barnabas_truman

Adams: We should do the thing!
Everybody: No, John.
Adams: But it's important!
Everybody: No, John.

Adams: Hey Jefferson, tell them they should do the thing.
Jefferson: I'm busy.
Adams: But it's important.
Jefferson: Boring.
Adams: But morality! Posterity! Doing the right thing!
Jefferson: *sigh* Okayyyyyyy.

Jefferson: We should do the thing.
Everybody: Hell yes!

Adams: That was great! Thank you so much!
Jefferson: Whatever. I'm going back to Monticello; come get me when the country needs a president that isn't you.

Why do we always come here? I guess we'll never know.
It's like some kind of torture to have to watch the show!

So why are Statler and Waldorf so cranky and snarky all the time? And why do they keep coming back? They've obviously been around for quite a while. Their closeness suggests a lifelong friendship, and their sense of humor indicates a love of classic vaudeville.

Perhaps what we're looking at is a relic of a forgotten era of theatre; the last two surviving fans of the magnificent vaudeville show that used to play weekly on this very stage half a century before. Maybe they were a vaudeville comedy duo themselves in their youth; maybe they trained up the next generation and planned to retire into a comfortable routine of watching from their favorite box seats as their successors improve the act over the years… and then the company goes out of business, and the theatre gets bought up by some upstart frog-and-bear variety show.

But they can't just stop going! This theatre is their whole life; they have season tickets for these box seats for the next decade; and besides, it's something to do on Saturday nights. So every week they drag themselves to the show, heckle the frog and the bear, complain that theatre ain't what it used to be, and then head out to have a quiet drink together and reminisce about the good old days.

Ladies and gentlemen, Statler & Waldorf.