HAIRSPRAY--the musical. Their hair was perfect. But the world was a mess.

Yesterday I saw Hairspray (2007) and loved it. Having never seen it on Broadway, nor in its 1988 version, I had nothing to compare it to. Now I want to see all the versions.

During the last musical number in the film, I sensed movement behind me and looked back only to discover this flock of 7-10 year old children (there on a field trip) all out dancing in the aisles. It was that kind of experience.

In truth, I was surprised to like it as much as I did. And the soundtrack is great too. Full of songs that make you want to sing along. I went straight to the library and picked up the Broadway musical version and I think I have to get the movie one too.

John Waters on the Broadway musical:
John Waters, the director of the film on which the musical is based, says "I used to hate musical comedy, but Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman's score and lyrics for Hairspray have turned me into a real show-tune queen. If I had rhythm, these would be the songs I wish I could write. Listening to the feel-good numbers about rats, flashers, hickies, ratted hair, and checkerboard chicks' turns me into a happy Walt Disney on hallucinogenics, hoping whole busloads of twisted Broadway tourists go to the theater, abandon their diets, and feel sexy about it. Cross-dressing, racial-integration, and overeating have never seemed so wholesome, so American. I think Marc and Scott and the rest of the creative team have turned my weird little movie Hairspray into a jumbo-dream of a musical for outsiders of every persuasion."

John Waters on the 2007 film: "The movie was kind of realistic, and the Broadway play was, hey, let's go to Broadway, and let's be a musical. The musical on stage had to be exaggerated; it was all on one stage!" says Waters, explaining how the new movie has reinvented the musical and the film. "And Michelle Pfeiffer in this movie is the kind of villain I liked as a kid, she was a Disney-movie villain. As a kid I would have been obsessed with her."

Waters on the Waters-iness of the new Hairspray:
"I did talk to (screenwriter) Leslie Dixon and was involved through the whole thing talking to the producers (Craig Zadan and Neil Meron). I was up on the set a couple of times. And Leslie threw in "John Waters" things like the pregnant women smoking and drinking as you walked by there, that was hilarious and completely true then. "

"I always said to [director] Adam Shankman, hey, I told you do whatever you want right out of Hairspray, but there is also a shot in the bathroom, when they go into the bathroom and there are three girls in the bathroom, that's out of Female Trouble, and when John Travolta goes into the dressing room, that's Edith in Polyester. I'm saying there's two shots that really made me laugh. And I mean somebody must have read everything. And that shot of her going to school in a garbage truck? Divine went to the premiere of Female Trouble in a garbage truck. Somebody read that."

John Waters quotes taken from Sun movie critic Michael Sragow's interview with Waters on July 19th, 2007.