Editor's Note: Unfortunately, despite our best
efforts, the Golden Horseshoe event photos we took for this story were less
than optimal. We've gone ahead and included shots from the Disney World of
Color television show and the Disneyland USA theatrical short to fill Sue's
column out today. - Al Lutz
Recently I stood in Frontierland on the wooden sidewalk running along side
Disneyland's Golden Horseshoe, looking at the posters hanging on the wall of the
building. Probably, most Disneyland visitors walk right by those posters without
much of a glance. And if they do look at them, the posters most likely seem like Frontierland set decoration. But to me, and many others I'm sure, those posters
are more than just decor. For me, those posters represent a time in
Disneyland's history when the word entertainment meant more than just a ride, a
parade, some fireworks, or a few street musicians. That time meant that for the
price of admission you got all those things, but more importantly, you also got
a show.
As I stood looking at the posters, a cast member walked up and started
chatting about the original show, sharing fond memories of the people who used to
perform there. I lamented that it's too bad we can't see shows like that at
Disneyland any more. "Well," the cast member said, "you know why they don't have
shows like that any more? The show can't pay for the room. A cast for a show
like that is just too expensive."
"There was a time when Disneyland wrote that kind of thing off," I commented,
"They understood that it was okay to take a loss on a show because the show
provided great atmosphere and helped set the stage for the whole land, which in
turn put the paying customer in the mood to spend money elsewhere in the park."
"Yeah, I know," was the reply, "but it's not Walt's park any more."
The show we were discussing, the Golden Horseshoe Revue, unofficially opened
on Wednesday July, 13, 1955. That night, the show was the evening entertainment
for Walt and Lillian Disney's 30th anniversary party. The next day, Mr. Disney
ran the show for Disneyland's corporate sponsors and the following day, July 17,
1955, on Disneyland's opening day, the show officially made its debut. When the
Golden Horseshoe Revue finally closed on October 12, 1986, it made it into the
Guinness Book of Records as the longest running production in the history of
show business, playing for over 42,000 performances with nearly 9 million people
having seen the show.
Ask anyone who saw the Golden Horseshoe Revue what it was like, and they'll
probably tell you about an old time vaudevillian-style comedian who spit out
"teeth" and told really bad, but really funny, jokes. Wally Boag, the comedian
who played the part of the Traveling Salesman/Pecos Bill made a pretty indelible
impression with that teeth-spitting gag. I know that when I was asked to go to a
recent celebration of the show to write about the event for MiceAge, the first
thing I thought of was those teeth. The eight-year-old I once was is never going
to forget the sight of the big old white teeth spewing forth from Wally Boag's
mouth. It wasn't till years later when I was older and saw the show again, that
I realized those "teeth" were just a bunch of beans. I think the eight-year-old
me really believed that poor guy lost half his teeth.
The other thing stuck in my eight-year-old memory banks was Slue Foot Sue.
Sue was a gorgeous saloon girl who wore the most beautiful costumes (I had a
thing for velvet and rhinestones even back then) and I thought she was fabulous
because her name was Sue. Slue Foot Sue would come out and start each show with
a catchy tune, "Hello everybody, from Maine to California," while the saloon
girls danced behind her. It was her saloon, her show, and she was kind of a less
bawdy Mae West character. Initially Sue was played by Judy Marsh, but was
replaced by Betty Taylor in 1956, who stayed with the show for over thirty years
until its end in 1986.
In addition to Slue Foot Sue and Pecos Bill, the show also featured fancy
cancan dancers who would kick their legs higher in the air than seemed humanly
possible as they flipped their frilly skirts to the audience, and a
"silver-toned tenor" who served as the emcee of the show. The Golden Horseshoe
Revue was good old-fashioned entertainment, filled with catchy songs and corny
jokes. But most of all, it was just a grand thing to have a show to sit down and
see, to take a break from the rush to go on rides. It was something extra to do
at Disneyland. It's pretty sad to think that that type of show is no longer a
priority in Disneyland entertainment because it "can't pay for the room."
Which brings me to the point of this column ... this past March some of the
folks who used to perform in the Golden Horseshoe Revue, and a whole lot of the
show's fans, all got together for an evening of celebrating a time at Disneyland
when the word entertainment meant more than it does now. More than a night of
remembering the show itself, the event was really a tribute to Wally Boag,
almost a "This is your life, Wally Boag," with such folks as Marty Sklar, Bob
Gurr, Charles Boyer, Kirk Wall, Jim Adams, Dana Daniels, and John Eaden, each
remembering times with Wally.
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