Learning Day: Baby Songs Presents: John Lithgow's Kid-Size Concert (Patreon)

Well, Johnny boy, you really wanged it this time. Apparently you got blasted with Hap Palmer on Buttery Nipples last night and agreed to put on a show for the kids today.

Christ, man, you can't keep living like this! You went to Harvard! You've got a Tony, a Saturn, and an Emmy! You're an Academy Award-nominated actor! If the papers ever got wind of what you're really like off-set, it'd torch your image, and no amount of movies about lovable yetis could save you. You've got to smarten up, damn it! Quit the boozing and whoring and land a starring role on a popular sitcom. This is your decade, baby! Now slam some Tylenol, get out there, and entertain those little creeps.

My God. Their faces. So expectant. So full of hope. How did you get so old so quickly? What was it like to have more time ahead than behind you? Even if you live to 90 you're halfway dead already and you still haven't played a fairytale villain opposite a cartoon ogre voiced by Chris Farley. Focus, John.

It's taken no less than six of these little devils to finish the introductions. None of them has any idea that you're a graduate of the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Just get through the next half hour. Open things up with a welcoming gesture that doesn't look like you just walked into your bedroom to learn that bigfoot is real and your wife is cheating on you with him.

Heh. Already got them eating out of your hands, screaming their little heads off in excitement. Well, screaming anyway.

Let's get this party started. First number: "I Had a Rooster." Guaranteed crowd pleaser.

Yeah. Oh yeah. We're doing this. Make those hogs squeal for you at the part about the pig.

You're the greatest children's entertainer of all time. But wait a second, did that harlot in the third row just look away?

Bored are we, little miss hairband? Well, sorry you're not getting the predigested pap you're no doubt accustomed to. This isn't "Old McDonald." This is New Lithgow. "I Had a Rooster" is a full four and a half minutes long — the "Stairway to Heaven" of children's music about enumerating farm animals and their respective sounds. Wasted on these Philistines.

It's ok, it's ok. Just make it through this without puking Buttery Nipples up all over the kids. Swallow that bile, John Arthur Lithgow. Swallow it like you swallowed your pride when you lost the Oscar to Lou Gossett Jr. in '82, and then again to Nicholson in '83.

It's going to be ok. Do the song about gardening. Anyway, the camera surely isn't going to be on you the whole time. The producers of this thing are going to come up with some quality graphics to break up the runtime. Cartoons, maybe. Remember the old cartoons, back when Coretta Scott King babysat for you? Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Tex Avery. Probably kids today don't care about them anymore. It's all Ninjas Turtle and He-Men now. God, life is fucking relentless.

That's two songs down. How many do they expect? It's fine, it's fine.

No, it's not fine. That pint-sized cretin is bored?

Put that away. You mustn't let Bad John out. Keep him locked up in your heart-closet, like mother taught you. Mother knows best. What would mother say now? She would tell you to keep playing and put on a pleasant face. Your face is an advertisement for your soul, mother always said. A sour face is the Lord's disgrace!

It's time for "Mr. McCloud," the song about how different kinds of gentlemen like to sing. Hit them with that famous opener!

Mr. McCloud likes to sing real loud! Mr. McKroffty sings softly!

Yes. You've got them back on your side. After all, it wasn't so long ago that you yourself were a child. You remember their ways, their fancies. Think back, John. Remember.

Remember the awe. Recall the wonder of a world in which every morning heralded the advent of some new discovery. And yet, amidst that splendor, intertwined like the branches of a great banyan tree, fear. The nigh-constant background terror of living amidst implacable, unpredictable giants, their ways inscrutable to you, their dominion absolute.

So small. So helpless. Do you feel it, John? Can you let yourself re-experience it? Can you forgive yourself for having once been a child who, like all other children, wished only for love and support?

Encounter the child that was Lithgow.

You contain multitudes. You are myriad, timeless, an aperture through which the universe witnesses itself. Are you not beautiful? Are you not perfect? Is not love the ultimate, lasting truth of existence? Teach yourself this lesson, John. It is the Great Work. You are the teacher and the student.

Oh fuck, that wasn't Tylenol you took earlier.

Yeah, that was definitely MDMA. Bring it back down, Lithgow. Center yourself. Reach for something familiar. "She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain?" It'll do. Make it your mantra. That insistent buzzing in your chest is just temporary.

Yeah. Shake it off. This'll satisfy the rubes. You're flying. You're untouchable. You're God. You're going to play a wizard on a television adaptation of a divisive children's book series in thirty years.

Two more songs. Easy peasy. What's left to cover… you already hit farm animals, gardening, ego death. Parents! Parents. Everyone's got parents. God some of these kids probably have hot parents. Just imagine it, John.

Oh yeah. Look at her wearing that plaid in front of her sensible sedan in her tree-lined suburban neighborhood. She's practically begging to see your Harry and the Hendersons.

Getting a little distracted there, Johnny old pal. Don't blow this. Focus on the music. Sing about how daddy puts you in the bathtub and scrubs you down head to toe.

Mm, does he ever, with that Chuck Norris-esque beard and powerful athletic shoulders.

You've got to get off the topic of hot parents. Wrap things up, one more number. But… what's left in the tank? Nothing. You are bereft, your repertoire empty. It's a miracle you managed to make it this far, but bravado and chemical exuberance can only do so much. Give up. Time to rest, soldier.

No! This isn't where it ends, this is where it begins! The Legend of Lithgow starts here! You can't remember any songs? These kids don't know any better. Do it like Nixon. Make it up!

Uhhhh, "this here’s a story about Aunt May!" Great name. Fantastic start. "She made a delicious pancake for herself for lunch one day!" That's a normal thing to have for lunch, a single pancake. They're kids, they don't know any better. Now, a twist… aha! Pancake crimes! She places the pancake in the oven, as one does, then decides to perform some chores around the home to work up an appetite. But when she returns to that fateful appliance, woe! The pancake has been spontaneously granted the gift of life!

What next? The pancake flees from its would-be predator. It escapes the home, only to encounter a vicious dog, itself craving a cake of the pan variety! But again, our protagonist is too quick for the beast to snatch in its slavering jaws! "“No, no! No, no, no! I’m too fast, and you’re too slow! Run, run as fast as you can! I’ve got away from Auntie May, I’ll get away from you, I can!” You're the best at this.

You could stretch this out forever. Aunts, dogs, cows, donkeys, wolves, bears. You can easily kill the last ten minutes of this taping by just naming other things that might want to eat a sentient pancake. This is the kind of quick thinking that's going to get you a job as a credible foil to Sylvester Stallone.

They're waving you in. Bring her home. The fox tricks the pancake, that wily son of a bitch. But it doesn't end there, no. The pancake gets one final verse, a requiem for itself as it is digested, fully conscious, within the gullet of the creature. "Dear, oh, dear. Dear, oh, dear I am eaten up, I fear." Perfection. These kids need to learn about life's realities sooner or later.

You magnificent bastard. Hungover, dosed, and unprepared, you've achieved the impossible: you have recorded a half-hour concert for a group of children who probably thought you were Raffi. Put down that guitar, lift yourself off your stump, and go see if any of these parents like to party.

This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Jeff Orasky, who thinks it's not fair that when ol' Jithgo does it, it's considered "children's entertainment" but when HE takes a little ketamine and tries to recreate k-pop demon hunters it is "obscene and reckless behavior" and "conduct unbecoming of an officer of the Navy." Double fuckin standards.

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