(Photo: Patrick McMullan)

In Michel Gondry’s new film, Be Kind Rewind, a pair of New Jersey video-store clerks use friends and neighbors to make goofy homemade versions of major Hollywood films. And at a party for the film at Deitch Projects on February 19, Rachel Dratch confessed to a similar let’s-put-on-a-show moment in her youth. “I was in third grade, and I directed a choreographed dance to the song ‘Kitty Kat’s Party,’ which is the B-side of ‘Teddy Bears’ Picnic’ by Rosemary Clooney, with my brother and some of the neighborhood kids,” she recalled. “I was the costumer, director, and publicist. We had cat ears and tails, because it was Kitty Kat’s party. The saddest part was, there was a store near my house, and I put up a sign that just said SHOW: THREE O’CLOCK, 25 CENTS, or something. It did not explain what people were going to see.” That, it turned out, was not a successful publicity effort. “The only people that came were our parents.”

Have good intel? Send tips to intel@nymag.com.

Related:

• Archive: “Intelligencer”
• Articles by Bennett Marcus
• Table of Contents: Mar 3, 2008 issue of New York | Subscribe!