The One Feather Tail of Miss Gertrude McFuzz
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"The One Feather Tail of Miss Gertrude McFuzz" is a song from the Broadway musical Seussical, featuring an unhappy bird with one tail feather.
As the lyrics go in the Seussical song:
There once was a girl bird named Gertrude McFuzz,
and she had the smallest plain tail ever was.
One droopy droop feather that's all that she had!
And ,oh, that one feather made Gertrude so sad...
She curled it, She dyed it,
She gave it a puff,
She decked it with flowers,
but it wasn't enough,
for no matter what it just was what it was
A tail that simply wasn't meant
to catch the eye of an elephant
The one feather tail of Miss Gertrude Mcfuzz.
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[edit] Character introduction
Miss Gertrude McFuzz first appeared in the Dr. Seuss short story Miss Gertrude McFuzz, in the book Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories. In the story, Gertrude McFuzz vainly wishes she looked more like the more fully feathered Lolla-Lee-Lou:
[edit] Seussical the Musical
In Seussical, Gertrude McFuzz is portrayed as the love interest of Horton, the endearing elephant from Dr. Seuss’s Horton Hears a Who!. Janine LaManna played the role for the Broadway version of the musical and Garrett Long, an Alexandria, Virginia native, portrayed the role of Miss Gertrude on the national tour of Seussical.
As the story begins, Gertrude is self-conscious and hypersensitive about her single, seemingly insignificant tail feather. Gertrude undergoes a physical, mental, and emotional metamorphosis during the production. She changes from a nervous, neurotic bird into an altruistic, gallant one by overcoming her perceived shortcomings and accepting and believing in herself.
Gertrude’s musical numbers, in order of appearance, are:
- "Oh, the Things You Can Think"
- "Biggest Blame Fool"
- "Jungle of Nool"(reprise)
- "The One Feather Tail Of Miss Gertrude McFuzz" (solo)
- "Amayzing Mayzie"
- "Amayzing Gertrude"
- "How Lucky You Are"
- "Notice Me Horton" (duet)
- "Horton Sits On the Egg/Act 1 Finale"
- "All For You"
- "The People Versus Horton The Elephant"
[edit] Other works featuring Miss McFuzz
Between 1978-1982, Miss McFuzz reappeared in the Fisher-Price Talk-To-Me Book Gertrude McFuzz (07-AD-01-8-I). In 1999, the Buddha label reissued an audio version of the story in the collection Dr. Seuss Presents: Fox In Sox, narrated by Marvin Miller.
The character of Miss Gertrude McFuzz has also been featured in Rob Kapilow’s Two By Seuss (1995), a musical setting of two Dr. Seuss works, Gertrude McFuzz and Green Eggs and Ham.
