YMMV / The Mikado

• Applicability: "As Someday It May Happen," A.K.A. "I've Got A Little List", is easily one of Gilbert and Sullivan's most popular songs for this reason: whoever offends society the most all depends on the person singing it, assuming that the production has the patience to rewrite the verses.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Pooh-Bah is one the more popular characters from Gilbert and Sullivan's shows.
• Memetic Mutation: It's the source of familiar phrases such as, "A short, sharp shock," "Let the punishment fit the crime," and even "Grand Poobah".
• Mexicans Love Speedy Gonzales: Contrary to what might perhaps have been expected, The Mikado has always been very popular in Japan. In an attempt at diplomatic politeness, the British Government once banned the play for the duration of the Japanese Prince Fushimi Sadanaru's 1907 visit to London, only to be told that the Prince was looking forward to seeing the play, so a command performance was set up. In a Japanese review of the play, the reviewer mentioned that he was "deeply and pleasingly disappointed" to find that instead of being insulting, it was a fun show to watch. In 2001, the Japanese Theater Company of Chichibu produced a version of The Mikado sung in Japanese, and has been performed numerous times ever since. It does help that the opera was written to satirize British culture, with the Japanese theme merely being a set dressing rather than the concept being mocked.
• Newer Than They Think: Did you know that this is where the term "Grand Poobah" originated?
• Tough Act to Follow: This was arguably Gilbert and Sullivan's peak. Their next show, Ruddigore, was quite successful but looked like a flop in comparison; Gilbert (who made the equivalent of 760 000 USD in 2023 off Ruddigore) remarked, "I could do with a few more such failures."
• Values Dissonance:
  • The show was originally intended to be performed in Yellowface, but this is becoming increasingly unacceptable to present-day audiences.
  • "I've Got a Little List" has as examples, "the nigger serenader, and the others of his race"^note changed in some later performances the "the banjo serenader" in an attempt at trying to avoid offence, and in any case referring to Minstrel Shows rather than actual Black performers and even "that singular anomaly, the lady novelist"!

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