Today's Video Link

On YouTube, you can find a lot of folks' old home movies of driving around Las Vegas. I like these because I like seeing how the town (or at least, The Strip) has evolved and I like to read the big signs that tell you who and what is playing where.

This is one from 1969. The Hacienda is still standing. It opened in 1956 and I was present to watch its implosion on New Year's Eve of 1996. Featured there at the time of this video are "Topless Follies" and the Ink Spots. I assume those were not in the same showroom at the same time.

The Tropicana has Julie London and it also has the Folies Bergere, as it did from 1959 to 2009. For a few years there, the headline act at the Folies was Charlie Frye and Company. I have posted many a video here on my pal Charlie who is still juggling and doing impossible feats of magic.

The Aladdin has "Minsky's Burlesque '69," which I later saw when it moved over to the Hacienda when there was a Hacienda. (There is now a different hotel nearby in Boulder City by that name.) At the time this video was shot, there was apparently no hotel between the Tropicana and the Aladdin worth photographing but there was a few years later. In 1975, the Marina opened there. It was torn down in 1990 so the MGM Grand could be built on that property.

Further down The Strip at Caesars Palace, we find David Frye opening for Anthony Newley and elsewhere on the premises, country-western star Judy Lynn, as well as The Band. Across the street at The Flamingo, they had Paul Anka and Myron Cohen. (If you're wondering why the cameraperson skipped Bally's, it wasn't there then. The first MGM Grand opened on that piece of real estate in 1973 and it became Bally's in 1986.)

At the Sands, they had Jack Jones and someone else I can't make out, with Buddy Greco also on the marquee. The Frontier has George Burns and Barbara Eden with Jack E. Leonard somewhere else on the premises or maybe Coming Soon. I would have loved to see all three of these folks in Vegas, especially Jack E.

The Desert Inn has something called "Pzazz 70," a musical revue staged by Donn Arden, who staged a lot of the big musical revues in Vegas. On eBay, I found a 1969 program book for the show which listed two performers I actually met — Marvin Roy, a famed magician also known as "Mr. Electric," who just passed away last year, and impressionist Will Jordan.

The Desert Inn sign also lists "Tom Jones" but I don't think this is the singer by that name. I think it's the bawdy musical comedy based on the 1963 British film based on book of the same name. It played Vegas off and on for years.

The Stardust has the "Lido de Paris," which was there from 1958 to 1991 and was the first Vegas presentation to feature topless showgirls. It always had a headline act in it and at the time of this filming, it was the Korean-born trio, the Kim Sisters.

And that's about all I can make out. Take a drive down The Strip and see for yourself…