On last night’s episode of So You Think You Can Dance, Fox’s twice-weekly salute to America’s finest amateur danceticians, one Katie Holmes managed to elude the clutches of her Scientologist bodyguards long enough to throw on an all-black outfit and pay tribute to Judy Garland. If you managed to ignore the vacant, faraway look that’s been in her eyes ever since she fell madly and deeply in love with Tom Cruise, she actually looked quite stunning. Sadly, though, her performance of “Get Happy†felt rather rote and stiff, and certainly wasn’t aided by some of the worst lip-synching we’ve seen since Ashlee Simpson cow-stomped her way off the stage at Saturday Night Live. So, as a means to help unsully your memories of the Arlen and Koehler standard, your friendly Vulture editors combed high and low to find these alternate performances of “Get Happy†that will hopefully help you forget last night ever happened.
Here’s Rufus Wainwright performing the song at the 2007 Glastonbury festival across the pond. Nice gams, Ruf!
Props to whoever unearthed this clip of Michael Jackson performing the song during a 1977 episode of The Jacksons variety show.
And, of course, we couldn’t forget Leland Palmer’s stunning rendition of the song while eating dinner at the Hayward’s abode from the first second season of Twin Peaks. Bonus trivia: That’s a young Alicia Witt accompanying Ray Wise on the piano.
Just in case you missed it, here’s the Katie Holmes performance from last night, too. Don’t ever say we never did anything for you!