Even Wall-E is a Musical Theater Fan!

I saw WALL-E, the new movie from Disney-Pixar, during its opening weekend. I was really excited, because the trailers looked pretty amazing! My expectations were met and exceeded. The story follows a little robot named WALL-E, and his quest to help humankind return to an Earth that he has been trying to clean up for hundreds of years. There's a love story, action-packed chases, and... wait? Yes folks, the opening credits to WALL-E are underscored by Put On Your Sunday Clothes from the musical Hello Dolly!

The rest of the movie uses Put On Your Sunday Clothes and It Only Takes A Moment as vital insights into WALL-E's character, romance with Eve, and his dreams about the planet Earth. Plus, it exposes the younger generations (I mean, these were little kids) going to see the movie to the extremely hummable and well-constructed melodies and lyrics of Jerry Herman.

From an article in The Canadian Press:

Laughing, Herman said it was "so weird" that the songs would be used in a robot movie. But he said the theme of "Hello, Dolly!" - about a 19th-century widowed matchmaker who learns to live again - is relevant to the world of WALL-E, where chubby, unmotivated humans are pampered by robots in a giant space ship before a wake-up call jolts them out of complacency.

"It's about a basic need for people to go on with life and not shut themselves away and to make the most out of the time we have on this planet," Herman said.

For a film with little human dialogue, "WALL-E" was the box-office champion in its opening weekend, nudging the Angelina Jolie thriller "Wanted" to second place.

"WALL-E" opens with panoramic views of galaxies far away, using "Sunday Clothes" as a sunny soundtrack. But the song's exuberant lyrics - "Out there/There's a world outside of Yonkers" - take on new meaning when the scene shifts to the bleak atmosphere of Wall-E's homeland: garbage-ridden planet Earth.

Stanton said he knew he wanted to juxtapose retro music with this futuristic setting but discovered "a perfect fit" to his narrative when he stumbled upon the "Hello, Dolly!" repertoire and the lyric "out there." (In the musical, it is the song that a Yonkers store clerk croons as he and his apprentice plan their New York City adventure.)

"I thought it was a perfect counterpoint to have this sort of almost naive optimism in the song," Stanton said.

"But then it seemed even more appropriate the more I thought about it, because the song is about two naive guys (who) have never left their small town and they just want to go to the big city for one night, live it up and kiss a girl. And I thought, 'That is my main character.' "

And in those first images of planets and stars, "you're meeting WALL-E's dreams before you ever get to meet WALL-E. And I love that. That was just so poetic to me," Stanton said.

Go out and see this movie! You won't regret it, and I thought it was both child and adult appropriate. The poignant messages about laziness and the garbage output of the human race will make you feel like you learned something, while also enjoying the irresistibly cute character of WALL-E!!