmaltzy song... and with no smirking insincerity whatsoever he still gets tons of authentic laughs and audience response. MASTER CLASS.
posted by SharkParty at 1:39 PM on November 30, 2012 [6 favorites]

Psst Tony Randall is the real genius of this scene
posted by Potomac Avenue at 1:43 PM on November 30, 2012 [10 favorites]

Yeah that's true too! This whole schtick is sweet!
posted by SharkParty at 1:44 PM on November 30, 2012

So were they performing in a show that was playing nearby? Where did this bit come from?
posted by davejay at 1:47 PM on November 30, 2012

Damian Lewis reports that sometimes tension on the set of Homeland is dispelled by he and Patinkin singing a Sondheim duet.
posted by Egg Shen at 1:52 PM on November 30, 2012 [4 favorites]

Man, thems some pipes!
posted by ericb at 1:56 PM on November 30, 2012 [1 favorite]

Okay, that 'Over The Rainbow" performance gave me goosebumps and a tingle in my scalp.
posted by ericb at 2:04 PM on November 30, 2012 [2 favorites]

I tell ya what's wrong with the world today: it's coffee in a cardboard cup.
posted by basicchannel at 2:04 PM on November 30, 2012 [4 favorites]

(pickle, doll?)
posted by you must supply a verb at 2:16 PM on November 30, 2012

I want Mandy to refer to me as "kiddo" just once in my life.
posted by basicchannel at 2:20 PM on November 30, 2012 [11 favorites]

"Who would of known Gideon from Criminal Minds had such a great voice."

Jesus, but I hate YouTube commenters.
posted by grabbingsand at 2:45 PM on November 30, 2012 [8 favorites]

Holy moly, if that ain't the best version of Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? I've ever heard... well, I don't know. Bow your head, Bing.
posted by dobbs at 2:54 PM on November 30, 2012 [3 favorites]

Thanks! I love this.

Patinkin has just that right amount of old-school Broadway feel that gives the me warm nostalgic fuzzies of my childhood, which was inordinately influenced by MGM musicals. So I'm pretty sure the "Big Show" they're rehearsing for is going to be held in his uncle's barn and will save the town/orphanage/college/ski resort/etc.
posted by paisley sheep at 2:57 PM on November 30, 2012 [8 favorites]

When I was a teenager, Mandy Patinkin's turn as Che Guevara in Evita left me swooning with delight -- all that passion, the anger, the beard -- you know the drill. But then he shaved his beard and started overacting -- his Inigo Montoya left me nearly weeping with rage and loss. And for two decades he was dead to me, completely written off. ...and then, a couple weeks ago, I saw Homeland -- and suddenly, there he was again! Perfect, angry, melancholy, brilliant, passionate Mandy Patinkin -- the guy I had a crush on when I was 15 suddenly appeared out of nowhere, and it was ... the strangest feeling.
posted by ariel_caliban at 3:18 PM on November 30, 2012 [3 favorites]

You can't see me, but I am doing such jazz hands right now.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 3:18 PM on November 30, 2012 [2 favorites]

But then he shaved his beard and started overacting -- his Inigo Montoya left me nearly weeping with rage and loss.

Wow, what's it like to be THE WRONGEST PERSON EVER?
posted by Horace Rumpole at 3:21 PM on November 30, 2012 [65 favorites]

I forgot how sparse the set was in the early days at the Ed Sullivan Theater!

I also had no idea Mandy Patinkin could sing.
posted by gjc at 3:24 PM on November 30, 2012

>I also had no idea Mandy Patinkin could sing.

Oh yes, he can.
posted by Catblack at 3:33 PM on November 30, 2012 [2 favorites]

You know, when Dave goes off the air, I really hope that, if the talk show form isn't totally dead by then, whatever replaces him is in New York. Because I'm all for things changing and traditions moving on, but some things just need to be around.

(There's probably an argument to be made that Jimmy Fallon's show works better than we might have thought it would because it's in New York when everybody expects it to be "LA-ish" but I've had a long week and can't make it)
posted by MCMikeNamara at 3:39 PM on November 30, 2012

I also had no idea Mandy Patinkin could sing.

There's a part in Lord of the Rings where Frodo is talking to, I think, Gandalf about Tom Bombadil and the Old Forest, and Frodo says something like "I think Tom Bombadil is the Old Forest".

I think Mandy Patinkin is song.
posted by Atom Eyes at 3:44 PM on November 30, 2012 [4 favorites]

Mr. Patinkin is one of our generations finest performers, maybe the finest Broadway musical singer of the last fifty years.

That said, wow did we lose somebody special when we lost Tony Randall. As a performer, he was just perfect in every way.
posted by Joey Michaels at 4:27 PM on November 30, 2012 [7 favorites]

Damian Lewis reports that sometimes tension on the set of Homeland is dispelled by he and Patinkin singing a Sondheim duet.

I would buy the DVDs just for this bonus material.
posted by thivaia at 4:57 PM on November 30, 2012 [4 favorites]

Oh good I've been wanting to talk about homeland. I love homeland, in a way that I hadn't expected to given my predilection for character rather than plot-driven shows. Here's my theory: the show succeeds because Brody vs Carrie has such rich resonance to America's love and hatred of freedom vs safety. We want to be safe and free. We send men into war and expect them to return to us whole, without bitterness or regret. We expect our guardians to be ever vigilant, ever aware, sleepless. The conflict between these expectations create the tension that makes this show so compelling.

That is all.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 5:28 PM on November 30, 2012 [2 favorites]

t/y very nice :-)
posted by nj_subgenius at 6:37 PM on November 30, 2012

Here's my theory: the show succeeds because Brody vs Carrie has such rich resonance to America's love and hatred of freedom vs safety.

I'd say that's why it's popular. But I think the creators have missed a great opportunity by having us in Carrie's corner. To my recollection, she's pretty much been right about everything since the show started. As a result, all the conflict from her superiors is manufactured wholesale--none of it is organic. Every time there's a question of who's right, her or everyone else, there's really no question whatsoever. They've set it up in such a way that she can never be wrong (and therefore isn't) so nothing is really at stake. It's a show about terrorism and there's never any sense of peril. That's not a success. That's a failure.
posted by dobbs at 9:37 PM on November 30, 2012 [1 favorite]

I remember watching at least one of these on NBC, and I'm fairly certain that they did it again at least once Dave moved to CBS and the new studio. (Tony and Mandy still need rehearsal space for the Big Show.)

Sadly, those don't seem to be on YouTube, but they were of equal caliber.

Also, do check out the last link, as it includes the spectacular performance from Run, Ronnie, Run. "You gotta peel the onion." One of the few high points in that film after the studio mangled it.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 9:53 PM on November 30, 2012

TIL that Mandy Patinkin and I share a degenerative eye condition! Celebrity eye disease buddies!
posted by schwa at 10:24 PM on November 30, 2012

They're like the original Odd Couple.
posted by Mezentian at 11:17 PM on November 30, 2012

In this old Jolson staple of a tune, the line "Old Black Joe, just as though..." is usually changed to the more politically correct "soft and low, just as though...". Surprised that wasn't done here, being that this is still considered "recent", relatively speaking. I mean, its not Jolson in the twenties when it was a hit or anything. Mandy is amazing in anything he does, nonetheless. Anyone recall when he did the film "Yentl" with Streisand?
posted by Seekerofsplendor at 11:17 PM on November 30, 2012

I was referring to "Rockabye Your Baby", the first link, BTW.
posted by Seekerofsplendor at 11:23 PM on November 30, 2012

There's a great running gag on the Firewall and Iceberg podcast (of TV critics Alan Sepinwall and Dan Fienberg) to lobby the producers of Homeland for an excuse for Saul to sing. Like, the gang decides to go out to a karaoke bar after capturing a particularly slippery terrorist or something. Dan maintained that there was no way such a scene doesn't work no matter the contrived circumstances, until Alan wondered what would happen if the scene was Saul singing while shaving off his fabulous beard, which left Dan in a state of despair.
posted by Rhomboid at 11:58 PM on November 30, 2012 [1 favorite]

Anyone recall when he did the film "Yentl" with Streisand?

Oh, my, yes - and I took more than a little ribbing because I saw it twice, due to my unabashed crush on Mandy.

(If it's online, I'm going to watch it again right now.)
posted by she's not there at 12:59 AM on December 1, 2012 [1 favorite]

I am forever confusing him with his uncle who founded The Second City
posted by infini at 3:18 AM on December 1, 2012

I watched Yentl with my mom was I was 8 or 9 (I think she'd forgotten some of the plot points). Mandy Patinkin's was the first non-related naked male butt I ever saw.
posted by ChuraChura at 5:03 AM on December 1, 2012 [1 favorite]

Great post, thank you! Small correction - in the Cher video, Mandy sang as himself - "Cher" was played by Calvert deForest (aka Larry "Bud" Melman).
posted by mark7570 at 8:44 AM on December 1, 2012

I am feeling cranky that the "Mandy Patinkin gets naked" section of the clip was so darn short. Harrumph.
posted by Lexica at 8:41 PM on December 1, 2012 [1 favorite]

Oh I love this and I love Mandy Patinkin so, so, so much.

No Mandy thread, however, would be complete without a little Finishing the Hat.
posted by Lutoslawski at 1:07 PM on December 3, 2012