History Music / AlicesRestaurant

** AudienceParticipationFailure: On the recorded version, Guthrie's first attempt to get the audience to sing the chorus is too quiet. He even remarks "that was horrible."

** In truth, the ''whole song'' is one long Brick Joke. Arlo starts out telling an amusing, but seemingly pointless, tale about getting arrested for littering before moving on to talk about his draft experience. And when he finally meets the "last man" at his draft induction, he's told they have one final question: [[spoiler:"Have you ever been arrested?" Which requires him to go ''back to the very beginnning ...'']]

The song is talking-blues-style with a sung refrain,[[hottip:*:The refrain, confusingly, is introduced with the words, "This song is called Alice's Restaurant"...]] recounting the long-winded (18 minutes!) and exaggerated but basically true story of how a young Arlo Guthrie did a simple favour for his friend Alice that indirectly resulted in him being judged morally unfit to be shipped off to Vietnam to kill people who'd never done him any harm. There is a long-standing tradition of listening to the song on UsefulNotes/ThanksgivingDay, since the song takes place on that holiday (and it marks the transition between regular radio programming and Christmas music programming).

* RapeIsFunnyWhenItIsMaleOnMale: Incidentally; Guthrie mentions that other people judged unfit to serve included "mother rapers... father stabbers... ''father'' rapers". On the live recording, this gets a laugh.

* ThanksgivingDay

The song is talking-blues-style with a sung refrain,[[hottip:*:The refrain, confusingly, is introduced with the words, "This song is called Alice's Restaurant"...]] recounting the long-winded (18 minutes!) and exaggerated but basically true story of how a young Arlo Guthrie did a simple favour for his friend Alice that indirectly resulted in him being judged morally unfit to be shipped off to Vietnam to kill people who'd never done him any harm. There is a long-standing tradition of listening to the song on [[ThanksgivingDay Thanksgiving]], since the song takes place on that holiday (and it marks the transition between regular radio programming and Christmas music programming).

* AudienceParticipationSong: "And remember, you wanna end war and stuff, you gotta sing loud, okay?"

->''You can get anything you want at Alice's restaurant"''

* FridgeLogic: The court hearing is two days after Thanksgiving - which is to say, ''Saturday'', when most courts do not hold session.

** In truth, the ''whole song'' is one long Brick Joke. Arlo starts out telling an amusing, but seemingly pointless, tale about getting arrested for littering before moving on to talk about his draft experience. And when he finally meets the "last man" at his draft induction, he's told they have one final question -- "Have you ever been arrested?" Which requires him to go ''back to the very beginnning ...''

* MemeticMutation: Supposedly the point of the whole thing.
-->Can you imagine, three people walking in, singin a bar of "Alice's Restaurant" and walking out. They may think it's an organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day,I said fifty people a day walking in singin a bar of "Alice's Restaurant" and walking out. Then, friends, they may think it's a movement.

->''Walk right in, it's around the back''

->''You can get anything you want at Alice's restaurant''

''Alice's Restaurant'' is the name of a 1967 album by Arlo Guthrie and a 1969 film inspired by the title song of the album. The song itself is officially named "The Alice's Restaurant Massacree", but is frequently also called "Alice's Restaurant".

!!''Alice's Restaurant'' (the film) provides examples of:

* AdaptationExpansion: Eighteen minutes is long for a song but short for a film, so the film version adds additional incidents drawn from the same period in Arlo Guthrie's life.
* AutobiographicalRole: Arlo Guthrie plays himself. Stockbridge police chief William Obanhein ("Officer Obie") plays himself, reportedly on the basis that making himself look like a fool was preferable to having somebody else make him look like a fool. Singer Pete Seeger also plays himself.
** Actually [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXbigAuy0xo The whole town of Stockbridge]] played themselves.
* RealPersonCameo: The real Alice appears in a couple of crowd scenes.
* ThanksgivingDay