40 Fun Facts About A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

Which silent-film legend plays old Erronius in the 1966 film A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum?

Buster Keaton was 70 and terminally ill, yet he took the pratfall after running into a tree himself. The film reached cinemas eight months after his death.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum was whose first Broadway show as both composer and lyricist?

Stephen Sondheim had written only the lyrics for West Side Story and Gypsy before it. The show went on to run for 964 performances on Broadway.

The title A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum spoofs a stock opening line used by whom?

Vaudeville comics often began a story by saying a funny thing had happened on the way to the theater. The authors simply swapped in the Roman marketplace.

Which actor, later Broadway's first Tevye, created Pseudolus in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum?

Zero Mostel won the Tony for Best Actor in a Musical as the scheming slave, then repeated the part in the 1966 film. He had spent much of the 1950s on the Hollywood blacklist.

In A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, what does Hero promise Pseudolus for winning him Philia?

His freedom is the engine of the whole plot: every lie Pseudolus tells is meant to get him out of slavery. He ends the show a freedman with the courtesan Gymnasia on his arm.

In A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, the slave Hysterium is talked into dressing up as what?

A dead bride is what the captain is shown: Hysterium lies veiled as Philia, supposedly struck down by plague. The ruse soon collapses into a chase with three veiled Philias on the run.

Which woman took over as Pseudolus in the 1990s Broadway revival of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum?

Whoopi Goldberg stepped into a part written for a man when the revival's first star moved on in early 1997. David Alan Grier took over from her that summer.

Which future Phantom of the Opera star plays Hero in the film A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum?

Michael Crawford made three films in three years for the same director, this one between The Knack and How I Won the War. He created the Phantom on stage two decades later.

The plot of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum is borrowed from the farces of which Roman playwright?

Plautus wrote around 200 BC, so the mistaken identities and slamming doors are more than two thousand years old. Pseudolus is even named after one of his plays.

Which opening number was written during tryouts to rescue A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum?

Comedy Tonight replaced an opener that undersold the show. Once the new number promised a bawdy, wild farce, a production that had been dying on the road became a hit.

Which bespectacled TV comic turned down A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, then led its 1972 revival?

Phil Silvers reportedly feared going on without his glasses and falling into the orchestra pit. He wore them when he finally played the slave a decade later, and won a Tony.

Which Beatles film director made the 1966 screen version of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum?

Richard Lester brought the quick cutting of A Hard Day's Night and Help! to ancient Rome. Charlie Chaplin and Orson Welles had also been considered for the job.

Who won a 1996 Tony Award as Pseudolus in Broadway's revival of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum?

Nathan Lane kept a streak alive: every actor to open as the slave on Broadway has won the Tony for Best Leading Actor. He had voiced Timon in The Lion King two years earlier.

In A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, the courtesan Philia has a Greek name meaning what?

Love is what philia means in Greek, the root of words like philosophy. The name also sounds like the Latin word filia, a sly clue to how the story ends.

Matching rings prove that Philia and Miles Gloriosus, in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, are what?

Brother and sister is the verdict once old Erronius spots the rings, which cancels the captain's claim on her. It also makes Philia freeborn, so she can marry Hero.

In A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Pseudolus claims Philia caught a plague from which island?

Crete is blamed for a plague said to leave its victims smiling to the end, which explains away Philia's cheerfulness. The lie fails because the captain has just come from there.

Senex, the henpecked father in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, has a Latin name meaning what?

Old man is the plain meaning of senex, the root of words such as senior and senate. The lustful version of the type, chasing a much younger woman, was a staple of Roman farce.

Which co-author of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum later developed M*A*S*H for television?

Larry Gelbart wrote the book with Burt Shevelove and shared a Tony for it. A decade later he wrote the pilot of the Korean War sitcom and stayed for its first four seasons.

In which country was the 1966 film A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum shot?

Spain stood in for ancient Rome: the cast and crew worked at a studio in Madrid and on location around the city in the autumn of 1965.

The 1963 Tony voters snubbed which part of the Best Musical winner A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum?

The score went unnominated even as the show took Best Musical and prizes for its book, director, producer and star. Its composer was setting his own lyrics on Broadway for the first time.

Which Philia and Hero duet in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum do two slaves later reprise?

Lovely is sung straight by the young couple, then turned into a joke when Pseudolus croons it to a fellow slave. It is one of the handful of songs kept for the 1966 film.

In A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, who stole the infant children of old Erronius years ago?

Pirates carried off both babies, and Erronius has spent twenty years abroad looking for them. He comes home having given up, only to find them both on his own street.

Which West Side Story director was called in to fix A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum before Broadway?

Jerome Robbins had turned the show down once, then came back uncredited during its troubled tryouts. His biggest change was a new opening that told audiences to expect a wild farce.

Which British comic led London's A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and then a Roman TV sitcom?

Frankie Howerd played Pseudolus in the West End in 1963 and again in 1986. The BBC's Up Pompeii! was inspired by that stage hit, casting him as the slave Lurcio.

Which Seinfeld star won a Tony after playing Pseudolus from A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum?

Jason Alexander narrated a 1989 anthology of one choreographer's greatest numbers and played the slave in a single scene. He was named Best Actor in a Musical the year his sitcom began.

Which insects swarm through the animated end credits of the film A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum?

Flies were an in-joke from Richard Williams, later the animation director of Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Produce left to rot on the set overnight had plagued the shoot with them.

Which future Doctor Who star has a cameo in the 1966 film A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum?

Jon Pertwee appears briefly as Crassus in a screenplay co-written by another Pertwee, Michael. On the London stage three years earlier he had played the flesh-peddler Marcus Lycus.

Miles Gloriosus of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum takes his name from the Latin for what?

Boastful soldier is the literal sense, and the type is older than Rome: the Roman play that made the phrase famous was itself adapted from a lost Greek one called The Braggart.

In A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, which ingredient does Pseudolus lack for a sleeping potion?

Mare's sweat is the one thing missing from the recipe in a stolen book of potions. Pseudolus later flicks some on Senex to persuade him that he badly needs a bath.

Which veteran director, then in his seventies, staged the original A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum?

George Abbott was 74 when the show opened and won the Tony for directing it. He went on working for decades and lived to 107.

In A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, where does Hero's beloved Philia live as the story opens?

Next door stands the house of Marcus Lycus, where Philia is kept as a courtesan awaiting her buyer. The whole show plays out on one street of three neighbouring houses.

In A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Hysterium tells Erronius that his empty house is now what?

Haunted is the excuse, and the sound of Senex singing in the bath inside seems to prove it. The idea is lifted from a Roman farce whose title translates as The Ghost.

In A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, the slave name Pseudolus fittingly means what?

Faker suits a slave who lies his way through the entire plot, posing as a soothsayer and as his neighbour Lycus. The Greek root is the same pseudo found in pseudonym.

A song cut from A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum resurfaced in which Robin Williams film?

The Birdcage has Williams and Christine Baranski sing the show's discarded original opening number as they dance in her office. Its composer also wrote a new song, Little Dream, for the film.

In A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Pseudolus sends Erronius walking repeatedly around what?

Rome's seven hills must be circled seven times, a chore invented to keep the returning neighbour out of the way. He is only on his third lap when the plot finally unravels.

In A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, what does Miles Gloriosus receive in place of Philia?

A pair of twins, the courtesans known as the Geminae, console the captain once Philia is out of reach. Their name is simply the Latin word for twins.

Which future director of Don't Look Now photographed the film A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum?

Nicolas Roeg was still a cinematographer in 1966, the year he also shot Fahrenheit 451. He turned director with Performance and later made The Man Who Fell to Earth.

Which producer of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum later directed Cabaret and Sweeney Todd?

Hal Prince won a Tony as the show's producer, having started out as an assistant stage manager to its director. He went on to stage The Phantom of the Opera.

Which Australian actress plays Philia in the 1966 film A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum?

Annette Andre had trained as a ballet dancer before turning to acting at 15. British viewers know her best as the widow Jeannie in Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased).

Which Broadway original repeated his role as Hysterium in the film A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum?

Jack Gilford had been blacklisted from film and television in the 1950s, and Hysterium brought him a Tony nomination. He was later nominated for an Oscar for Save the Tiger.