YMMV / Kiss Me, Kate

• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: "Too Darn Hot" in the stage version, where it serves as the Irrelevant Act Opener. In the film adaptation, it's the second number performed at the meeting to court Lilli into joining the show, serving as Lois's first scene. Moreover, the latter is disappointed to learn afterward that the song has actually been cut!
• Creator's Pet: Ann Miller as Lois Lane in the movie. Onstage, the role already has three songs, the most of the supporting cast. Despite this, the movie upped her to five numbers, giving her "From This Moment On" - a cut number from a previous Porter show that would go on to be retooled in the 1999 revival as a duet between Lilli and Howell - as well as "Too Darn Hot", which was taken away from the black character Paul due to racist producers, and changed from an ensemble number to a solo entirely focused on Miller. Additionally, Lois' role in the Love Dodecahedron is expanded, but in way that's redundant to her original part in it. While Miller is indeed a great musical comedy performer, the changes expanding her part do nothing to alter or advance the plot, and it causes Lois to steal focus from the leads when she already had plenty to do in the show as written.
• Funny Moments:
  • "Brush Up Your Shakspeare", featuring a hurricane of Bard-related puns. Nearly all of which are incredibly dirty.
  • 90% of Fred and Lilli's interactions which consists the "slap slap" parts of Slap-Slap-Kiss.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: The two gangsters never get named, but they’re quite popular for being very funny and singing one of the show’s most popular songs.
  • Additionally, Paul is very well liked for leading the show stopping “Too Darn Hot”, which gives him a chance to show off some truly excellent dance moves.
• Fair for Its Day: The roles of Fred's and Lilli's personal assistants seem almost blatantly racist in hindsight, though they are still sympathetic—if underdeveloped—characters. On the other hand, back in the '40s you had people complaining that they got too much face-time, along with those scandalous act-opening numbers (Moral Guardians actually tried to ban "Too Darn Hot", and did at least succeed in transferring it to the white characters and toning down the lyrics for The Movie)...
• Jerkass Woobie: Your heart breaks for Fred when he sings the reprise of "So In Love;" he's a talented and ambitious director-producer-performer with a vision and not a lot of money, and his leading lady is throwing a fit. There's a lot to feel bad for. But to send a match of his ex-wife's wedding bouquet to another woman — and think that his ex would never find out even under normal circumstances — that's either really dumb, or a real callous move.
• Retroactive Recognition: Bob Fosse appeared as an actor in the film. He later gained fame as a choreographer beginning with The Pajama Game.
• Signature Scene: The spanking.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: While it still had a decent reception, the most recent Broadway revival made a few alterations to modernize the show and avoid Values Dissonance, even though most didn't find it to be all that dated anyway. The biggest example of this was how they completely removed the spanking scene, with it just consisting of Fred getting one kick in at Lilli's rear after she gets in a few shots at him, with him seemingly trying to spank her before she tackles him down.

---