Rhinestone Gorilla Burlesque Presents “Good Idea/Bad Idea: A Fully Scripted Burlesque Tribute To ‘Animaniacs'”

In this original burlesque musical, the Warner brothers, Yakko and Wakko, and the Warner sister, Dot, fell upon hard times following the unfortunate merger of the WB and UPN. When Dr. Scratch’n’Sniff is finally arrested for sniffing too much scratch, Wakko, Yakko, and Dot lost their sole protector on the Warner Studio Lot; after years being locked into their water tower, the Warners were finally locked out. After more than a decade in exile, the Warners’ fortunes sunk so low that they turned to hosting cheap burlesque at a seedy club in midtown Manhattan, where they now share the stage with neo-burlesque luminaries like Rhinestone Gorilla Burlesque and Jo Boobs Weldon, headmistress of the New York School of Burleque and head mistress of half the world’s leaders.

Rhinestone Gorilla will be joined onstage by voice actor Rob Paulsen, who will sing as Yakko and Pinky–the characters that he created. Paulsen won a Daytime Emmy in 1999 as “Outstanding Performer in an Animated Program” for Pinky and The Brain. “It’s a treat to portray a complex character,” Paulsen explains about Pinky, a goof-ball mouse with funny teeth, a head filled with clouds, and an inane imagination. “Besides…where else could I find a job where emotional outbursts and odd exclamations like ‘Egad!,’ ‘Narf!,’ ‘Poit!,’ ‘Splonk!’, and ‘Zort!’ are allowed and, in fact, encouraged?” With over 2,000 half-hours of animation to his credit, Paulsen’s versatility shines in his starring roles as the voices of Yakko, Pinky, and Dr. Scratch ‘n’ Sniff in the Peabody and two-time Emmy Award-winning series Animaniacs. Some of Paulsen’s other well-known animated characters include Raphael in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Arthur in The Tick, the title role in The Mask, and the title role in Mighty Max.”.

Rhinestone Gorilla Burlesque is New York’s ragtag army of art school delinquents. The troupe–which specializes in narrative burlesque, pop culture and literary adaptations, lowbrow comedy, audience competitions, cheesy disco covers, and self-indulgent ’90s nostalgia–are not your average showgirls; they’re rhinestones in the rough, anti-glamour guerilla grrrls prone to attack and entice.

Formerly known as Alpha Psi Ecdysia, Rhinestone Gorilla Burlesque was founded in 2008 as the nation’s premier undergraduate burlesque troupe. While based on the campus of the State University of New York at New Paltz, Rhinestone Gorilla lived a double life as an educational institution and a professional producing entity. On the New Paltz campus, Rhinestone Gorilla dedicated itself to teaching burlesque history, the politics of neo-burlesque and the practice of burlesque performance; off-campus, Rhinestone Gorilla was the underage darling of the New York stripperformance art scene, getting naked on school nights at The Slipper Room, Rififi, Public Assembly, and Sugarland and in venues in LA, SF, Boston, and beyond. Though frequent subjects of controversy and police activity, Rhinestone Gorilla’s students on the SUNY campus–who have inherited the name Alpha Psi Ecdysia–remain the only state-sponsored strippers in the nation.

“Wildly inventive, completely nuts, and charming through-and-through.” –Flavorpill

“[Rhinestone Gorilla] is the future of burlesque.” –San Francisco Burlesque Review