Young Frankenstein

With a heavy tread, "Young Frankenstein" - excuse me, "The New Mel Brooks Musical Young Frankenstein," to use the official title - landed at the Hippodrome on Tuesday night, almost fiendishly eager to entertain. Those who have a high tolerance for obvious sight and verbal gags, frat boy-level vulgarity and compose-by-number songs will most fully embrace this stop on the Broadway show's first national tour. Those who might like the occasional dollop of substance could get squirmy.

Medieval knights searching in all the wrong places for the Holy Grail, singing as they go, will help fuel the first full season in the Patricia and Arthur Modell Performing Arts Center at the Lyric . So will John Waters, Baltimore's champion of all things weird, and the storied Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. As for those knights, they're part of the wacky musical "Monty Python's Spamalot," one of five touring productions of popular Broadway shows to visit the venue, which is reopening after extensive renovations.

M el Brooks is singing into the telephone. "He vas a bully und a brute, he vas as crazy as a coot," the comic half-growls, impersonating an elderly Transylvanian housekeeper. "Still, I didn't give a hoot - he vas my boyfriend." The fabled filmmaker/Broadway producer is 83 and still has most of his factory-issued parts, so it's not surprising that the pipes occasionally show a speck or two of rust. Besides, Brooks was giving this impromptu concert strictly for educational purposes, to illustrate a point about the musical stage version of "Young Frankenstein."

With a heavy tread, "Young Frankenstein" - excuse me, "The New Mel Brooks Musical Young Frankenstein," to use the official title - landed at the Hippodrome on Tuesday night, almost fiendishly eager to entertain. Those who have a high tolerance for obvious sight and verbal gags, frat boy-level vulgarity and compose-by-number songs will most fully embrace this stop on the Broadway show's first national tour. Those who might like the occasional dollop of substance could get squirmy.

"Something Wilder" will probably raise a chuckle or two, but only from people who are fascinated by discussions of preschool.The rest of America will likely channel surf in and out, never to return to the NBC sitcom, which premieres at 8 tonight on WMAR (Channel 2) opposite the mighty "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman." The series stars the fiftyish Gene Wilder ("Young Frankenstein") as Gene Bergman, a late-in-life father to 4-year-old twins. His wife, Annie (Hillary B. Smith from "One Life to Live")

PEOPLE KEEP asking me if someone dies in the Sex and the City movie? The answer is No. No one's even sick, for that matter. This is an urban myth. All the characters remain alive and breathing ready for a sequel, or a sequin. Is there a happy ending? You better believe it. Warner Bros. is counting on at least two." So writes Fox maestro Roger Friedman, just in case you missed him on the Internet. He has seen the movie and doesn't want to tell us too much else about it. But since we recently printed a story from England speculating that someone does die, we want you to have it right from the horse's mouth.

"Jaws" was on TV again last night and again I saw every shred of it. While merrily watching marine biologist Hooper dump shark entrails on the dock, I thought there must be a way to honor such great guy movies as this.Hollywood should establish a Hall of Fame for Guy Movies. These movies would be films that, when they are on television, men will watch in rapture. Guys already have seen the movies maybe a 100 times. It doesn't matter. Their wives say, "You have seen this movie maybe a 100 times."

Theater-goers got a surprise at the New Year's Eve performance of The Producers on Broadway. So did the cast. During the second act, Mel Brooks - the show's songwriter, co-librettist and creator of the movie on which the show is based - slipped backstage, grabbed the robe worn by the actor who usually plays the judge and went on in his place. "It was good to be the judge," Brooks recalls with glee. "When Nathan [Lane, the show's Broadway star] would ad-lib, I'd take my gavel and say, `No ad-libbing in this courtroom.

The famed Temple of Dendur hadn't seen so many of the high born and wealthy since the Egyptians gave it as a gift to the United States in 1965 and it was awarded to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1967. VIPs of finance, society, media and showbiz poured into the grand old place made into a backlit wonder when Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes kicked off their Fox Business Network gala. New Yorkers fall apart when it rains. Taxis disappear and people cuddle up at home and start making excuses for not going out, but not the other night.

Jerry Hall, the tall, terrific bombshell who grew up in one of my own Texas hometowns (Gonzales, population 5,000) is getting a rumored $2 million advance to write her life story for HarperCollins. And we all know that the fact this dynamo was married to Mick Jagger and had four children with him between 1990 and 1999 is partly the reason for this magnificent money and interest. Jerry has remained on the periphery of the newsworthy Rolling Stones for years. She is 51 years old now, and Mick is 64. It took Mick's fathering a child by Brazilian model Luciana Morad in 1999 to force Jerry to the divorce court.

M el Brooks is singing into the telephone. "He vas a bully und a brute, he vas as crazy as a coot," the comic half-growls, impersonating an elderly Transylvanian housekeeper. "Still, I didn't give a hoot - he vas my boyfriend." The fabled filmmaker/Broadway producer is 83 and still has most of his factory-issued parts, so it's not surprising that the pipes occasionally show a speck or two of rust. Besides, Brooks was giving this impromptu concert strictly for educational purposes, to illustrate a point about the musical stage version of "Young Frankenstein."

The France-Merrick Performing Arts Center will trim its slate of offerings of national touring musicals and plays next season from seven shows in its subscription season to six - a response, an official says, to the fiscal crisis. "We definitely want to be responsive to the economy," says Stella Benkler, the center's executive director. "We don't want to have to offer discount tickets to get patrons in the door, so we decided to be proactive. We're cutting our subscription season from seven shows to six, which means the cost of subscriptions will go down.

PEOPLE KEEP asking me if someone dies in the Sex and the City movie? The answer is No. No one's even sick, for that matter. This is an urban myth. All the characters remain alive and breathing ready for a sequel, or a sequin. Is there a happy ending? You better believe it. Warner Bros. is counting on at least two." So writes Fox maestro Roger Friedman, just in case you missed him on the Internet. He has seen the movie and doesn't want to tell us too much else about it. But since we recently printed a story from England speculating that someone does die, we want you to have it right from the horse's mouth.

Cry-Baby, the exuberant song-and-dance spectacle inspired by Baltimore bad-boy John Waters, was nominated for four Tony Awards yesterday - including the most important prize, best musical. The nominations defy tepid critical reception and lackluster box-office receipts. The show, which is based on Waters' 1990 cult film of the same title, is a Romeo and Juliet saga set in 1954 Baltimore. "At 7:15 a.m. San Francisco time, I got the news and I was levitating from joy," Waters says. "I went up about 1 inch.

The famed Temple of Dendur hadn't seen so many of the high born and wealthy since the Egyptians gave it as a gift to the United States in 1965 and it was awarded to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1967. VIPs of finance, society, media and showbiz poured into the grand old place made into a backlit wonder when Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes kicked off their Fox Business Network gala. New Yorkers fall apart when it rains. Taxis disappear and people cuddle up at home and start making excuses for not going out, but not the other night.

Jerry Hall, the tall, terrific bombshell who grew up in one of my own Texas hometowns (Gonzales, population 5,000) is getting a rumored $2 million advance to write her life story for HarperCollins. And we all know that the fact this dynamo was married to Mick Jagger and had four children with him between 1990 and 1999 is partly the reason for this magnificent money and interest. Jerry has remained on the periphery of the newsworthy Rolling Stones for years. She is 51 years old now, and Mick is 64. It took Mick's fathering a child by Brazilian model Luciana Morad in 1999 to force Jerry to the divorce court.