Page 82 - MN

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Dennis said, "We don't need costumes, we just play in jeans and shirts." The director said, "No, you have to wear bear costumes."
So much for Disneyland.
Here's the deal on the ice show. It was called "Concert on Ice" and the plan
was to play a series of theaters-in-the-round up the east coast and then do the show at Christmas at Harrah's in Lake Tahoe. The theaters held between 2500 to 3500 people and the show would be done on a portable ice rink that would cover the stage. It was much smaller than the hockey rinks they used for Ice Capades, but it was amazing what the skaters could do. With Peggy were a pairs team of Willie Bietak and Cathy Steele, and eight chorus line skaters--four boys and four girls.
I did that show for (I think) three years. No wait, it must've been four. Peggy did it two years, then Scott Hamilton came in and starred, and then Dorothy Hammil.
I had never worked a theater in the round before, and I certainly had never walked out on a patch of ice to do comedy. Also, I'd never walked out on a wet patch of ice in metal spikes carrying a piece of electric equipment. I could see the headlines, "Comedian Killed by Microphones!"
Later we realized the ice was cut up by then so I didn't need spikes. The sound guys assured me there was no electrical danger but I immediately switched to rubber-soled shoes.
I followed a skating number with Peggy done to the song, "Song Sung Blue," and I can't tell you how sick I got of that song. Just thinking about it now makes me cringe. Peggy, on the other hand, was the ultimate class act. She was quiet and gracious and a great skater. Her mom was a skater's mom, kind of overbearing, but we found she could loosen up too. Remember streaking? Back then it was great fun to run naked through a football game or a convention and one night at Harrah's Peggy's mom convinced our bass player to streak my show. He ran across the ice in white boots and nothing else and it brought the house down. I learned a valuable lesson that night. If you get streaked, that will be the highlight of the show and if you have five minutes to go you're doomed. My big closer was kind of anticlimactic.
I'd never been around gay guys much, but the boy skaters in the show changed that. They were extremely gay and their humor just blew me away. The girl skaters were beautiful, and of course I fell in love with them. Again, nothing. Apparently being the big-time, guitar-playing comedy star was not the chick magnet I'd expected it to be.
Willie and Cathy, the pairs team, were also Olympic medalists and very classy people. They were also the ones who taught me how tough skaters were.
I'd never thought about that before, but falling on ice is like falling on concrete. So when you see those blooper reels of skaters falling, you're watching a painful