Tag: tap-dance

A little old school dancing…

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Strolling through the Youtube archives is one of my favorite pastimes, since you never know what you’ll come across. I knew James Cagney could dance, even though he also played gangsters and other tough guys in the old movies, but I never knew that Bob Hope could hold his own in tap-dancing. If I had ever seen the movie “The Seven Little Foys” I would have learned better. This is a great scene with Hope playing Eddie Foy and Cagney playing George M. Cohan, doing a tap-dance “face-off”, and it is a joy to behold. Today’s pop-and-lock dancers do similar competitions with each other, but these guys were hitting it 60 years ago! If you watch closely there’s a part where Hope almost does a “moonwalk” while tap-dancing.

Enjoy!

“Gisoku no Moses”, a delightful anime short inspired by Gene Kelly

Screen Shot 2014-08-25 at 9.22.14 PMLeave it to Japan to combine a catchy Gene Kelly tap-dance number from “Singing in the Rain” with a cute anime ghost girl, to create one of the sweetest, cutest anime shorts I’ve seen to date. A lot of the world seems to agree, since the YouTube video is now over 300,000 views, and the comments section is filled with all kinds of languages from fans.

Screen Shot 2014-08-25 at 9.27.01 PMThe anime short starts off with a lonely, sad ghost girl, who happens to hear two haunted tap shoes singing and dancing to “Moses Supposes” from “Singing in the Rain.”

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She’s hesitant at first, but soon she starts trying to dance with them, and as the song goes on she breaks into a tap-dance routine just like Gene Kelly’s. It’s kind of bittersweet, as the shoes lose their movement, but in the closing we see a shopkeeper (Named Mose!) watching the ghost girl looking at a sign in his window for “Singing in the Rain”, and the last scene shows them in a theater where she’s enjoying “Singing in the Rain” with the shopkeeper!

Screen Shot 2014-08-25 at 9.31.43 PMThis is one to really enjoy!

(Update: I didn’t know this before but the other singer and dancer you hear is Donald O’Conner!)