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Come On, Get Happy: The Partridge Family Story (TV) More at IMDbPro »

2 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
The Trials of Talent, The Farce of Fame (oh, spare me!)., 15 February 2009

Author: dunmore_ego from Los Angeles, California

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Narrated by the real Danny Bonaduce (in between jail time and radio airtime, we presume), COME ON, GET HAPPY: THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY STORY is a tiresome television biopic of The Partridge Family's rise to popcorn fame in the early 70s.

A travesty at best; at worst, some form of mild brain damage. If it is at all possible, acting is even worse than the actual Partridge Family members. This "review" only exists because the David Cassidy character (Rodney Scott) says something that really bugged me...

Scott, who keeps looking more like David the longer the film runs (cos of that brain damage kicking in) complains that he's not being taken seriously as a musician. He can really sing and play guitar, yet complains that because the studio "bought" him, he is not being allowed to extend his full range of talents; further, that he is merely on a salary instead of being paid a percentage of all the records he actually sings on.

Noted. But wait, spoiled brat! The irony is that all those really hot session musicians who ACTUALLY played on the Partridge Family songs were the ones who were bought! Those real musicians who didn't have perky breasts and prettyboy faces, who were eternally behind the scenes, who made the morons diddling their instruments look talented - they never got a percentage either - AND - they never had the advantage of being in front of the camera so that recognition by the public or the industry could grant their performances further legs; and I'll wager that those sessions musicians' salaries were far smaller than that of the "stars" in front of the camera.

It is no secret that during his Teen Idol years the real David Cassidy did whine about not receiving any profits from all the dolls, lunchboxes and likenesses of him... well, those great musicians WHO DID YOUR WORK FOR YOU got even less! Cassidy was a good vocalist, no doubt - no Pavarotti, of course (but I'm wagering Pavarotti never posed nude for Rolling Stone - oh! those controversial pubic hairs!), but at least he was on camera and achieved the fame to build on his career.

Cassidy has had a full career because of that fame; Susan Dey and Shirley Jones have enjoyed continuous television careers, and even that f*ckup Danny Bonaduce (with all his arrests and addictions and jail time) can get work. The rest of the kids faded out because - well, they were untalented little snots.

And so we're subjected to this guy playing Cassidy whining like the real Cassidy about people not taking him seriously when he's doing a TV movie about a TV series, in which the guy he is playing, complains about not being taken seriously even though other people are doing his work for him! Is this irony or some new form of brain damage I'm experiencing?

Where is that poor bastard who played the famous opening keyboard riff to the Partridge Family theme, "C'Mon Get Happy"? What's his name? Where's his action figure? Name any of the real bass players on those soppy tracks: "I Think I Love You," "I Woke Up In Love This Morning"... What about the slick drummers? Those guys got the raw deal - not David Cassidy!

Watching old videos of the Family miming, I feel dirty every time the camera pans across anyone besides David, who is at least miming his own voice. (And what pretty eyes!)

In a Gallup Poll during the Partridge Family heyday, Danny Bonaduce was named the second most famous bass player behind McCartney - just for holding a bass guitar around his neck and flapping his untalented sausage fingers.

If fame can ever be construed a harsh mistress, it is because Danny Bonaduce can be mentioned in the same breath as one of the pioneer geniuses of rock and roll.

Come on, get happy, indeed! Come on - GET REAL!

--Review by Poffy the Cucumber (for Poffy's Movie Mania)

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