Kevin Kline as the Pirate King

Believe it or not, Video On Demand was instrumental in the downfall of the Kevin Kline-starring Pirates of Penzance. By many accounts, this screen adaptation of the Joseph Papp-directed 1980 Broadway staging was really excellent. The entire cast reprised their roles with the exception of Estelle Parsons, who was replaced by Angela Lansbury. The Broadway performance was recorded by the Broadway Theatre Archives and came out on DVD in 2002, but the feature film adaptation is still nowhere to be found.

Even boasting a cast including Kline, Linda Ronstadt (both of whom won Tony Awards in 1980), pop singer Rex Smith, and Lansbury, Penzance couldn't have made much money on only 92 screens. Multiplex owners revolted when MCA Universal decided they were going to make the movie available via the SelecTV on demand cable service day-and-date with its theatrical release. The movie was considered a massive failure, but gained a following thanks to the rise of home video and parents hungry for family-friendly titles.

Despite a few lyric changes made for American comprehension and the somewhat hokey nature of the piece as a whole, it's far from an embarrassment. At the very least, a DVD release would be in order, right? It'd be a brilliant move for a forward-thinking company like Universal to make it available for VOD services as more set-top options appear. Kids and parents alike get bored with all the CG-animated garbage, and this one could prove quite popular and profitable if it could actually be rented or purchased.