Legally Blonde (theatre)/YMMV

• Better Than It Sounds: Theater: Under the candy-colored fluffapalooza is a surprisingly strong feminist message with genuine character development and believable romance. Of course, Your Mileage May Vary.
• Crowning Moment of Awesome: Most characters get at least one.
  • The You! Get Me Coffee! moment works for Callahan.
    • Even if he dethrones himself the next minute
  • The Legally Blonde reprise for Vivienne.

Elle: All this time I thought I was proving myself and making a difference, but it turns out I'm just one big blonde joke and that's all everybody's ever gonna see.
Vivienne: That's not what I see.

• • Bend and Snap for Paulette and the sorority sisters.
  • The clothes change on Legally Blonde for Elle.
  • Take It Like A Man for Emmett.
    • Emmett gets two CMOA. His second is right after Callahan recently fired by Brooke states that Elle can't represent Brooke without a licensed attorney to supervise, and that without him, she can't. Emmett retorts that he's licensed and he'll gladly supervise.

Callahan: Like hell you will. You work for me, remember?
Emmett: No. I work for myself. (venomously) And I don't have to hit on interns, Professor.

• Crowning Moment of Funny: The whole "Gay or European" sequence. Turns out he's gay and European!
• Crowning Moment of Heartwarming: Oh yeah, there's a few in there.
  • Elle telling her mom she got the internship - "Look at my name in black and white! Your daughter's doing something right!"
  • Elle and Emmett - "You were the best thing about this place..." and the rest of "Legally Blonde".
  • Vivienne telling Elle to get back in that courtroom and kick ass, because she can. (Also, she has the best frickin' shoes.)
  • The girls of Delta Nu coming to see Elle in her trial.
  • "Oh my, oh my, oh my God!!... If there ever was a perfect couple, this one qualifies!!"
• Ear Worm: Omigod, omigod you guys!
• Hilarious in Hindsight: The fake legal case discussed during "Chip On My Shoulder" was recently turned into a (satirical) bill in a state legislature.
• Hollywood Homely: The supposedly plain Vivienne was played on Broadway by Miss America 1998 Kate Shindle.
• Les Yay:
  • Hinted at between Elle and Vivienne in the salon, but just barely. Also, Brooke and Elle are rather touchy-feely with each other...
  • In the touring production, at the end of the dance break in Positive, Margot has her hand on one of Elle's boobs.
  • Likewise in the London production, albeit it's Serena rather than Margot who's fondling Elle during the freeze. Clearly they're all at it.
• Straw Man Has a Point: When Callahan sings "Gay, or European?" in the musical in order to illustrate that Nikos being effeminate and flamboyant does NOT automatically equal that Nikos is gay. Callahan eventually became one of the bad guys for sexually harassing Elle...but he still was right in making the distinction between effeminacy and homosexuality.
• Unfortunate Implications: While this troper does like the Character Development Emmett got in the musical, one of the best things about the movie was Elle realizing her potential and learning to work hard on her own. In the musical she has Emmett pushing her along. But I can accept it for reasons of developing the romance. What I can't accept is the inexplicable change of Elle getting into Harvard on her own being changed into her getting help from a dorky sorority sister.
  • Actually, that was from the movie - one of Elle's sorority sisters helped her practice for her LSATs. It's a pretty quick scene, but it's there.
  • At least one scene of Emmett working with Elle is arguably a needed change to get around some of the movie's You Fail Law Forever (possibly literally); in the movie Elle goes to confront Paulette's ex just with Paulette, and says that she's Paulette's lawyer. In the play, they go with Emmett - this is actually, from a law student's point of view, good, considering going alone and claiming to be Paulette's lawyer constitutes Unauthorized Practice of Law under the ethical rules set forth by the American Bar Association and could have kept Elle from ever actually practicing once she got out of Harvard - in fact, probably could have gotten her kicked out of school for unauthorized practice. As long as she's working with a licensed lawyer, she doesn't have to worry about that. Your Mileage May Vary about the rest of the changes, but this one this law student troper was actually rather pleased with.