History Theatre / HMSPinafore

** The basic premise comes from Gilbert's poem [[https://gsarchive.net/bab_ballads/html/joe_golightly.html "Joe Golightly,"]] where [[AdaptationNameChange the original version of Ralph Rackstraw]] is a common sailor who loves a woman above his station. The poem ends with Joe getting [[DownerEnding thrown in the brig for twelve years]] with [[NoKillLikeOverkill "five hundred thousand lashes"]] every day.

** The basic premise comes from Gilbert's poem [[https://gsarchive.net/bab_ballads/html/joe_golightly.html "Joe Golightly,"]] where [[AdaptationNameChange the original version of Ralph Rackstraw]] is a common sailor who loves a woman above his station. The poem ends with the sailor's Captain sentencing him to twenty years in the brig.

** Little Buttercup is from [[https://gsarchive.net/bab_ballads/html/bumboat_woman.html "The Bumboat Woman's Story"]] (where her real name is [[AdaptationNameChange Poll Pineapple]]), where she has a crush on a Navy officer, but it doesn't end well for her.

** Little Buttercup is from [[https://gsarchive.net/bab_ballads/html/bumboat_woman.html "The Bumboat Woman's Story"]] (where her real name is [[AdaptationNameChange Poll Pineapple]]), where she has a crush on a Naval Captain, but it doesn't end well for her.

** The basic premise comes from Gilbert's poem "Joe Golightly," where [[AdaptationNameChange the original version of Ralph Rackstraw]] is a common sailor who loves a woman above his station. The poem ends with the sailor's Captain sentencing him to twenty years in the brig.
** Little Buttercup is from "The Bumboat Woman's Story" (where her real name is [[AdaptationNameChange Poll Pineapple]], where she has a crush on a Naval Captain, but it doesn't end well for her.

* AdaptationExpansion: ''H.M.S. Pinafore'' is based on several of Gilbert's poems, including "[[http://www.poetry-archive.com/g/general_john.html General John]]" and "[[http://books.google.com/books?id=JzI_AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA171&lpg=PA171&dq=gilbert+the+baby%27s+vengeance&source=bl&ots=d1AJ5fHgCh&sig=z29pazZq0CaBLUcKkuKhc1xtmSo&hl=en&ei=ckv7S8b4L5C6NvvG4bEB&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result=3&ved=0CCAQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q&f=false The Baby's Vengeance]]", which are both versions of the theme of an upper class man and a lower class man discovering they were switched at birth. In the expansion, he added a lot more realism, and toned down the ComedicSociopathy.

* AluminumChristmasTrees: Audiences may assume the reference to a telephone is an anachronism, but it's in the original libretto--''HMS Pinafore'' was written in 1878, a few years after Bell's invention.

* GrumpyBear: With a name like Dick Deadeye, it's hard to blame him.

* {{Corpsing}}: Martyn Green recalled one performance with the D'Oyly Carte opera company that was interrupted when a sudden orchestral ScareChord in the number "Carefully On Tiptoe Stealing" startled [[ThatPoorCat a theater cat]], which ran screaming across the stage. The cast might have been able to recover and carry on with the show, if only the next two lines hadn't been:
-->'''Chorus:''' Goodness me, why what was that?
-->'''Dick Deadeye:''' Silent be, it was the cat!

* RecycledINSPACE / SpaceIsAnOcean: Star-Trek-themed HMS Pinafore is a thing that happens periodically.

* ItIsPronouncedTroPay: Ralph's name is pronounced "Rafe" (rhymes with "safe"). This was standard British usage of the time, but has been known to confuse modern audiences, especially in America. Some productions just write his name down as Rafe in the program to make things simpler.

* ModernMajorGeneral: Sir Joseph, who's had a multitude of successful careers, but has never been at sea before. He's the [[ItIsPronouncedTroPay Ruler of the Queen's Navee]].

* CrossesTheLineTwice: Though on the whole clean and family-friendly and within the stadards of propriety of polite Victorian society, two risqué moments are thrown in. First, the climactic moment when Captain Corcoran shocks everyone by swearing "Damme! (I.E. "Damn me!"[[note]]To show that not everyone back then would have dismissed this as mere jest, it is worth noting that Creator/LewisCarroll, who was an ordained deacon, took issue with the inclusion of the expression. He wrote critically of the use of a word that calls to mind the idea of Hell for amusement's sake and concluded: "How Mr. Gilbert could have stooped to write, or Sir Arthur Sullivan could have prostituted his noble art to set to music, such vile trash, it passes my skill to understand."[[/note]]]) It's too bad!" Then, when he says of his bride-to-be Buttercup "I must wander to and fro;/But wherever I may go,/I shall never be untrue to thee!" and is asked "What, never?" He answers: "Hardly ever!"

* AlliterativeName: Captain Corcoran, Dick Deadeye, Ralph Rackstraw. Also Bill Bobstay and Bob Becket, the names given to the Boatswain's Mate and the Carpenter's Mate in the ''dramatis personae''.

* AlliterativeName: Captain Corcoran, Dick Deadeye, Ralph Rackstraw.

* GoToYourRoom: Sir Joseph orders Captain Corcoran to his cabin on hearing him drop his 'damme' swear: "Go, ribald, get you hence/To your cabin with celerity./This is the consequence/Of ill-advised asperity!" He then interviews Ralph to find out what could possibly had prompted the Captain to do so. On Ralph's admitting that it was his love for Josephine that set him off, Sir Joseph is outraged at his "insolence" at courting his captain's daughter, and orders Ralph placed in the ''brig'' in order to teach him "to discipline his affections".

* ATasteOfTheLash: Ralph Rackstraw gets threatened with the cat-o'-nine-tails, although it's never carried out.

* AllThereInTheScript: Some character names.

* ThePiratesWhoDontDoAnything: The Royal Navy.

* HopeCrusher: Dick Deadeye, for all that he's the villain, spends most of his time trying to be as much of a wet blanket as possible to Ralph and Josephine's romance, constantly pointing out how it will never work, and eventually even [[spoiler:ratting out their elopement plans to the Captain so they can be foiled]].

* ForgottenTrope: In "When I Was a Lad", Sir Joseph's lines "I grew so rich that I was sent/By a pocket borough into Parliament" are a period political jab. Pocket boroughs were British electoral districts that had such a small population that they were disproportionately represented in Parliament and were prone to manipulation as the major landowner could have whoever he wanted easily elected. These were significantly diminished by the Reform Act 1832 and eliminated by the Reform Act 1867. "HMS Pinafore" debuted in 1878 and Sir Joseph could have been elected to the British Parliament at the latest during the 1865 general election; thus, the way he entered politics was already an anachronism at the time.

* ForgottenTrope: In "I Am the Monarch of the Sea", Sir Joseph's lines "I grew so rich that I was sent/By a pocket borough into Parliament" are a period political jab. Pocket boroughs were British electoral districts that had such a small population that they were disproportionately represented in Parliament and were prone to manipulation as the major landowner could have whoever he wanted easily elected. These were significantly diminished by the Reform Act 1832 and eliminated by the Reform Act 1867. "HMS Pinafore" debuted in 1878 and Sir Joseph could have been elected to the British Parliament at the latest during the 1865 general election; thus, the way he entered politics was already an anachronism at the time.

* ParentalMarriageVeto: Captain Corcoran discourages Josephine from pursuing a relationship with the sailor that she is in love with, wishing her to marry up (by wedding Sir Joseph), rather than down in class. When he intercepts her [[eloping with Ralph]], he attempts this. Things very soon conspire to avert the veto by making it unnecessary and the marriage with Ralph actually becomes a case of Josephine [[marrying ''up'', due to her father and Ralph being made to switch their ranks around.]]

* HopeCrusher: Dick Deadeye, for all that he's the DesignatedVillain, spends most of his time trying to be as much of a wet blanket as possible to Ralph and Josephine's romance, constantly pointing out how it will never work, and eventually even [[spoiler:ratting out their elopement plans to the Captain so they can be foiled]].

* RedHerring: Dead Dickeye is consistently built up as the main instigator of evil on the ship and makes a determined effort to foil the love affair between Ralph and Josephine, even going as far as to reveal their secret plan to elope to an enraged Captain Corcoran. This might give you the impression that Dickeye's antics are what precipitate the final conflict, [[spoiler:but his role as the antagonist is very abruptly supplanted by Sir Joseph Porter in the finale, who orders Ralph to be tossed in the dungeon for wooing the admiral's intended]].

* TheSoprano: Josephine.