Shows On The Road


Erie, Pennsylvania welcomes the 1940 edition of Karston’s Follies Unusual with this ad promising 14 Big Scenes and A Cast Of 35. These travelling revues might be called "Burlesque Lite", as they promised all the elements you’d expect from a spicy girl show, along with reassurance of a Clean entertainment For The Whole Family. Much of whatever was left of old vaudeville could be found in these presentations. Sometimes they overlapped with their stagebound first cousins --- the Spook Shows. Both used magicians for specialty acts. Performers would sometimes alternate between the revues and the scarefests --- whichever happened to be in vogue at the moment. Karston was a veteran on this circuit. So was Count Berni Vici, whose Comedie Francaise wowed ‘em throughout the late thirties and forties with a French accented revue generally topping out at an hour’s length and supported by a feature movie, preferably a "B". Forty cents admission was indeed a bargain when Yvette Dare and Her Sacred Parrot performed Dances Of Bali…