Trivia / Cinderella (Rodgers and Hammerstein)

The 1957 production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's version contains examples of:

• Actor-Inspired Element: Edie Adams' baton-twirling skills resulted in the Fairy Godmother twirling her magic wand to cast her spells.
• Blooper: During a reprise of "Do I Love You Because You're Beautiful?", the camera closes up on Queen Constantina preparing to sing a line, but Prince Christopher interrupts. Jon Cypher apologized to Dorothy Stickney later that night and even cried Tears of Remorse in his dressing room over the mistake.
• Follow the Leader: CBS hired Rodgers and Hammerstein to help them compete against NBC's televised presentations of Peter Pan by writing a work in which Julie Andrews would go from Rags to Riches in a manner similar to her most popular role at the time.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: The DVD has gone out of print, and the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization has no plans as of February 2021 to post the kinescope online.
• Missing Episode: People living on the East Coast saw the musical live in color, while those in the west saw a black-and-white kinescope. The DVD only contains the latter version.
• Production Posse: King Maximilian's actor, Howard Lindsay, also co-wrote^note along with Russell Crouse the libretto for the final Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, The Sound of Music; its movie adaptation would also reunite Julie Andrews and Richard Rodgers.
• Real-Life Relative: Howard Lindsay and his wife Dorothy Stickney portrayed King Maximilian and Queen Constantina.

The 1965 remake of Rodgers and Hammerstein's version contains examples of:

• Billing Displacement: The opening and end credits both give Ginger Rogers (Queen Constantina) top billing, while relegating Lesley Ann Warren to eighth place. The 1987 Playhouse Video VHS cover bumped Warren up to fifth place, with the names of Walter Pidgeon (King Maximilian), Celeste Holm (the Fairy Godmother), and Stuart Damon (Prince Christopher) in between those of Rogers and Warren. The 2002 Columbia/Tristar DVD cover^note recycled for all later DVDs and the digital copy gave Warren fourth place, by leaving off Damon's name.
• The Cast Showoff:
  • Famous dancer Ginger Rogers, then in her fifties, plays the Queen. When the King suggests a dance after she remains seated for most of the ball sequence, she all but winks at the viewer while commenting that she thought he'd never ask.
  • "A Lovely Night" had the step-family's part and the melancholy portion replaced with an upbeat instrumental, allowing Lesley Ann Warren to demonstrate her ballet talents.
• Channel Hop:
  • After CBS stopped showing this musical, it resurfaced on some cable channels, such as The Disney Channel^note who naturally replaced it with the Wonderful World of Disney version years later and Hallmark Channel.
  • Home video rights have shifted from CBS/Fox Video^note who also released 20th Century Fox's big-screen Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals, to Hallmark Home Entertainment, to Sony Pictures^note likely because Sony Records distributes the 1957 and 1965 soundtracks, although the '57 musical's DVD came from Image Entertainment, to Samuel Goldwyn Films^note as part of a deal that also gave them home video rights to the 1950s movie adaptations of Oklahoma! and South Pacific, as well as the former's 1998 Filmed Stage Production.
• Edited for Syndication: The first DVD was sourced from a tape containing some trims, especially during Cinderella's and Prince Christopher's first meeting. The second DVD, sourced from the master tapes, put all the edited footage back in.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: Sony-owned Columbia Pictures released a DVD in 2002, but pulled it out of print after a few years. Shout! Factory^note which brings a lot of Sony-owned TV shows to DVD subverted this in 2014, re-releasing the special on DVD. Years later, they also made it the first R&H Cinderella available for digital download and streaming.
• Milestone Celebration: The 2014 cast of the Broadway version, headlined by Keke Palmer, celebrated the '65 remake's 50th anniversary by inviting Lesley Ann Warren to join the Curtain Call, where she led them in a performance of "It's Possible".
• Production Posse:
  • Before Celeste Holm became Cinderella's fairy godmother, she appeared in the first Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, Oklahoma!, as Broadway's original Ado Annie.
  • Barbara Ruick played Carrie in the film version of R&H's Carousel before playing Esmeralda.
  • The "dreamy-eyed" peasant girl's father, Bill Lee, also sang in the movie versions of South Pacific and The Sound of Music, dubbing over John Kerr and Christopher Plummer.
  • After Stuart Damon played Prince Christopher, he eventually reunited with Richard Rodgers for the original Broadway production of Do I Hear a Waltz?
• Reality Subtext: According to director Charles S. Dubin, Jo Van Fleet developed a real-life jealousy for Lesley Ann Warren's beauty while portraying the stepmother.
• What Could Have Been:
  • CBS originally cast Jack Jones as the prince, but replaced him with Stuart Damon when they realized Jones' singing voice sounded more appropriate for pop music.
  • Lesley Ann Warren almost lost the role of Cinderella, when the large number of crew members watching her audition intimidated her into delivering a weak performance. After Charles S. Dubin convinced Rodgers to give Warren another chance, Rodgers privately coached her to sing "My Funny Valentine", and she impressed him enough to secure the part of Cinderella.