Remembering musical theater historian Robert Kimball

committed to informing the public.

But a free press doesn't just happen, it's something we must protect. Without federal funding, we are relying on your support down. Please show your support today at plus.npr.org. This is Fresh Air, I'm David B. and Kooley. Robert Kimball, the musical historian who rediscovered and rescued music and manuscripts by

“George Gershwin, Cole Porter and others, and who co-wrote important books about George”

and I regershwin, Cole Porter and UB Blake died last week. He was 86 years old. Kimball, who was born in New York City in 1939, fell in love with Broadway musicals and musical composers when he was taken as a child to see Ethel Merben star as Annie Oakley in Irving Berlin's Annie Getcher Gun.

Later in life, after publishing several books on popular songwriters, Kimball got a call from Irving Berlin himself, sparking a friendship that brought Kimball's life full circle. Robert Kimball graduated from Yale in 1961. His undergraduate thesis was on Broadway musicals of the 1920s, but when he returned to Yale, it was for law school from which he graduated in 1967.

While a senior in law school, Kimball was asked to organize the collection donated to Yale by composer Cole Porter. Kimball did such a good job and enjoyed it so much, that when he earned his law degree, he didn't become a lawyer. Instead, for the next four years, he curated Yale's musical theater collections and began

writing books on the subject. And for Robert Kimball, following his passions paid off, and he discovered a treasure trove of musical history gold. The Warner Brothers movie studio in the late 1920s had invested in the new sound era by buying several music publishing houses.

The sale included 80 crates of material that lay unopened and untouched for more than 50 years. Then, in 1982, Robert Kimball found the crates in a Warner Brothers warehouse in Sikakis, New Jersey, and catalogued them. Inside were hundreds of unpublished songs by Jerome Kern, unknown songs by Cole Porter,

and missing songs by George and Ira Gurshwin. Eventually, Kimball became artistic advisor to the Ira Gurshwin estate and edited a book collecting Ira Gurshwin's complete lyrics, including many of the ones Kimball himself at rescue.

“Today, we'll remember Robert Kimball by listening back to some of his conversations”

with Terry Gross.

The first came in 1994 when Kimball's collection of Ira Gurshwin lyrics had just been

published. Terry began by playing a fret of stair recording of a George and Ira Gurshwin composition, swan-durphill. ♪ Swan-durphill, swan-durphill, swan-durphill ♪ ♪ Swan-durphill, swan-durphill, swan-durphill, swan-durphill ♪

♪ Swan-durphill, swan-durphill, swan-durphill ♪ ♪ Swan-durphill, swan-durphill, swan-durphill, swan-durphill ♪ ♪ Swan-durphill, swan-durphill, swan-durphill, swan-durphill ♪ ♪ Swan-durphill, swan-durphill, swan-durphill, swan-durphill ♪ ♪ Swan-durphill, swan-durphill, swan-durphill, swan-durphill ♪

♪ Swan-durphill, swan-durphill, swan-durphill ♪ ♪ Oh, so wonderful ♪ ♪ Smurfs ♪ ♪ That you should care for me ♪ ♪ ♪

Rabbi Kimber, welcome to Fresh Air. How well did you know I regurgers when and how did you get to know him? I knew I wrote really quite well. I started working with him in 1970

“to when my friend and partner Alfred Simon,”

who had been rehearsal pianist in of the icing in '31. And I asked him if we could do a book about himself and his brother. And we went out to spend some time with him. We spent many days in the house.

And the first day I met him.

He took me aside and asked me very well, I would describe it as somewhat haltingly, but insistently to make the book entirely about his brother, George and not about himself. He saw himself to certain degree as a custodian of George's legacy.

Now, when I worked with him, he would come downstairs to his full room, billiard room office about noon, and he would say it was boys and my disturbing you. And of course, we were so happy to see him.

And he would reminisce a lot, because he knew we loved the old stories, and we would ask him questions. And on many wonderful occasions,

and who knew as I say a lot of Gershwin work. If Al remembered particular songs in one day, he felt particularly lively and asked Al if he would mind playing through the score of the icing. And so we went up to their living room,

and at George Gershwin's own piano, I regershwin sat, cigar in his hand, his eyes closed, and Al began with the overture, and I was saying the entire score all the way through,

and it was certainly one of the most memorable experiences in my life, hearing Ira sing the wonderful, wonderful songs that he enjoyed, had written. It made us all very happy. I'd like to go back to 1917

to the very first published lyric written by Ira Gershwin,

and you reprint this lyric in your new book. And this lyric was actually a parody, a satire. The song was called, "You May Throw All the Rice You desire." I'm just going to read a little bit of the verse, because Gershwin wrote this apparently as a spoof,

“and it's, I think, a pretty funny spoof of a type”

of turn of the century song. The ceremony was over, and all was happy and gay. The blushing bride and her lover to the steps did wind their way. Their young friends, them had proceeded,

and had formed a merry plot, although the older folks pleaded, the younger folks heated them not. And so on and so on. And then it goes to the refrain.

You may throw all the rice you desired, but please friends throw no shoes. It will surely arouse my eyeer, if you cause my wife one bruise. What I find particularly amusing about this spoof

is that Gershwin became so wonderful about using colloquial lines and slang, writing lyrics the way people spoke. It's great that his first published lyric was a parody of lyrics written in the way people didn't speak,

written in a stilted prose. That's a very interesting point that you made. Indeed, if we think of Irish Wins contributions as a lyricist, it's so much his ability to take cliches, shop-worn phrases in the way as you say.

People actually spoke to one another in ordinary situations and to somehow bring those into lyrics

and to make them with this incredible music of George's

to give them timeless expression. And George, just loved the way I rated that and they really responded very beautifully to it. He almost anticipates some of Irish ideas and he would come up with playful thoughts of his own

to give Irish a set.

“And I think that's one of Irish great contributions”

to lyric writing is that it made it less formal. It had a kind of formal idea that you're telling a story long verse in the old days and then a very short refrain. It was repeated. And the story, of course, was very much in the verse.

And Ira worked to loosen things up a bit and to make them go easier for people who would sing them as well. I think maybe one of his most famous songs that uses colloquial, speech is wonderful. Well, they're by eliminating the it's

and bringing the essence and double you together. Sort of a device that he had used earlier in a song called "Sony Dispossession" where he shortened the words "Sony Dispossession" to "Sony Dispossession" all the rhymes that occur.

Again, by making it swundervall, you get the feeling of the ecstasy without the formality of St. G. It's wonderful, which is fine, but not like swundervall. Ira Gershwin had wonderfully clever rhymes,

but on the other hand, he was capable of abandoning conventional rhymes, which he did on one of his most famous songs. I got rhythm.

“You want to tell the story about why he didn't use a rhyme on that?”

Well, he had a number of thoughts about that. He found that the phrases were very short and he thought that to try to rhyme that just didn't work. The song didn't work and he had things like

"Rollie Paulie" rhyming with Ravi Oli and some of the dummy lyrics that he put together in a search to find the song.

He just finally came up with a pattern

that tended to work better by not having these kinds of repetitions. Each phrase had a distinctive quality on its own. Certainly, when Ethel Merman sang it, which was her in her Broadway debut in 1930, and you had this fabulous pit band

that included Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman and other greats later, of course, great band leaders. In the pit, it was one of the most exciting numbers in the history of the American musical theater. Yeah, you said that he had written a dummy lyric

just to try different rhyme schemes to see how they worked. The dummy lyric is just to try out certain rhyme schemes. Do you want to quote the dummy lyric that he had come up with, which convinced him that this kind of rhyme scheme

wasn't going to work on the song? If you can imagine the tune, we all know the tune, so it's sort of hard to forget the tune like I'd written.

"Ravioli" better watch your diet or bust.

Lunch or dinner? You're a center. Please get dinner? Losing all that fat as a must. That didn't somehow work as it's song,

“but it gave him the idea of the kind of thing he was trying for”

short words at each, but each phrase had to be really complete in itself. You know, I got rhythm, I got music. You know, who could ask for anything more, which is certainly one of the most famous lines

in all of his songs? Who could ask for anything more? You've brought a record with you of George Gershwin, performing this song that he collaborated on with his brother. Would you introduce the record for us?

I'd be happy to Terry. In 1934 when George had begun work on the off-proporgy and best, he really needed income. So we went on the radio.

“And he had a radio show which was sponsored by Phenoment,”

the laxative, which he was teased constantly by many people. And later said, "Well, if there hadn't been Phenoment, there would have been no porgy and bass." But on the show, he would play his own music and introduce his songs as well as music of others.

And we had a few acetates that survived that Ira Gershwin had. And one of them has a marvelous performance, preface with an introduction. We hear George Gershwin speaking, mentioning the song I got rhythm, mentioning his brother Ira.

We hear it in just an incredible, inventive performance,

which undoubtedly he did on the spur of the moment during the performance because he could do that so well and that song was so close to him. So for 1934, we hear George Gershwin playing I got rhythm. But right now, I want to play for you a composition of mine that brings up the pleasant of memory.

If I got rhythm from the show called "Girl Crazy." Maybe you thought a few seasons ago. Again, I had the pleasure of working with my brother Ira who supplied the lyrics. Anyway, let's try it. Two bad George didn't sing and couldn't sing his brother's lyric.

Well, he did sing at times when he and Ira were trying to put things together. And Todd Duncan said, "I'm laughing, when he heard the Maudition songs from Porgy and Bess for him, and the God-awful spoilers he'd ever heard the two of them. But he said, at the same time it was so incredible and so real to hear how they presented their songs."

Well, what did we listen to? Ira Gershwin singing one of his own songs and see what kind of voice he has. And you've brought something with you that he, with Ira Gershwin singing Harold Arland at the piano. This is a song written in 1936 for Fred Astaire,

for Shally Dance, and it's called "High Hole." And it had a very specific idea that Fred would kind of walk through the street, seeing this girl on a poster and would then respond to it.

The scene was never shot and the song was never, obviously, in the film.

And over 30 years later, a number of friends of Ira's, it said that really it should get published with such a wonderful song. But he occasionally would do it at parties,

“and I think this is from a party performance”

that Harold Arland, a great composer and performer in his own right, is at the piano, and we hear Ira Gershwin singing "High Hole," in 1936 song written for Fred Astaire. And it had a very special idea that Fred Astaire would sing "High Hole." And it had a very special idea that Fred Astaire would sing "High Hole."

And it had a very special idea that Fred Astaire would sing "High Hole." And it had a very special idea that Fred Astaire would sing "High Hole." And it had a very special idea that Fred Astaire would sing "High Hole." And it had a very special idea that Fred Astaire would sing "High Hole." And it had a very special idea that Fred Astaire would sing "High Hole."

And it had a very special idea that Fred Astaire would sing "High Hole." And it had a very special idea that Fred Astaire would sing "High Hole." And it had a very special idea that Fred Astaire would sing "High Hole." And it had a very special idea that Fred Astaire would sing "High Hole." And it had a very very special idea that Fred Astaire would sing "High Hole."

And it had a very special idea that Fred Astaire would sing "High Hole."

“And it had a very special idea that Fred Astaire would sing "High Hole."”

And it had a very special idea that Fred Astaire would sing "High Hole." And it had a very special idea that Fred Astaire would sing "High Hole." And it had a very special idea that Fred Astaire would sing "High Hole." And it had a very special idea that Fred Astaire would sing "High Hole." And it had a very special idea that Fred Astaire would sing "High Hole."

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And it had a very special idea that Fred Astaire would sing "High Hole." And it had a very special idea that Fred Astaire would sing "High Hole." And it had a very special idea that Fred Astaire would sing "High Hole." And it had a very special idea that Fred Astaire would sing "High Hole."

And it had a very special idea that Fred Astaire would sing "High Hole."

And it had a very special idea that Fred Astaire would sing "High Hole." And it had a very special idea that Fred Astaire would sing "High Hole." And it had a very special idea that Fred Astaire would sing "High Hole." And it had a very special idea that Fred Astaire would sing "High Hole."

“And it had a very special idea that Fred Astaire would sing "High Hole."”

And it had a very special idea that Fred Astaire would sing "High Hole." And it had a very special idea that Fred Astaire would sing "High Hole." And it had a very special idea that Fred Astaire would sing "High Hole." And it had a very special idea that Fred Astaire would sing "High Hole." And it had a very special idea that Fred Astaire would sing "High Hole."

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And it was really retired. I mean, it was amazing. In their early years, George and I removed every few months.

I recounted that in the first 16 years of his life, they moved 28 times. That's really not going to quite a lot of moving. Sure is. Three months rent would take the Greshwin family from one part of New York to another. Ira really completely shot down in the sense. He didn't go out.

And when I knew him, he rarely went beyond the backyard or the front walk for a walk. He basically found everything he needed inside with television. He could watch sports events. He could read. He could entertain his friends and people came to see him. He could write letters to young children.

“I think he loved doing most side from reminiscing and really telling stories about the old days, which he did very, very well.”

It was to receive a letter from a child, asking a question and a question, "How did you work with your brother or what is songwriting like?" He would spend days forming a letter like that. Robert Campbell, speaking to Terry Gross in 1994, he died last week at age 86.

Also, we'll have two TV reviews.

“Critic at large John Powers reviews season two of the TV series Sugar, starring Colin Farrell,”

and I review the new remake of Little House on the Prairie. I'm David B. and Gully, and this is fresh. ♪ You say either and I say either ♪ ♪ You say neither and I say neither either ♪ ♪ Either neither, neither ♪

♪ Let's call the whole thing all ♪ ♪ You like potato and I like potato ♪ ♪ You like tomato and I like tomato ♪ ♪ Potato, potato, tomato, tomato ♪ ♪ Let's call the whole thing all ♪

♪ Oh, if we call the whole thing all ♪

♪ We must part ♪ ♪ And oh, if we ever part ♪ ♪ Then that might break my heart ♪

“♪ So if you like pajamas and I like pajamas ♪”

♪ I'll wear pajamas and give up pajamas ♪ Fram Platner is out. On the latest in Pierre Politics podcast, we are unpacking the downfall of a candidate once seen as a standard bearer for Democrats. Plus what Platner's exit from the main Senate race could mean for the balance of power and Congress.

Listen to the Imperial Politics podcast every afternoon to stay a step ahead of all the latest political news. Wherever you get your podcasts. The Emmy nominations are here. We're unpacking record-breaking nominations for Hacks. Plus a big day for the pit and newcomers like Widow's Bay.

We'll talk about some snubs and make some early predictions of who will win. Listen to pop culture happy hour of eye of the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. So you've decided you want to be more active. Exercise scientist Keith Diaz says put away the smartwatch. Start by noticing your body's natural cues.

For us to build a habit to check back in with our bodies, that behavior is much more likely to stick. Tracking with the body needs. That's on the Ted Radio Hour podcast. Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

This is fresh air. I'm TV critic David Bean Coolie. That's one of the best known melodies composed by UB Blake. He was part of the pioneering black songwriting team of Noble Sissel and UB Blake. We're remembering musical theater historian Robert Kimble, who died last week at the age of 86. He helped rediscover the work of Sissel and Blake.

We're going to listen back to a portion of our 1998 show about UB Blake, and here are selections from Sissel and Blake's 1921 hit musical shuffle along, which changed Broadway. It was created by and starred African Americans and it brought new syncopated rhythms and dances to Broadway. It even helped launch the Heartland Renaissance. Shuffle along was revived on Broadway in 2016.

To perform the music, our actor singer Vernelle Bonneries, who co-created and starred in a jelly-roll Morton review and the New Orleans music review one more time, and at the piano, Dick Hyman, an expert in the piano styles of the 1910s, 20s and 30s. Some of the songs we'll be hearing today are from Shuffle Along,

which will be Blake's 1921 musical written with Noble Sissel. And it's really a landmark musical in the history of the Broadway stage.

“Robert Kimble, what's so important about shuffle along musically?”

Shuffle along described itself accurately as a musical melange. It brought together so many diverse styles and influences. You hear operetta and a song like Love Will Find Away. Very important, and it was a very courageous decision for Sissel and Blake to have a beautiful ballad that could have come right out of a Jerome Kern show

as part of their score. It also reflected the Vaudeville Acts of the Four Creators, Miller and Lyles, who were the bookwriters of shuffle along, had these wonderful sketches that they did together. And it was their comic routines that provided the basis for the books

that they wrote for shuffle along in other musicals of that period. And then you had Sissel and Blake's remarkable Vaudeville Act,

which was really crucial.

And it was an extended 15 or 20 minute sequence, which would involve a diversity of materials. And it was the coming together of all these different influences that made shuffle along special. Another part about shuffle along that is always struck me very forcefully

when they gathered the talent together to bring shuffle along to Broadway,

they were able to obtain the very best talent in the black community.

“Well, who are some of the people who come out of shuffle along?”

We think of certainly one person who you don't think of as Paul Robson. It was a member of the cast of shuffle along. The most beloved of the black artists of the 20s Florence Mills, this is from shuffle along. Many ways the most famous of performers from that period,

who later went on to achieve great renown in Europe, which Josephine Baker, she was from shuffle along. Two great figures in music, were played in Ubi's orchestra,

Hal Johnson, whose choir was world renowned,

and the extraordinary composer William Grant still played the oboe in the shuffle along the orchestra. These are just some of the great people who were part of that show. For now, Dick, I'm going to ask you to do a song from shuffle along.

“This is called "I'm Craving for That Kind Of Love."”

It was the showstopper of the musical. You want to do it for us? Great. I'm wishing, and fishing, and trying to look. Someone's wheat, like you'd meat, in a buck.

I'll be her home, yo. I won't be no phony, yo.

She may be the baby of some of the guy.

I'll take him, and make him say bye-bye. And when I get her, I will set her up on my knee, and make my plea, too. Kiss me, kiss me, kiss me with attempt in lips. Sweet as honey drips, press me, press me.

Press me to her love in breast. While I gently rest, breathe, loves tender size. While I gaze, let me gaze into a eyes. Eyes that will just hypnotize. Then I know she'll whisper whisper whisper to me soft and low.

Something nice, you know, honey. Honey, honey, when there's no one near. My baby, dear, she'll say, "Hard of me, caught of me, cling to me, saying to me, "sponed to me, chrome to me.

"Pry to me, cry to me, I'm craving for that kind of love. Kiss me with attempt in lips. Sweet as honey drips. whisper something soft and low. whisper something nice, you know.

"Hard of me, caught of me, cling to me, saying to me, "sponed to me, chrome to me, cried to me. "And I'm craving for that kind of love." That's a really fun song.

“What influenced it, shuffle along, have on other Broadway musicals?”

As we were saying, it brings this mix of a light opera sound and ragtime and syncopation. I would think musically and knowing from what I've heard from Irving Berlin and others that Mr. Berlin said that the impact of shuffle along was extraordinary.

And that there's no question that the kind of syncopated songs that he wrote after, like everybody's step and pack up your sins and go to the devil which were for the music box reviews, were influenced by songs like The Baltimore Buzz, craving for that kind of love which he heard in shuffle along.

It's hard to imagine girç when fascinating rhythm without hearing what sizzling like we're doing before. Wherever can we, you rediscovered you be black and noble sizzle in the late 1960s, how did you meet him? How did you find him?

I would say that I was one of the people who helped rediscover you be. It happened this way. I was at that time the curator of the Yale American musical theatre

New Haven and one day I was speaking to John Larr,

the writer and he said my father, his father, Bert Larr, the great actor comedian,

“suggested that the very first people you should contact me,”

contact, were noble sizzle and you'd be like. So actually it was Bert Larr who arranged for John Larr myself to go up at meet noble sizzle. And this would have been, I'm sure in the spring of 1967. And we had visited sizzle, he told us maybe just weeks before he

was going to throw out all his old files and his old materials. He said no one is interested in them. There's no reason to keep them. And by this miracle, we were able to get there in time. We didn't know how close we were to losing his extraordinary heritage.

Well, he said, if this interest you fellows,

I'll call my old pal up and you'll out visit him in Brooklyn.

So he made a phone call and he said, "I have these two boys here who would like to meet you and we could come out. We'll settle drove us out to 84, A. Stuyves and Avenue, where you and Marion Blake lived.

“As you'd be said, when he married Marion,”

I got the coop with the chicken with her house, but he was moving into. And we were greeted there by you and the afternoon that I spent there was one of the most memorable in my life. Robert Kimble, speaking to Terry Gross in 1998.

In 2001, he spoke to Terry again about songwriter Irving Berlin, who wrote many classic American songs,

including blue skies, cheek to cheek.

There's no business like show business and white Christmas. Kimble had co-edited a collection of Berlin's lyrics with Berlin's daughter Linda Emmett. Terry spoke to Robert Kimble shortly after the 9/11 attacks. Having put together the book of Irving Berlin lyrics

is there a lyric or two that particularly stands out to you either in the rhyme scheme or in the sentiment it expresses or in the way it captures the moment that it was written in.

“Terry, that's a very hard question, but I could think of a few,”

obviously, one of which I thought about a lot. And recently, certainly, in recent weeks, there was a song that was introduced by Fred Astaire. And the sentiments in the lyric are really, really, really timely.

Lines like there may be trouble ahead and there may be tear drops to shed. Of course, I'm speaking of the song. Let's face the music and dance, which was introduced in the 1936 film

"Follow the Fleet" and certainly one of Mr. Berlin's greatest songs. There may be trouble over there. But while there's moonlight and music and love and romance, let's face the music and dance. Before the Hitler have fled,

before they are stuck to pay the bill, and while we still have the chance. Let's face the music and dance. Ooh, we'll be without tomorrow. Homing a different tune and dance.

There may be tear drops to shed. Robert Kimble spoke to Terry in 2001. The author and musical historian died last week. He was 86 years old. Coming up, I review the new remake of Little House on the Prairie,

based on the popular series of books by Laura Engels Wilder. This is fresh air. President Trump says the ceasefire with Iran is over. This week on Consider Vest, a former high-ranking U.S. diplomat shares his thoughts on what could happen next.

The rulers and tear on clearly believe they have a stronger will than the United States. I don't think there are any good options. That's this week on Consider Vest. You can get the full story behind the headlines every afternoon, listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Are we doomed? Helps you understand humanity's biggest threats? Climate change pandemics in their weapons. Stop still hits planets. He died we stand divided we fall.

How worried should you actually beat? And what can we do? Time been Bradford. Join me for all we do. Harvey NPR network.

Listen now wherever you get your podcasts. You know that moment in an interview when someone says something that just blows you away on NPR's wildcard podcast, we've got a deck of questions that offers a shortcut to those moments. What do you admire about your teenage self?

What's a lesson you keep learning again and again?

Oh. When has selfishness served you well? Hmm. I'm Rachel Martin. Listen to the wildcard podcast.

Only from NPR. This is fresh air. I'm TV critic David Bean Kooley.

“Netflix is presenting a new version of Little House on the Prairie based on the popular series of books by Laura Engels Wilder.”

All eight episodes of season one are now available to stream and Netflix already has ordered a season two. It's a story from our nation's early frontier history and has quite a history of its own, in print and even on television. When Laura Engels Wilder started writing her Little House on the Prairie book series in the early 1930s, it was as a fun salute to her own childhood memories. Laura was born shortly after the Civil War in 1867.

In the very long cabin she describes in her first book Little House in the Big Woods.

That book and her later ones detailed the joys, the difficulties, and the hard work involved in pioneer life. As seen and told from the perspective of a precocious young girl. Laura loved her mom and her siblings, but she observed them all carefully and perceptively. She was the little house on the Prairie what John Boy was to the Walton's. Another nostalgic family TV series set during an earlier time, in that case the Depression.

“The characters of both John Boy and Laura displayed a gift for writing early on and narrated their family's stories.”

When Michael Landon, after spending years as Little Joe and Benanza, brought Little House on the Prairie to NBC in the 1970s, he cast himself as the patriarch, Paul Engels. But the storytelling, as in the books, belonged to Little Laura, played in that series by a young Melissa Gilbert.

If I had a remembrance book, I would mark down how it was when we left our little house in the Big Woods, to go west to any territory.

That little house series was very popular and ran from 1974 to 1983. Especially in the early episodes, it was faithful to the original books and characters. When an Osage Indian chief came by the Engels cabin, Paul invited him in for a sit and a smoke. Ma was frightened, as was Laura's elder sister, and was relieved when he left. But Laura was charmed and sympathetic to his tribe's plight.

What Laura says in that 1974 premiere may sound like liberal Hollywood rewriting, but the empathic dialogue, like much of the TV series, came straight from the original book. Goodness, he's gone. Why, I thought it was kind of nice. Poor Indian.

Yeah, what do we have to say about it? He went from now on, won't be an Indian after an territory. But why not, Paul? Come, it's going to make a move. Have fun.

Move where? West, I guess. I'm glad. I'm not. This will have to say, and have to go to, even though he's a chief.

I'm afraid so. It's not fair. They were here first. The new incarnation of Little House on the Prairie is created for TV by Rebecca Sun and Shine. Her writing credits include episodes of the TV series The Boys and The Vampire Diaries.

She and the show's other writers, as well as the directors, take some liberties with their new version. They introduce an entire family of Osage characters, for example, to present another set of family dynamics.

“One thing they don't mess with, though, is Laura as the central voice. She's played here by Alice Halsie, whom you may remember as the brilliant daughter on Lessons in Chemistry.”

And her performance is the show's very best, a show that starts as before with Laura's opening narration. Once upon a time, Pa and Ma and Mary and Laura left their house in the big woods of this concept. Ma was sad to leave her life behind, but Pa said it was getting too crowded, and we needed a fresh start in the west. Every day, the horses traveled as far as they could, and Pa and Ma made camp at an in place. Warren Christy is another standout. He plays John Edwards, a civil war veteran, and sometimes drunken loner, who agrees to help the Ingles build their log cabin before winnersets in.

Charles, that's Pa, to Laura, likes him, but Caroline, that's Ma, fears him as much as she does the Osage, and sends him away. Luke Bracy plays Pa, and Crosby Fitzgerald plays Caroline.

Huh?

“He was drinking, he aired our home. He said he didn't do it while you work, but I didn't believe him.”

What do you say?

I told him not to come back until he didn't need something to chase the shit.

It doesn't work like that, you don't just snap your fingers and make it go away. His wife is gone. His girls are gone. He got chewed up and spit out by the god for sake of war. You know. You knew and you didn't say anything. Caroline, we are alone at sea.

We don't have proof of the obsession with virtue. It's not virtue. I don't want to lose my family. We can't finish this house without it. Their argument is intense, but as filmed, there's something off about it. Like many other scenes in this new little house on the Prairie, it's shot by handheld cameras in extreme close-up

and calls too much attention to itself. Also, some of the dramatic plot points that work so well in the books than in the NBC series are less effective here, because they're not established or presented as well. The familiar title of Little House on the Prairie may bring lots of viewers to this new version, but I can't say it really resonates, except for the performances of Alice Halsey's Laura

and Warren Christie as Mr. Edwards. But I will say that the entire original series of Little House on the Prairie is available to stream on peacock. And when I dove back in there to refresh my memory, that series really did resonate. Coming up, critic at Large John Powers reviews the new season of sugar,

“starring Colin Farrell as a private eye with a secret, quite a secret.”

This is fresh air. Every story from shortwave and pure science podcasts starts with a question. Like, why do we have nightmares? How does AI affect my energy bill? At NPR, we are here for your right to be curious about the world around you.

Follow shortwave wherever you get your podcasts, because the more you ask, the more interesting the world gets. This week on sources and methods, fresh strikes between Iran and the United States is the war back on. What Iran wants is to basically charge a toll or insurance fees to go through the straight-up or a moose. That may be the way out of this.

Plus President Trump's surprise promise to Ukraine.

“Listen now on sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.”

On NPR's wildcard podcast, writer Terry Tempest Williams on what it means to be a woman with a big voice and big ideas in our culture.

I don't know if we have to prove we're not crazy, but we're always being asked if we are.

Watch or listen to that wildcard conversation on the NPR app or on YouTube at NPR wildcard. This is fresh air. The Apple TV series Sugar stars Colin Farrell as John Sugar, an L.A. private eye with the strangest of secrets. It's second season is currently being released and finds him seeking a missing person in areas of Los Angeles you won't find in the tourist brochures. Our critic at large John Powers says that Sugar has a strange, starry eye to lure that he found irresistible.

Aliens from outer space come in basically two kinds. The first are murderous invaders that need to be destroyed. Think alien or predator. In more complex stories like the man who fell to earth or arrival, the E.T.s don't come to wreak havoc, but to engage with our world. Often discovering what it means to be human.

The latter is what you get in sugar. The seductive Apple TV series whose second season is now unfolding.

Here, the alien played by a terrific Colin Farrell. Doesn't merely travel between planets, but between genres. He learns to be human by becoming a private eye in Los Angeles, or maybe a fantasy of a private eye. One who tools around L.A. in a vintage Corvette stingray, sports immaculately tailored suits, and has a spirit so pure he makes film Marlo seem sinister. Rapping noir inside science fiction, or maybe the other way around.

Sugar injects fresh feeling into storylines that have grown more than a little musty. Now, sugar's first season was nearly impossible to review, because it's shocking reveal that private detective John Sugar is actually from another planet. Didn't come until episode 6. So late, you couldn't intelligently discuss the series without spoiling it. In his final episode, we learned that Sugar is part of a team of aliens sent to earth to monitor and observe.

Sugar stays behind.

“In season 2, cut off from his home planet, he's back to detective work.”

Where the first season's client was a Hollywood mogul, this new one moves us into the LA of the powerless.

Sugar takes the case of aspiring boxer Danny Moon, played by Jin Ha, a Korean immigrant who wants him to find his missing brother, who has dangerous men on his tail. Sugar quickly finds himself faced with Latino street gangs and a dirty cop named Vega, played with menacingly placid amusement by Tony Donton, who you may know as the psycho Lalo Salamanca in better call Saul. Clearly needing help, Sugar hires a street-wise assistant, she's played by Sasha Kaya, and calls in favors from his scruffy police pal, slightly played by Shay Wigham.

Naturally, there's also a mysterious woman, Charlotte, the wonderful Irish actress Laura Donnelly, who just as naturally has eyes for Sugar. Heck, he's Colin Farrell. As part of his interplanetary mission, Sugar has been ordered not to assimilate, eat no meat, have no sex, don't kill anybody. But as the story progresses, with the amoral Vega looking unstoppable, and Charlotte coming on pretty darn sexy,

we wonder if he'll be corrupted into violating those taboos.

Here, you sense temptation coming when he first meets Charlotte in a bar.

Hello. Hi. I don't mean that if we met before. Uh, I don't think so.

“Zorick, the sustainability conference that wasn't you?”

No. No. Ma'am is dead. Not at all. John Sugar.

Sugar? Like what's sweet? Uh, I suppose. I'm Charlotte. Like the web.

Like the spider's web.

“The late Great David Lynch said that what drew him into a story was a mood, a mental atmosphere he wanted to be inside.”

I get that in sugar, with its riffs on John Resilov, its undertow of city lights melancholy, and the way sugar's alieness puts a spin on everything, from the heightened way L.A. is shot to his philosophical ruminations on existence. Sugar learned about Earth by watching old pictures like Casa Blanca. He's now a film buff, and one of the show's stylistic trademarks is to cut in clips from black and white movies

that echo what he's experiencing in the story. Even when this technique feels a bit mannered, these clips remind us that sugar often approaches life through the mythologizing of the Hollywood dream machine. Rather like us, come to think of it. It's one of the best science fiction cliches that aliens often possess more humanity than human beings.

The empathetic sugars certainly does, whether he's quietly washing the dishes for the grandmother of a murder victim. Believing villains would go straight if only they could. Seeing himself in L.A.'s uprooted immigrants and unhoused people, or reacting in horror at how heartlessly the dispossessed are treated. This city breaks your heart, he tells us.

While we might mock a human detective for being so unhard boiled, Pharaoh wins us over with the subtlety and charm we expect from his performances. Deploying his charisma with great discretion, he gives us a sugar who may look like a perfectly cool detective. But whose interactions have an earnest, awkward, off-kilter honesty that gives every scene an off-beat twirl. In fact, one of the very best things about the show is that, like its hero, it isn't cynical.

Sugar lives in the elegant hotel del corazon, the hotel of the heart, and this seems just right. Far, far from home, John Sugar is a lonely soul, lost in space, but forever trying to do the right thing.

John Powers reviewed sugar starring Colin Ferrell, now in his second season on Apple TV.

[MUSIC] In the new comedy film The Invite, an unhappy married couple invite the couple upstairs over for an uncomfortable and revelatory dinner party. On Monday's show, the film's screenwriters Rashida Jones and Will McCormick,

Fresh air's executive producer and Sam Bringer, our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham,

“with additional engineering support from Julian Hertzfeld and Charlie Kyer.”

For Terry Gross and Tony Amosley, I'm David Beancool.

This week on NewsMakers, the far right pastor with growing influence in the Republican Party and the administration.

“What I would do right now is outlaw abortion, overturned a vertical.”

Those are the fish that I would want to fry now.

Doug Wilson, a self-described Christian Nationalist on his vision for a Christian America.

“This week on NPR's NewsMakers, wherever you get your podcasts.”

[MUSIC] Every episode of It's Bene Minute, NPR's What's Happening in Culture Podcast starts by asking three questions. Who? How? Why now? If the culture's asking it, we're talking about it. At NPR, we stand for your right to be curious and indulge your cultural curiosity. Follow it's been a minute wherever you get your podcasts.

And we'll break down the zeitgeistie topics that are filling your feed.