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I love the movie, and saw the Neely/Anderson version when it played at Madison Square Garden's Paramount Theater about 15 years ago. While Carl Anderson was amazing, I was disappointed by Ted Neely, even back then. While I did think that he was a little old for the part even back then, the thing that really bummed me out about his performance was the country twang in his voice that he brought to the part. A quick and panicked perusal of the playbill revealed that he had become a country singer in the years after the movie. Blah.
The Jesus in a diaper didn't bug me nearly as much as the cruciform Neely rising up off his cross and into the heavens. I understand what it was supposed to represent, but it seemed a little too "Peter Pan" for me.
I'll take the '73 movie any day, but I have no desire to ever see it on the stage again.
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"Give the public everything you can give them, keep the place as clean as you can keep it, keep it friendly" - Walt Disney
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