Branson: America's kind of town is worth another look: "BRANSON, Mo. - At first glance, Branson is an abomination.
And as I write that, I can imagine millions of newspaper readers - readers who have never been here - congratulating themselves on never having been to Branson.
You're wrong. Stay with me through these obligatory negatives here, and you'll see why. advertisement
OK . . . abomination.
The main drag - called Highway 76 or Country Highway 76 or just 'the Strip' - is an absolute mess. Traffic, if it moves at all, creeps. It is a riot of out-of-control signage.
The shows? A partial listing: 14 Karat Country, Country Tonite, Grand Country Saturday Night, Keepin' It Country, Presleys' Country Jubilee.
It is also possible to come here and spend three solid days watching shows - morning, afternoon and evening shows - and see only dead people.
List of current 'tribute shows': Two John Waynes, Red Skelton, Jim Reeves, multiple Elvises and Patsy Clines, Mark Twain, Liberace, two Hank Williamses, three-quarters of the four deceased Rat Packers (does anyone do Peter Lawford?), Norman Rockwell (doing what, Elvis caricatures?), a John Denver Dinner Show is about to open, and I'm sure I've forgotten someone.
One of the John Wayne shows features John Wayne, dead, talking to Gary Cooper, also dead.
Wayne: 'I was the first singin' cowboy.'
Cooper: 'No, you weren't.'
Wayne: 'How do ya know?'
Cooper: 'Because I was.'
The guy doing John Wayne in full Duke regalia was also the guy doing Gary Cooper.
Total crowd in the theater watching this: 2 1/2 people, plus a guy in the back of the house wor"
BRANSON, Mo. - At first glance, Branson is an abomination.
And as I write that, I can imagine millions of newspaper readers - readers who have never been here - congratulating themselves on never having been to Branson.
You're wrong. Stay with me through these obligatory negatives here, and you'll see why. advertisement
OK . . . abomination.
The main drag - called Highway 76 or Country Highway 76 or just "the Strip" - is an absolute mess. Traffic, if it moves at all, creeps. It is a riot of out-of-control signage.
The shows? A partial listing: 14 Karat Country, Country Tonite, Grand Country Saturday Night, Keepin' It Country, Presleys' Country Jubilee.
It is also possible to come here and spend three solid days watching shows - morning, afternoon and evening shows - and see only dead people.
List of current "tribute shows": Two John Waynes, Red Skelton, Jim Reeves, multiple Elvises and Patsy Clines, Mark Twain, Liberace, two Hank Williamses, three-quarters of the four deceased Rat Packers (does anyone do Peter Lawford?), Norman Rockwell (doing what, Elvis caricatures?), a John Denver Dinner Show is about to open, and I'm sure I've forgotten someone.
One of the John Wayne shows features John Wayne, dead, talking to Gary Cooper, also dead.
Wayne: "I was the first singin' cowboy."
Cooper: "No, you weren't."
Wayne: "How do ya know?"
Cooper: "Because I was."
The guy doing John Wayne in full Duke regalia was also the guy doing Gary Cooper.
Total crowd in the theater watching this: 2 1/2 people, plus a guy in the back of the house working the spotlight, plus a reporter.
My first lunch in Branson was a bad chicken-fried steak, which I'd always thought was impossible. Dinner, in an "Italian" restaurant, was awful, but the food was better than the waiter, who was, to his credit, apologetic, which saved his tip.
Lodging? Trigger, who is stuffed and on display at the Roy Rogers-Dale Evans Museum here, even now is faster than the elevator to my fourth-floor motel room.
Want to party? In spring, nearly half of the visitors are 65 and older. In fall and around the holidays, it's still 40 percent.
Happy now? Worst fears reinforced?
Now, here's the rest of it.
Branson is a hoot.
The traffic is horrible most of the time, but there's not much you can do about that, so you learn to leave a little earlier.
The shows? I've seen 17 of them. These are not junky productions, by the way. Shoji Tabuchi, the violinist, doesn't just stand on his mark and play Orange Blossom Special on an empty stage. Jim Stafford, early in his show, sings and dances (sort of) with two other Jim Staffords. It's hilarious.
Only one of the 17, the Presleys' show, is 100 percent country - and it was fun. And John Wayne, accompanied by America's Yodeling Sweetheart, was busting it for those 3 1/2 paying customers.
Several shows, including the Presleys, are families performing. I've seen shows by the Lennon Sisters and the Lennon Brothers. Tabuchi goes onstage with his wife and daughter.
Stafford's son, Shea, sings and plays piano in Stafford's show. His daughter, G.G., plays piano and harp - and a dance number she does with a second dancer would wring tears out of a bowling ball.
Audiences have kids in them. "There's something sweet," Stafford says, "about families trying to put on shows for other families."
In fact, even with the clutter and congestion and everything else, what makes Branson irresistible is the sweetness. Here's a story:
The King of the Cowboys was gone, and the Queen of the West, based in California, was in a wheelchair. It was 1998. Branson was putting on a "Western festival."
"They asked my mom to come," said Roy Rogers Jr., called "Dusty" by everyone. "This was just a few months after Dad passed away, and I didn't think she'd want to come - but she wanted to get out of the house a little bit.
"When we drove her up Highway 76, every marquee said, 'Welcome, Dale Evans.' My mom was just blown away by that."
By 2003, with both his folks having passed, not many people were showing up anymore at the Roy Rogers-Dale Evans Museum, then in Victorville, Calif.
"We had two options," Dusty Rogers says. "Either move it someplace where people come or just close it down. Mom had said to bring it here, so that's why we're here."
Rogers, backed by the High Riders, sings cowboy songs in a theater alongside the museum, mostly for people old enough to know most of the words to Tumbleweed Trail - and there are plenty of us.
In Branson, a lot of the time the shows' stars make the effort to meet the audience afterward, shake hands, sign autographs. Dusty Rogers, moments after closing his show with (what else?) Happy Trails, was chatting, shaking and signing.
Later, we talked.
"I just had one lady out there talk to me," he said, "and she says, 'Y'know, my father was not a good father. He was very mean to my mom and beat on the kids - and your dad was kind of my surrogate father.'
"Now, to me" - Rogers almost lost it, telling this story - "that's worth the whole thing, right there."
Branson is more than shows.
Silver Dollar City is a pleasant theme park that's got enough rides and distractions to keep whining to a minimum, plus a serious cave if the whining gets to be too much. There are five 18-hole golf courses and a couple of nine-holers in the area, including a Nicklaus-designed par-3 layout. There's fishing for bass and some of the best trout fishing anywhere, and trails for hiking and biking.
If this is sounding like a commercial, well, maybe it's because I know how much Branson is misunderstood. More than any of the physical realities, there's just a feeling about Branson.
"The thing I like about Branson - and I think Yakov Smirnoff says it best - is 'people come to Branson to see how America used to be.' I think people should come to Branson to see how America ought to be," Rogers says.
