Entwined: Tales of Good & Grimm

Register or Login to Hide This Ad for Free!
RE: Entwined: Tales of Good & Grimm (2012 to Present)

I would actually like to see a show strictly about tall tales actually. NOT a mix of all the characters in one. Hansel & Gretel.. then go on to Little Red Riding Hood.. Jack & the beanstalk, and so on. That would be better than what this Entwined is..
 
RE: Entwined: Tales of Good & Grimm (2012 to Present)

JewlzX2 said:
I would actually like to see a show strictly about tall tales actually. NOT a mix of all the characters in one. Hansel & Gretel.. then go on to Little Red Riding Hood.. Jack & the beanstalk, and so on. That would be better than what this Entwined is..
Click to expand...

Nails dragging down a chalkboard would be better then what Entwined is.:D
 
  • Like
Reactions: flamanar, Julia, Hoopla and 1 other person
RE: Entwined: Tales of Good & Grimm (2012 to Present)

Random comment...Saw Entwined in May....Thought it was possibly the most painful thing I have ever sat through in my life. Like it made me feel sad and empty inside. We walked out and my 6yo DD says, "That was the most awesome show ever." So there ya go :)
 
  • Like
Reactions: Julia, flamanar and BBW
RE: Entwined: Tales of Good & Grimm (2012 to Present)

I'm glad your daughter liked it, but, without any offense meant to you or anyone else, I can't believe possibly the first person to say the like it is 6 years old. Again, no personal offense meant at all, why on earth is the Festhaus, an enormous beer hall gathering, burdened with a costly, flashy musical only 6-year-olds like? Maybe the budget cuts will cause them to resort to just playing TIO, since it's simpler and likely cheaper. :p Hey, just trying to make some light out of the dark situation the park is in!

On a different note, after watching the show, I noticed something kind of funny: "Whenever we say 'Happily ever after,' everyone jump up, put your hands in the air, and say 'YEAH!'"
Example:
Narrator: "...blah blah sparkles blah blah glitter blah blah...Happily ever after!"
Everyone else: "YEAH!"
Castle: <Glows all sparkly and glittery ~ Nearly burns the eyes out of all fans in the audience>

Now, why does that seem familiar? Hmm... Let's see, it'll come to me. Oh, yeah! It seems very similar to the audience interaction of This is Oktoberfest!
"Whenever you hear, Zicke, Zacke, Zicke, Zacke,' put your hands and glasses in the air and say, 'Hoi Hoi Hoi!'"

Hmm. I didn't notice that until not too long ago, but is that not the slightest bit odd? Did they realize they needed more audience interaction and use an adaptation of the beloved part of This is Oktoberfest? Hmm... Of course, the difference is that nobody cares to participate during Entwined, whereas in This is Oktoberfest, people outside of just the performers are willing to perform. Just something to chew on. ;)
 
  • Like
Reactions: Julia
RE: Entwined: Tales of Good & Grimm (2012 to Present)

^You know, Chickenking, I think you pretty much summed my entire point down into two lines of text. :p
 
  • Like
Reactions: flamanar and chickenking
RE: Entwined: Tales of Good & Grimm (2012 to Present)

J0E1 said:
I'm glad your daughter liked it, but, without any offense meant to you or anyone else, I can't believe possibly the first person to say the like it is 6 years old. Again, no personal offense meant at all, why on earth is the Festhaus, an enormous beer hall gathering, burdened with a costly, flashy musical only 6-year-olds like?
Click to expand...

LOL no offense taken! That was exactly what I meant.
She also loved the Elmo dinner...
 
  • Like
Reactions: Julia and flamanar
RE: Entwined: Tales of Good & Grimm (2012 to Present)

Okay, here goes. I have read quite a bit about Entwined on these boards this summer, most of it incredibly negative, and found it frankly hard to understand how the show could possibly deserve the evisceration this site has doled out. I felt that there might be a runaway feedback loop in here, elevating criticism of some of the show's modest weaknesses to a full-on overamplified screech.

I, uh... ahem. Okay. Hard to admit this, but I had never actually, um, seen the show, living multiple states away and only getting to Williamsburg one week per year for various family vacation activities. Somehow we simply missed Entwined last year. So I had no point of reference at all.

Until yesterday.

...Untilllllll yesterday.

Holy God.

Oh, man. I am so sorry, people. Really, I apologize. I know none of you, have no plans to meet any of you, and probably never will meet any of you. But I know I owe you a major mea culpa, because I was just flat out wrong. Objectively, the herd here is correct. Entwined is terrible. It is truly, incomprehensibly, ineffably not good at all.

I want to say this earlier rather than later: The cast has NOTHING to do with the show's problems. They seem energetic, they're clearly really talented, and they were into the performance. Great performers. It's just an unbelievably crappy show.

So. Here's the scene from yesterday. We're a family of 4, including a couple of very young (3-5 y.o.) girls who should be right in the sweet spot for a glittering, spastic, absurdist mishmash of musically moldy vacuous crap. They love Strawberry Shortcake, My Little Pony, Yo Gabba Gabba, a hundred other musical kids' shows/movies, live kiddo theater, and best of all they are starved for musical entertainment because they get no more then 23 minutes of TV time per day, tops. Oh, and they adored the standard Oktoberfest show. They were both up out of their seats chicken dancing like crazy. They should have loved Entwined.

They hated it.

I snuck a lot of glances their way during the show, and they were confused and not entertained. That unfiltered, completely honest look kids get when they flat-out don't get something and are pretty sure it isn't their own fault? That was the one. They seemed to realize that beyond the spectacle, there was no "there" there.

As for my impressions... the very first thing I noticed during the show is that they turn off all of the non-stage lights in the house! What the hell is that? Seriously? If you are outside and walk into the Festhaus, you CANNOT SEE A DAMNED THING except for, ya know, a dude on stilts on a stage 100 feet away. This has got to be a safety issue. There were a lot of people sitting and eating, wanly clapping from time to time, but the only real crowd in the place consisted of folks who had just walked in from the front entry hall... folks who could not easily pick their way past each other in the dark to get over to the food service area. Then, with their eyes once again accustomed to the bright lights of the food lines, they had to reenter the dark main hall with awkward trays in hand to grab seats. That's enough of a challenge for most people when the lights are on! The vague torment of balancing cups of soda and beer... keeping track of your scattered group whilst simultaneously looking for an ideal bench, dodging other guests all the while... it's all incredibly visual activity and now it's IN THE DARK. Wow. That is just incredible. Really stupid choice there.

Then there's the show itself. What? Is? This? Mess? Disco balls descending from the ceiling, arbitrary and unexplained musical shoehorning, goofy set pieces and, uh, plot points, I guess... acrobats flying around and singers/dancers trying their best to glue it all together. It's like an expensive live highlight reel of questionable decisions from other stage productions throughout history. Entwined is the entertainment equivalent of a fireworks factory explosion: undeniable, unmanageable, scary, confusing, ruinous.

Enough has already been said about the show's specifics in this discussion, but I just want to say that the whole Dancing Queen bit at the end is the icing on this crap cake. At that point in the show my older daughter leaned over, having no concerns about missing anything that was happening on stage, and yelled, "Why are those people hanging from those ropes? Did the wolf kill them? Why are those shiny balls wobbling around? Why are they singing this song for so long? And what is THAT thing?" I didn't even know which THAT thing she was pointing at, as there were so many people and props all over the stage. I had to tell her that I had absolutely no idea what was happening, and that I was sorry.

Entwined made me apologize to my kid. And also to a bunch of complete strangers on the Internet. That's how bad it is.

I have been visiting the park every year or two since Loch Ness Monster was the same age Griffon is now. I feel that I have a decent sense for the place. And I feel pretty confident saying that Busch Gardens is better than what you see in the Festhaus 50% of the time these days.

Again, no offense is intended to the performers at all. They really were terrific, and as is always the case when the talent of the cast exceeds the apparent talent of the producer, it was great to see them using a deep well of skills to power through what they must acutely understand to be a bad product.

But wow, is Entwined ever a bad product! Especially when you see Celtic Fire the same day.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Jonquil, FrontSeatMafia, Peter R. and 16 others
RE: Entwined: Tales of Good & Grimm (2012 to Present)

halfabee said:
:snipped:...
But wow, is Entwined ever a bad product! Especially when you see Celtic Fire the same day.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your review, halfabee. If you'd be so kind as to send in that review of Entwined to Busch Customer Relations, I'm sure you'd gain alot of fans...both known and unknown! Entwined won't go away until people start really letting BGW know that it's an unholy, rainbow-colored stinker. ;)
 
  • Like
Reactions: Mushroom and CastleOSullivan
RE: Entwined: Tales of Good & Grimm (2012 to Present)

At this point, I think the park is pretty much ignoring any letters about Entwined. The powers that be in Williamsburg seem bent on keeping the show, but corporate doesn't seem to have such a strong feeling for the show. I would write the letter and send it straight to Orlando. People hardly ever write a letter anymore, so they are usually more likely to pay attention to it. I would even guess that any email that gets sent to Williamsburg that has the word "Entwined" in it probably gets sent straight to their spam folder. They are tired of hearing it, because in the end, "you-know-who" always gets what he wants, not what the people want.
 
  • Like
Reactions: SDG
RE: Entwined: Tales of Good & Grimm (2012 to Present)

chickenking said:
^
What a parent will endure for the sake of the children we love. OR...maybe having to watch this thing could be a punishement for a dirty room or something. lol
Click to expand...

OR...for the sole purpose of seeing the Prince. :p
 
  • Like
Reactions: chickenking and Applesauce
RE: Entwined: Tales of Good & Grimm (2012 to Present)

The cast went to the picnic area after the noon show on Sunday for pictures. Everything is wrapping up. We hear that the leads got casted together in a show out of the park. BGW's (and our's) loss, the next venues gain. They make a really cute couple. Good luck to them. :)
 
  • Like
Reactions: Nora, flamanar, Kitty and 7 others
RE: Entwined: Tales of Good & Grimm (2012 to Present)

Thought it would be fun to go back to the beginning (thread page 29) and see if my opinions have changed after five whole months of Entwined.

chickenking said:
OK, where to begin. Entwined is a mish-mash of fairy tale stories... Wait a minute! That was last year, which I much prefer to the spectacle that I witnessed today. After listening to VP Scott talk up entertainment and especially the "success" that last season's Entwined was, I kinda had low expectations but high hopes for version 3. It began, my jaw dropped, and 20 some minutes later it ended in a Dancing Queen melody stage full of Circus Soleil, some bitches from the movie HEATHERS, and I don't know what.
Trying to describe this show is like trying to figure out a math problem which has no solution. It made my brain hurt. It had a MORAL to the STORY. Something about not needing things to be a cool person all by yourself. Problem is, I couldn't figure out what the story was. There was even a cameo by Goldmember from Austin Powers 3 flying around the stage in those arm wrap thingies. Maybe I'm being too harsh. It was only Preview Day, but DAMN!!! :shocked: (I know, potty mouth , right?). You MUST witness this train wreck to believe it. What were they thinking? Dr. Freakenstein from Fiends as The Narrator?
On a positive not, the stage looked very good. I can't wait to see it again. And thank God for This is Oktoberfest!!!!

P.S. My six-year-old daughter was very confused.
Click to expand...



chickenking said:
Just to be clear... you MUST witness this thing in person to truly get a feel for it.

OK, I went back to the park today for a few hours to do some things with my daughter on St. Patrick's Day that we missed yesterday. I had promised myself that I wouldn't see any repeats of the shows. But we happened upon the Festhaus and my baby talked me into it. Yes, for the second time in two days, I watched (in person) the disasterpiece in all of its glory. This time I took notes. After processing my thoughts on it after I got home, I came up with a list of interesting things:

- It should've been a hint of things to come when that guy came out at the beginning swinging an axe around like he was Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter. What happened to him anyway? He disappears...
- One of the dancing girls has a skirt that is MUCH shorter than the other girls. It wasn't because she was tall, and she wasn't a special character. Why?
- Those yellow pants are REALLY tight. Wrinkles everywhere!
- The stage always seems too empty with only two actors on opposites sides, or it is way too busy at times.
- "Gretyl's Secret" shopping bag? Victoria wasn't sexy enough?
- Watch the movie "Heathers" and then watch Entwined again. I dare you.
- Why are some gnomes shaking their booties at the crowd?
- During "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend" the word "PU$$YCAT" causes shocked looks on the faces of children in the crowd.
- There is a lot of suggestive things; some of a phallic nature:
"Pet my goose."
"I like your hair" (as wood grows).
The Mr. Tumnus-like goat-boy says "I'm Raaaaaaaannndy!" Look it up if you don't know.
- There is a drinking game throughout the show... "Happily Ever After" (now raise your glass).
- Though much better than a mascot, the new psycho Wolf looks like a New York City rat mated with a lion-fish. Might make a cool tattoo.
- Dr. Freakenstein is Prince Charming.
- Dancing Queen..."you're only seventeen." Isn't the implication here illegal? Especially since Freakenstein is involved.
- During the big Dancing Queen finale number, the lights are too bright in your face when looking at all of the people flying around the stage, yet somehow not good enough to illuminate the little disco balls well enough to get a proper disco effect going. And even if the lights were positioned properly, the disco ball lights would be limited to just inside the stage area because of the drapery. By design? I dunno.
- Mr. Tumnus is wearing a letterman jacket at the end. Why?
- The stilt-walking giant was absent today. Did the psycho wolf eat him?

Whew! What a list! All I could think is that a full blown circus act would be a better fit if this third incarnation of Entwined is what the entertainment department wants. I am amazed that people were clapping when it was over. Wasn't sure if it was because they loved it that much or that they were grateful that their misery was over. In any event, to all of the people who have complained since last year that Entwined ruined the Festhaus and was geared specifically for the kiddies, your prayers have been answered! You now have a much more adult-oriented show DISGUISED as a kiddie show. Hot pants...sexual innuendos...drinking games!!! You asked for it. You got it. Hope you like it. I do not. :cool:
Click to expand...



So after 5 months have my opinions of the show changed?

attachment.php


NOPE!!
Yet I will probably catch it yet one more time on its last day (today).
 
  • Like
Reactions: flamanar, BGW Family and Kitty
RE: Entwined: Tales of Good & Grimm (2012 to Present)

Always wondered about this performance. This cast member's talent in singing and dancing is way beyond this character (and show). Was such a small and misfit part on purpose? Or, just a miscasted waste? He was here in the "old" days like Monster Stomp and Jukebox at the Palladium. Like most, he went on to do Disney cruises. Very surprised to see him back, alas be it underused. He can easily support a lead role (see Night Beats 2012) and sing even better (see Gloria 2012). :huh:
 
  • Like
Reactions: Planeteer, chickenking, Kitty and 1 other person
You must log in or register to reply here.
Consider Donating to Hide This Ad