We have had several family members and friends, and other RVers, who have visited Branson, MO. All of them have just raved about the place and the shows. So, we did a little back-tracking so we could be one of those people who talk about going there!
The park we stayed in was really nice. It wasn't a Thousand Trails park, so we came in on our Coast to Coast membership.
The park has a really nice little lake just as you come in the entrance. We even saw people fishing in it. The park is located right in the town of Branson, at one end where all three of their main roads come together. That was handy because we were able to come and go really easily.
The busy season was over so they let us choose our site. Usually, people coming in on a Coast to Coast membership have to park in certain areas of the resort. Even though we had a nice site, we didn't spend too much time in the park because our reason for going there was to see the shows.
The first place we hit was the 2 for 1 ticket store. Actually, we had already stopped at a "welcome center" right before we got into Branson and were talked into going to a time-share presentation. The 90 minute presentation ended up to be 3 hours and they weren't too happy when we said, "Thanks, but no thanks." But, we did leave with four tickets to some top shows! We went to eight different shows while we were there, so the 2 for 1 tickets really helped with the rest of them. I am going to post all of the shows, just for the sake of having it in our "journal" when I print off this BLOG. Hope it isn't too boring of a read! A lot of the pictures are from their flyers. Not many of them would allow picture taking during their performances.
I think the Haygoods was probably one of my favorite shows. It was a family of all brothers and one sister. They sang a lot of different types of music and had comedy mixed in. They played over 20 different instruments and it was really good family entertainment. Most all of the shows we saw had audience participation of some kind. These guys threw out huge beach balls and we all batted them around. All of the shows are video-taped and then you can buy them after the show, especially if you were on the video when they taped the audience batting around the beach balls!
Yakov Smirnoff is a Russian immigrant who came to the United States as a young person and is now a US citizen. He tells his story as he makes you both laugh and cry at the same time. He is very patriotic and believes that laughter can help make world peace. By the time you leave his performance, you truly believe that you can make all of your trials and problems easier with laughter. He has a great authentic Russian Dance Troupe that performed--he sometimes performed with them!
Outside his theater is this head statue of Yakov and it talks to you as you come in and makes you laugh even before the show stars.
A really popular show is called SIX. They are six brothers that are from a family of 10 boys--no girls! They are dubbed "an orchestra-of-human-voices." All of the sounds that are heard in the show come from their voices, but you know there must be drums, guitars, saxophones, and other instruments behind the curtain. They are pretty amazing. They have six different colored, different sized cubes on stage that they stand on and re-arrange during the show, and the only other thing on the stage are their microphones. During one part, they show some car races and chases on the screen and all of the sounds the cars make come from their voices. Crazy!
SIX preformed at the Mickey Gilley Theater.
Rock Around the Clock was done by Bill Haley's Original Comets (well, two of them were original Comets) which was the group that recorded the songs "Rock Around the Clock" and "Shake Rattle & Roll." They were said to have been the first band of rock 'n' roll. The original Comet sax man Joey Ambrosse, 78 years old, and drummer Dick Richards-Boccelli, 88 years old, are still in the band. They brought back lots of old memories (some were so old that we didn't even remember them.)
Mel Tillis was undoubtedly Terry's favorite show. He is the country singer and actor that stutters--but not when he sings. Terry has been a long-time fan of his. We were lucky to see his show because he isn't always in Branson. He is 80 years old and is still singing, although he only sings a few songs and then takes a little break. His son, Mel Tillis, Jr., is a song writer and he was there and sang a few songs--a really cool one he wrote about his dad. In the middle of the performance, Mel Tillis came out into the audience and gave away some CDs and a copy of his cookbook!
The stage that Mel Tillis performed on was pretty cool--with the big guitars hanging down.
This is what happens when you go to a country western show--some "cowboy" sits in front of you with his big cowboy hat on! Thank goodness someone coming into the row in front of us knocked it off and he must have realized that maybe he should leave it off.
As you can imagine, Terry was just thrilled when Mel Tillis took time to sign an autograph for him and then let us take a "once in a lifetime" picture! I am sure it will be one of Terry's prized possessions!
Some of the shows were in really fancy theaters--like "The Mansion." It really suited its name, and is just as nice inside.
The theater inside is really big. As you can see, we were one of the first people there to see Red Skelton, which was actually Tom Mullica impersonating Red Skelton. It was a Saturday morning show and only about 50 people showed up. The usher said that was the smallest crowd all season.
Tom Mullica actually met Red Skelton and became a good friend of his. There is a picture in the lobby of Red Skelton's wife giving Tom Mullica an original hat and bow tie that Red Skelton wore during his shows. He did a good job impersonating, but one of the funniest parts of the show was a lady in the audience that laughed so loud during the whole thing. We laughed as much at her as we did the performance. "Red" kept offering her money (more each offer) to come back to his next show! Terry and I were both Red Skelton fans and so it was a fun show.
One of the evenings we went to see a show at the Grand County Music Hall. It reminded us of some of the Las Vegas buildings, but without all of the alcohol, gambling, and girlie attractions all over it!
At the Grand Country Music Hall we saw the Grand Jubilee. There was a great quartet, with a base singer that could sing "in the basement!" The emcee and his co-hart, "Jim Dandy"--who ended up being quite a musician on every instrument on the stage, and a great singer--provided lots of comedy. There were also two other singers who were really good. They all sang some country, some rock & roll, and some gospel. This performance taught us that it is not wise to sit on the front row, or even the second row! Twice they brought up a lady from the audience, one from the front row and one from the second row, and "sang" to her. It was hilarious. But, I am sure that those women's husbands bought the video of that performance.
Another really nice theater was the White House Theater. It was also very elegant inside.
The show we saw there was The Legend of Kungfu. The Legend of Kung Fu tells the story of a young boy, Chun Yi (the pure one),
who is apprenticed to learn the ancient art of Kung Fu. This story is told
through the eyes of the young boy and his older Kung Fu Master. Along the way he
overcomes obstacles, is distracted and ultimately achieves the designation of
master. This production combines the elements of kung fu, story-telling, acrobatics,
modern dance and original music to celebrate the philosophy and skill of martial
arts. The Legend of Kung Fu was the designated show for the opening of The Beijing
Olympics and features more than 50 artists on stage with spectacular sound,
lights and costumes native to China. (Can you tell this narrative is straight from the flyer?!)
After the show, a lot of the performers came out in the foyer to "meet and greet" the audience. They provided an interpreter to help because they knew very little English.
The young boys were really impressive in the show. But, when someone asked them if they went to school, they looked at each other like "what did she say?" Even they could not speak English.
The show was really well done.
Everyone had talked about the bad traffic in Branson. Most of it was pretty good for us (after Labor Day things start slowing down there) until Saturday night. It took us about 45 minutes to go 2 miles! Thank goodness we had allowed ourselves some extra time that night and we were not late for the show.
There are so many things to see and do in Branson that you could stay there a long time. We were there for five days, but it was not near long enough! This was kind of a unique building that held Ripley's Believe It or Not (which we didn't go see.)
There are a couple of big lakes by Branson and you see these strange "Ducks" driving around. They just come and pick you up, drive you to the lake, and take you for a boat ride--all in the same vehicle (which we didn't do.)
On every corner, practically, there were lots of family things to do, like go-carts, water slides, and fancy miniature golf courses (which we didn't play.) The best thing about Branson is that it is a "family- oriented Las Vegas"--lots of glitter and lights and shows and fun, without any of the "bad stuff."
I had to post a picture of the Duttons. They also have a theater in Mesa, AZ. We wanted to go see them, but we decided we could see them when were are in Apache Junction, AZ, this summer. They are an LDS family and we have heard that their show is great. It was really fun, because when we went to Church on Sunday, the guy in the back row in the picture was there and is the Mission Leader, the guy in the middle in the front row taught Terry in his Priesthood class, the gal on the right gave the closing prayer in Sacrament Meeting, and she and the gal on the left were both in relief society with me. That was kind of exciting for us! They all live in Branson half the year and in Mesa half of the year. We can't wait to see their show in Mesa this summer.
Well, the afternoon before we left Branson, we did take time to walk around the park a little. It is a really big park and has lots of amenities. Maybe another time we can spend more time enjoying them.
I should never had laid the camera down while I played on this alligator!
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