Even though Madonna proclaimed after her 1990 The Blond Ambition Tour that she will never go on tour again, it only took her three years until she hit the road again with 'The Girlie Show'. After that, she said that if 'you ever hear me say again 'I'm never going on tour again', don't believe me'.
Madonna got inspired for the name of her 1993-tour by a painting called 'Girlie Show' by Edward Hopper. The 1941 oil-painting shows a burlesque dancer - which represents very much the theme of Madonna's actual tour. You can see a picture of the painting on the right.
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Other inspirations for the show - according to Madonna herself: Fellini, Bob Fosse, Gene Kelly, Marlene Dietrich, Bozo the Clown, Cabaret, Lola Montes, Les Enfants Du Paradis, My Fair Lady, The King and I, Le Cirque De Soleil, The Crazy Horse Saloon, Studio 54 and the Baby Doll Lounge.
As mentioned above, Madonna was directly inspired by dancing-legend Gene Kelly for several segments for 'The Girlie Show'. Most obviously she took a complete segments from Kelly's 1952 legendary musical 'Singin' In The Rain' (DVD available at Amazon.com) which is used in the 'Rain'-segment to execute the song.

Also noteable is Marlene Dietrich: Madonna, who re-created several images from Dietrich during her career, performed her signature-song 'Like A Virgin' in complete Marlene Dietrich-drag which could have been taken directly from her 1931-film 'The Blue Angel' (DVD available at Amazon.com) in which Dietrich is also dressed as a man. Just like Madonna, Dietrich loved to play with gender-specific images and was even known to have love-affairs with other women. Also included in 'Like A Virgin' are a few verses from 'Falling In Love Again (Can't Help It)', a song which is also featured in 'The Blue Angel'.
Madonna wanted to start the tour in London because that's where she has the most enemies (according to herself) - at least in the early '90s.
In Puerto Rico, an uproar was caused when Madonna rubbed the Puerto Rican flag between her legs on stage.
The Girlie Show required 1500 costumes for the cast and a 24-hour set-up time for the enourmous stage.
A German politician called out to boycott Madonna's only (and already sold-out) German show in Frankfurt because of nudity and pornographic content on stage. The show was cancelled, according to a spokesperson of Madonna due to stage-set up problems and not because of the boycott-plans.
Similar problems in Israel: Orthodow Jews staged protests to cancel Madonna's first-ever show in the country - without success.
The tourplane was called Juanita.
In 1994, a new cofee-table book was released which was based on the original tourbook but now featuring actual photos from the tour itself - most of them taken by Madonna's brother Christopher Ciccone. Also included was a 3-track Live EP CD. Click here for more information on this book.