History Fridge / LittleShopOfHorrors

* In the musical film during the scene where Seymour is at the radio station, Audrey II tries to bite a woman's butt. Many viewers seem to have written that off as Audrey II just being a pervert... but I disagree. Sure, this isn't the most serious movie, but it doesn't make sense for Audrey II to suddenly be interested in a human woman sexually. But what do we know DOES interest Audrey II? Blood. Maybe that woman was having a visit from Aunt Flo.

* Fridge Heartwarming: The FocusGroupEnding might be too saccharine and Hollywood to be considered very satisfying compared to the original TearJerker DownerEnding, but Ellen Greene ''is'' Audrey, and she's had to die on stage countless times to bring that sad arc to an end. The happy ending isn't Seymour [[KarmaHoudini escaping karmic justice]] for his role in several murders based on the technical cleanliness of his hands, it's Audrey's [[EarnYourHappyEnding ultimate karmic reward]] for willingly offering herself to the plant for his sake. Yeah, the story sucks, but it's the only timeline in that narrative universe where Audrey's prayer to be "somewhere that's green" to be answered ''not'' in JerkassGenie fashion.

* Why is Audrey's death the final stroke for Seymour? It's not just because she's dead and thus can't bring himself to continue living out of grief: it's because when all is said and done, he willingly gives her to the plant. He saved her from it, ''just to feed her to it anyway''. Even when he finally puts his foot down and tells Audrey II it must be stopped, he still refers to Audrey as "the only ''thing''" he ever loved. When it comes right down to it, Seymour is just as selfish a monster as everyone else, he's just too meek to act on it until he has a way to skirt all the consequences; right up until he watches Audrey disappear into the plant and finally realizes what a monster he is, all he's doing is disposing of another body, and making another Lovecraftian sacrifice to Audrey II.
** Supporting the theory he's just as selfish as the antagonists is his first wish during ''Feed Me (Git It)''. It's not for Audrey's love but a desire to be seen as a hot shot just like Orin ("Gee, I would like a Harley machine / fooling around like I was Creator/JamesDean / making all of the guys on the corner turn green"). The ''only'' time Audrey is mentioned is when Twoey brings her up ("Come on, kid, what will it be? Money? Girls? One particular girl? How about that Audrey?"). This adds a new layer to why Seymour is interested in Audrey in the first place. He doesn't love her for her personality but because Orin (everything he wants to be) has her.
*** Actually, it's heavily implied that it's the other way round: he wants to be like Orin because Orin's the one that has her. In the show, he approaches Audrey at the start of Act II wearing Orin's jacket and asks if she likes it. When she has a negative reaction to it, he instantly takes the jacket off and even says that he'll burn it. There's no doubt that Seymour ''is'' just as selfish as everyone else in the story -- Audrey II would never have been able to prey on him for that long if he wasn't. And then there's the fact that Audrey II keeps on the hook with the promise of purely material things.

* I JUST realized why Seymour says "Do I know you?" to Bernstein at the beginning of The Meek Shall Inherit in ''Theatre/LittleShopOfHorrors''. Because of AndYouWereThere, Seymour HAS met him before-when he played the first customer, and the dentist.
** In another version of the script called for Bernstein to be played by the same actor as Orin, which adds a whole other layer of brilliance. All of the people who give Seymour contracts are played by the same man who plays Orin Scrivello D.D.S.
** This could also be viewed as a metaphor. At this point of the story, Seymour feels so guilty about feeding Orin and Mushnik to the plant that he starts seeing ''Orin's face'' on other people.
* It hit me in Advanced English (while reading ''Literature/JaneEyre'', of all things) that Little Shop has many of the elements of a Greek tragedy (albeit, a very funny one). While it is certainly modern in much of its set-up, much of it seems to root in tragedy: The Doo-wop girls are a Greek chorus. The reversal (peripiteia) comes after he kills Mushnik. Anagnorisis (moment of recognition) comes when Seymour realizes Audrey II had planned this from the start. Pathos (scene of suffering) is when Audrey is killed by Audrey II. And Seymour fits the bill for a tragic hero: "a great man who is neither a paragon of virtue and justice nor undergoes the change to misfortune through any real badness or wickedness but because of some mistake (flaw)."
** It's also a variation of the [[DealWithTheDevil Faust legend]], of a man who makes a deal with a shady and malevolent character and loses everything in the end.
* I recently realized that Seymour's flaw is being utterly and completely passive. He ''knows'' Mushnik doesn't really care about him, but ends up consenting to be adopted anyway, and then the plant talks him into committing murder--''twice''. Seymour doesn't even have the guts to kill Orin himself, even though he walks in fully intending to do so: he sits down all ready to go through a hellish session of dental work with no gas and a rusty drill rather than complete his mission, simply because Orin said so. Then he's relieved when he has the chance to kill Orin by refusing to help him instead of actively murdering him ("I can off the guy by sitting in the chair"). It all comes to a head in "The Meek Shall Inherit", when Seymour miserably signs every contract handed to him, knowing full well he'll have to kill more people to keep the plant fed. Why is this brilliant? The chorus to "The Meek Shall Inherit" (sung by the Doo Wop Girls, who, of course, are the GreekChorus and have inside knowledge of the plot):
--> ''They say the meek gonna get it''
--> ''And you're a meek little guy''
--> ''You know the meek are gonna get what's coming to 'em by and by!''
** They never mention ''what'' is coming to the meek (or whether it's good), and if you look at it another way, they're implying that Seymour is getting his just desserts for letting everyone walk all over him. (Additionally, the song's title is a fragment of the quote "The meek shall inherit the earth", and although Audrey II promises Seymour everything, the play ends with the plant inheriting the earth--''literally''.)

* The three different versions of the story ([[Film/TheLittleShopOfHorrors the original 1960 film]], the play version, and the test-audience-approved film version) all have different endings... but, at the same time, each ending fits the different spin that version puts on the core story:
** The 1960 film version, where Seymour foolishly climbs into Audrey II's mouth and is eaten, with the plant being destroyed after its true nature is discovered, makes sense because, in this version of the story, the fact of the matter is that Seymour is a bumbling idiot. He lucked into creating Audrey II, and was then swept along by it because he's a moron -- moreover, because he's such a moron, he never thinks to exploit Audrey II by selling cut-offs, so it's a much more vulnerable monster.
** The play version, where Audrey II eats Seymour after gaining sufficient strength and goes on to devour the world with its spawn, makes sense because in this version, not only is Audrey II an alien predator, but Seymour is actively conspiring with it for profit; it's a case of KarmicDeath as a result of making a DealWithTheDevil.
** The film exclusive ending, where Seymour and Audrey manage to kill Audrey II, makes sense because Seymour is a lot less of a willing conspirator in this version and so it lacks the karmic element to see Seymour eaten by Audrey II.
*** However, it's not the real ending of the film to begin with. The film was supposed to be faithful to the play. It's a FocusGroupEnding.
*** Actually, it's likely that focus groups chose the final version specifically because of the rewrites that made Mushnik less sympathetic (having him try to bribe Seymour and thus making his death karmic instead of a result of Seymour's greed), as well as other changes which made Seymour seem more sympathetic and less complicit in Audrey II's scheme. The test audiences probably would have been better with the original ending if the other changes hadn't already been made to Seymour's character, and only rejected it because Seymour's death came across as tragic rather than karmic. The original writer's point still stands.

* I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I only just now realized that the first customer wasn't (just) talking in that stilted fashion to be funny--he's being mind-controlled by Audrey II!
* I could never put my finger on exactly ''why'' Seymour seemed so much more sympathetic in the 80's film that people would think he deserved a happy ending, since his actions are the same even with some of the subplots removed, but then I realized: his lack of direct involvement isn't set up as passivity, it's set up as karmic retribution for his victims. When he says "it's not what you did to me, it's what you did to ''her''," while standing over Orin and pointedly ''not'' gleefully thinking to himself that [[MurderByInaction he can kill him without doing anything]], and when he doesn't stop Mushnik from getting too close to the plant while being {{blackmail}}ed into giving up his fortune instead of telling him the money is in the plant, the implication is that he isn't killing them through inaction, he just isn't saving them from the consequences of their own actions. Of course, Creator/RickMoranis's performance doesn't hurt, but the way morality tends to work (in films, anyway), the little guy who lets the big guys fall hard is usually the unambiguous hero, especially when he has a scene where he saves his damsel in distress and she deserves a good ending even more than he ever could.

* At the end of the film adaptation, a new Audrey II plant is growing and smiling in Seymour and Audrey's yard. In addition to the obvious that Seymour and Audrey's life together will be threatened once more, what if more of them appeared?
** You also have to ask how it got there. Are the aliens capable of planting as many Audrey [=IIs=] as they want, anywhere? In the play, it's only North America that's destroyed, but if you run with the implications the movie is easily worse.
* Audrey took a Sominex before going back to the shop and being eaten by the plant. After Seymour rescues her, she asks to be fed to the plant and dies in his arms. What if that was just the sleeping pill taking effect? [[NiceJobBreakingItHero She wasn't really dead until Audrey II ate her!]]
** Not to mention, that seems like the intent! Suppertime (Reprise) is alternatively called Sominex, but it only gets a passing mention in the song itself. What if that's why?
* There is ''nothing'' left of Audrey when Seymour gets swallowed, even though she'd only been devoured a few minutes before, and it swallowed her in one gulp (or just let whatever digestive system it has dissolve her all at once). But with Seymour? Audrey II takes lingering pleasure in cramming Seymour into its gullet, and ''chews''. Because Seymour is the first meal Audrey II is able to eat fully under its own power.
** This troper disagrees: Audrey II could get food into its own mouth before, ever since it ate Orin. The victim just had to be close enough. What changed was Seymour; where he had once been a passive or at least reluctant partner, suddenly Seymour (''rimshot'') is openly defying the plant and threatening to stop its plans, even when it angrily warns him to back down (''Mean Green Mother from Outer Space''). Once it defeats him, it takes its sweet time eating him — because it wants him to ''suffer''.
*** I don't think its possible to disagree with a fact. Seymour is the first person Audrey II is able to eat under its ''own'' power, without help: he's the one who feeds it all its other meals, including Mushnik (had to be tempted by Seymour to stick his head in its mouth), Orin (had to be chopped up first), and Audrey (Seymour lays her to rest in its mouth).
* I never really appreciated the themes of ''Little Shop'' until after watching it a few times. The entire story is basically a cautionary tale about the cyclic nature of corruption, abuse, and bullying: the truly powerful gain power by exploiting the needs of the weak and maintain that power by depriving others of gaining power of their own: The wealthy employ the poor, but won't pay them a living wage that would allow them to move up economically. Orrin gives dental care to his patients, but only for the sake of hurting them (and since he's a medical professional and a bully, no one argues with him; he has plenty of clients); he fills Audrey's need for a relationship, but he abuses her and forces her to live in fear of his wrath. Audrey II plies Seymour with a future he could never have on his own, but only to get him to bring it blood. It's interesting in that Audrey is the only character who, when it first appears, has absolutely ''no'' direct power of its own. Once it gains power over Seymour, it uses him to make itself strong enough to eat right through him and move on to bigger game. Even Mushnik, a poor Skid Row resident himself, adopts Seymour and gives him the family he always wanted, but only in order to tie himself to Seymour's success. The powerful supply the weak with what they need, but force those same people to bear the costs while the powerful grow ''more'' powerful by keeping the fruits of that labor for themselves. It's a cute, funny, fun movie, but it's also very apt.

* A bit of Fridge Horror completely unrelated to Audrey II: there's the sound of drilling and screaming coming from the operating room, and then the girl with the ridiculous headgear staggers out. Braces don't normally require drilling. So what did Scrivello do to her, exactly?
** If you paid attention, you'd know that she had her ''jaw'' removed and put back. The drilling was putting the bolts in the device.
* Orin's mother most likely encouraged her son to pursue dentistry so he wouldn't become a serial killer.
* Some productions start out with plenty of extras playing hobos on Skid Row. After ''Feed Me (Git It)'', the number slowly dwindles until the Finale where the few leads are left. [[NightmareFuel Where else do you think they went in a musical about a man eating plant that slowly grows in size the more it eats? Maybe Audrey II isn't as dependent on Seymour to feed it as it pretends to be.]]

* I JUST realized why Seymour says "Do I know you?" to Bernstein at the beginning of The Meek Shall Inherit in Theatre/LittleShopOfHorrors. Because of AndYouWereThere, Seymour HAS met him before-when he played the first customer, and the dentist. --@/OOZE