Finian's Rainbow

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A Broadway musical from 1947, created by Fred Saidy (book), E.Y. Harburg (book and lyrics) and Burton Lane (music). Due to its popularity it was revived several times. It was adapted into a feature-length film in 1968 by Francis Ford Coppola, starring Fred Astaire and Petula Clark.

"Petrified parsley, petrified parsley, petrified parsley..."
Sharon McLonergan

The story follows Finian McLonergan, an Irish immigrant and his daughter Sharon to Missitucky, USA. He has stolen a magical pot of gold from leprechauns back in Ireland and plans to plant it in the ground near the Fort Knox. Og, a leprechaun in charge of the treasure, follows him, desperately trying to get the gold back. They stop in small community led by a carefree Woody Mahoney, and matters are further complicated by corrupt senator Rawkins, Finian hiding and losing the gold, and the magical properties of the gold itself.


This musical and its 1968 film adaptation provide examples of:

 

 Finian: Don't you realize, lad, Sharon is from quality stock? Why, her whole family tree for generations back consists of nothin' but ancestors.

Woody: We've been descendin' a long time too.

Finian: Ah, but how long? Sharon's grandparents go back to the dawn of history. Blue-blooded amebas they were, with a dauntless ambition. Up they came through the paleozoic slime -- from ameba to tadpole, from tadpole to daffodil, from daffodil to dromedary, and from dromedary to McLonergan. That's the background Sharon comes from -- so get along with your luggage, lad, you haven't a chance.

 
 

 Woody: I'll raise the money somehow.

Buzz: Money don't grow on trees, you know.

(Money starts falling from the tree they're standing under, thrown by Sharon who sits up there.)

 
 

  Og: Doom and gloom! Dooooooom and gloooooooom!!!

 
  • Heel Face Mind Screw: What Og does to Rawkins. The Family-Unfriendly Aesop that often comes with this trope is arguably made somewhat less creepy by the fact that Og is, y'know, a leprechaun.
  • Humanity Ensues: Throughout the story, Og is slowly turning into a human due to losing his pot of gold. By the end, he's become completely mortal. And he doesn't care.
  • In Love With Love: "When I'm Not Near The Girl I Love (I Love The Girl I'm Near)."
  • Irishman and A Jew: Incorporates elements of Irish folklore (more or less) and features an Irish protagonist; the show was penned by an all-Jewish writing team.
  • Karmic Transformation: Openly racist senator Rawkins gets turned black. The trope gets a nice twist when he gets to love his new life and is forced to turn back by his own laws.
  • Large Ham: Og, in the film at least.
  • Last-Second Word Swap: In "When the Idle Poor Become the Idle Rich":
 

 And when all your neighbours

Are upper class

You won't know your Joneses

From your Astors

 
 

 When we're in the dough

And off of the nut

You won't know your banker

From your butler

 
 

 Og: [...]It's so terrifish, magnifish, delish.

To have such an amorish glamorish.

We could be oh, so bride and groomish

Skies could be so bluish blue.

Life could be so love in bloomish,

If my ishes could come true.