It's looks like we've started a "Shakespeare in the Dick Van Dyke show" category here on Bardfilm, so let's keep going with it.
The episode "Somebody Has to Play Cleopatra" alludes to (but fails to quote directly from) Antony and Cleopatra, Romeo and Juliet, and Hamlet.
The plot involves an amateur variety show that is being put on as a fundraiser for the PTA. Most of the episode is a flashback to the previous year's production and Rob Petrie's anxiety that he'll be chosen to direct the upcoming show—and how difficult it was for him to direct last year's.
During rehearsals, we are presented with Laura Petrie's big number: A mock-calypso (calypso appropriation?) number written by Moray Amsterdam and titled "True, Mon, True."
First, we have to acknowledge the phony Caribbean accent. It's not fair to dismiss it as insignificant or harmless, but my own inclination is to see it as a misguided homage to Harry Belafonte. With that in the foreground, we can take a look at the lyrics. This is my attempt (it doesn't seem to have made its way into any of the large internet-based lyric collections):
"True, Mon, True"
Cleopatra was gal so beautiful,
And she had certain spark.
All famous men she swayed
When love's game she played.
Beauty never paid,
So Cleo made her Mark . . . Antony!
Everybody!
True, mon, true—that is the actual fact.
True, mon, true—that is the actual fact.
Romeo and Juliet, when they say, "Let's wed,"
They choose balcony scene.
Today, same thing you see
In the balcony
Of each movie show,
Guess you know what I mean. . . . Ask any usher!
In my suburbia housewife-urbia,
I’m busy as a bee's:
I drive the kids to school,
Dig a swimming pool,
Work just like a fool.
Husband—what a help he's!
He play the golf. . . . And I’m teed off!
Note: There's no need to [sic] "bee's" and "he's" in that last verse. They are semi-awkward contractions, not attempted possessives or mis-apostrophized plurals.
Before we get to the commentary on the song, I'll relay an additional verse presented by this Facebook page:
Now you've all heard of the Lady Godiva
And horseback ride that she took.
Although she wore no clothes
From her head to toes,
Through the streets she goes,
And no man took a look . . . at her horse!
The song gives us its unique take on two famous pairs of lovers in Shakespeare in the first two verses. The first cleverly subverts our expectations about what appears to be the common noun "mark"—and then turns out to be the proper noun "Mark"—the first part of Mark Antony's name. The second is (perhaps) a bit racier, playing on the supposition that teenagers on dates in the 1960s also use balconies to declare their love for each other—but with the implication that that's where the make-out sessions are happening. The first is there because it connects to the main story; the second is just a bonus.
The main section of the plot has to do with rehearsing a mocked-up scene from Antony and Cleopatra. As far as I can tell, it doesn't correspond with any specific scene in Shakespeare's play—and it certainly doesn't quote from the play:
All of that was in flashback. When we return to the present-day question of Rob's determination to refuse the role of director for the current PTA fundraiser. And that's where we get one more Shakespeare reference:
That woman is clever. The thought of a first-time author and composer attempting a musical version of Hamlet with an entirely amateur cast does make the skeptical eyebrow raise, doesn't it?
Links: The Episode at IMDB.
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