Seven Shows I'd Like To See In Vegas

The videos in this post contain scantily clad bodies and suggestive imagery.

I could spend months on end in Las Vegas going to see a different show every night and never get bored. There are just as many show options in the Neon City as there are places to loose your money. Unfortunately, I'm only ever in town for a few nights which leaves time for just a couple of shows. If I could see more, here's what would be at the top of my list...

#1) Jubilee - Bally's The first time I went to Vegas I was all about doing all the traditional, classic, tacky Las Vegas things. We saw all the sights, I had my 99 cents shrimp cocktail, we even got married in a Vegas wedding chapel. Unfortunately, we had children in our traveling party so I wasn't able to see a classic Las Vegas Topless Review. Nothing sexual or sleazy, just the pretty girls with the big feather head dresses dancing and hi-stepping down a flight of light up stairs - that's all I wanted to see. We didn't see any shows at all on that first trip but when we went back a few years ago - without kids - I was all about seeing the classic Las Vegas Showgirl. Unfortunately we picked a show called Burlesque X, mostly because it was in the hotel we were staying at. It was basically a strip-joint with faux art. It was kind of sleazy, low rent and we literally had to sit at little tables with old men in trench coats. It was pretty awkward and unenjoyable. Now that I've done my research, I'd pick Jubilee which at this point is just about the only venue left in Vegas where you can see the classic traditional Showgirl review.



#2) Absinthe - Caesar's Palace Absinthe is a recent addition to the strip's offerings. It's a circus/freak show performance in a very intimate setting of about 600 seats. Some of the acts are performed right over the audience. It's also somewhat of a parody of all the Cirque du Solei shows all over town. It sounds pretty cool. It also happens to feature Angel Porrino, Holly Madison's BFF and co-star of Holly's World. (Have I mentioned I love that show?) In Absinthe, Angel does a tap dance number inside a giant bubble. Oh, she also happens to be topless while doing so.



#3) Viva Elvis - Aria I've been dead set against ever stepping foot inside a Cirque du Solei show for many years. It's way too freaky for me! But their new show, which pays tribute to the music of Elvis, looks pretty cool. It looks like the Cirque folks put away the funny looking noses, the sad looking clowns and their endless supply of troupes of tiny Asian kids doing acrobatics and just got down to some good ol' fashioned singing and dancing. It looks like alot of fun...



#4) Crazy Horse - MGM Grand Here's a really cool looking burlesque show where they use all sort of lighting effects to make some outstanding eye candy. Currently the show occasionally stars Claire Sinclair, Playboy's 2011 Playmate of the Year and another one of Holly's friends who can been seen on her show.



#5) Zumanity - New York New York Ok, so if I'm going to break my long standing ban on Cirque du Solei shows I might as well go see the dirty one too...right?



#6) Donny & Marie - Flamingo I loves me some Donny & Marie! They are just a part of my being, having watched them when I was a kid and listening to their records - they are just great. We actually had them on our radar to see when we were in town a few weeks ago but sadly Donny and Marie were out of town. The girl at the ticket counter told us they are on vacation more than they perform. Hey, they've been showbiz icons for decades! They deserve it.



#7) Penn & Teller - Rio Last but not least, I think Penn & Teller would be an incredible night's worth of entertainment. I've always enjoyed their act on television, not to mention their Showtime show Bull$#*!. They've been a Vegas fixture since the late 80's so there never seems to be an urgent need to see them, but I should probably get around to it before they are gone.



Leave us a comment with any good Vegas shows you've seen or would like to see!

Las Vegas Was Awesome Because We Got To Meet Holly Madison

When my wife suggested we visit Las Vegas this year my only request was that we go see Peepshow staring Holly Madison at the Planet Hollywood Casino and Hotel. As you may know, Holly was one of the Girls Next Door - one of recent favorite shows that I'm sort of fanatical about. She now stars in another reality show Holly's World which is all about her adventures working on Peepshow in Las Vegas. As much as I loved Girls Next Door for it's behind the scenes look at the inner workings of the Playboy Mansion, I'm as equally intrigued with Holly's World and it's glimpse into life in Las Vegas. So I was excited to see the show and visit some of the places where Holly and her friends hang out on the show. Stepping into the Planet Hollywood casino was like walking onto the set of Holly's World. There are so many spots that I've seen on TV a hundred times, it was pretty exciting for a TV lovin' fella like myself!

So we had tickets to see Peepshow Thursday night. It turns out that my brother flew in to town on Thursday morning for an event he was attending. We hooked up Thursday morning and hung out for a little bit, including walking over to Planet Hollywood to pick up my actual tickets for the evening's show. Short story shorter: we get up to the ticket counter, my brother whips out his credit card and scores my wife and I two VIP Package upgrades which include a meet & greet with Holly after the show along with pictures and a champagne toast. Needless to say, that was SUPER AWESOME of him to do for us. My wife and I were both super excited to meet her! She was very nice and friendly and took her time talking to everyone.

Here's the three of us!

You may remember a while ago I posted about my brother meeting Holly's Girls Next Door co-star Kendra.

In case you were wondering, Peepshow was fantastic! It's a high energy singing and dancing show with a very loose story frame. Holly plays an over worked and lonely girl who falls asleep one night and wakes up in a fairy tale land. All the different nursery rhyme characters try to help her find a man - they somehow do this by dancing and stripping. It's all done very tastefully. It's basically a modern version of burlesque striptease - which is an art form not just girls gyrating to rap music for $1 dollar bills.

We saw some other shows in Vegas too...

....Here's Jen and I with our official name tags in the hopes of being called on stage for The Price is Right Live! at Bally's. I've always thought this show sounded like a neat idea. It's basically a live version of the TV show, with a fresh batch of audience members plucked out of the audience for each round in Contestant's Row. All-in-all 50 people get a chance to win something! We didn't get called down, but our friends both won 1,000 Casino Comp. Credits in an instant win game they did between TPIR games. The show was alot of fun and they did give away some nice cash prizes and some dude won a Washer & Dryer set. There was a car and a trip in the Showcase Showdown, but nobody won!

We also went to Brad Garrett's Comedy Club at the Tropicana where Brad himself was performing for a few days. You probably best know Brad Garrett as Robert, Ray's brother on Everybody Loves Raymond. Apparently, he's not in town all that often so the house was packed to see him. We just lucked into being there when he was there. He put on a great show, he actually MC'ed an entire evening of comedy which consisted of a complete set by him and then long sets in between comedian Geechy Guy and hypnotist Mark Sweet. There was another comedian who came up briefly as well. We were in there for about two hours before it was done. A great night of comedy.

I also gotta give a shoutout to Tix 4 Tonight, a service that lets you score same day tickets to most of Vegas' hottest shows at a fraction of their face value. We used the service for all three shows I've mentioned here, plus the four we saw last time in Vegas - and we always have great experiences with them. Great seats, fantastic prices and the staff is incredibly knowledgeable. They seem to know everything about every single show in town. They must be doing a good business because they seem to have twice the locations they did when I was in Vegas two years ago. Even though there are frequently long lines at their sidewalk booths, I suggest their "hidden" location behind the giant Coke bottle. We never waited in a line there while I could see the line out on the sidewalk from where I was standing buying tickets. I can't recommend them high enough. They take the extravagant price of a night on the town and make it affordable that you can go see a show every night you're in town.

Las Vegas Film Festival

Sadly, I did not attend a film festival in Las Vegas anytime recently (or ever, for that matter!) I am, however, heading out to Sin City in a few days so I decided to get myself in the mood by watching some movies featuring the great city of Las Vegas, Nevada.

Perhaps the all-time most iconic Las Vegas picture is 1964's Viva Las Vegas. The first 30 minutes of this film play as a travelogue of vintage Vegas as Elvis Presley and his buddy go hopping from resort to resort looking for a girl they ran into earlier. This is a super lightweight affair with only a hint of a story. The film is a classic and it's a great memorable romp for three reasons. #1) There's plenty of footage of the Vegas of past. Most of the properties featured in the film have been torn down and rebuilt so many times they are recognizable by name only. Other locations in the film have been lost to time all together. #2) The music is simply great. If you like Elvis or not, you won't be able to resist tapping your toes to some of the numbers in this flick. Catchy, upbeat and full of energy - this is what movie musicals should be like! #3) The ridiculous, unadulterated hotness of co-star Ann-Margret. It says something for a performer when they can not only hold their own performing next to the King of Rock and Roll but in some cases Ann-Margret upstages Elvis with her singing and (especially) her dancing. She lights up the screen every time she's on. If you only know her as Ann-Margrock, the one-time babysitter for Pebbles Flintstone, you'll be surprised to see how much of a 60's sex kitten she was. Youch! Great fun! I give it a Vegas Film Festival rating of 4 out of 5 dice!


I have a casual acquaintance with James Bond. I've seen a handful of his movies. Some I've really dug, others I've had no idea what was going on and fell asleep. In 1971, master spy James Bond appeared in his 7th filmed adventure, Diamonds Are Forever. The story takes Bond to Las Vegas where the bad guy is stock piling diamonds to run some satellite that does something bad. As always, I couldn't quite follow the story but the tone is light, the one-liners are funny and the action is quite engaging. In this current era of loud over the top explosions and sound effects it was nice to see a fight scene played out with no music or punching sound effects. The movie doesn't make love to the city of Las Vegas as other films set in the town do, but there are again some nice shots of the Vegas of yesterday. The McCarran International Airport of 1971 looks like a vintage model railroad buidling compared to the modern airport of today. The bad guy's hideout is the fictional Whyte House Casino which is reality was played by the Las Vegas Hilton. And there were scenes shot at Circus Circus, which if you go in there today you can still smell the cigarette smoke in the air from 1971! Although not as flashy and coherent as a modern day thriller, this early Bond entry is still fun. We'll give this outing a Vegas Film Festival Rating of 3 out of 5 stars.

Now I gotta be honest, I don't remember Saved By The Bell Wedding in Las Vegas being this much fun but I really enjoyed revisiting this TV-movie from 1994. First off I need to mention that this movie is from my own personal DVD library on a double feature DVD with the first Saved By The Bell movie: SBTB Hawaiian Style - which I love! Great DVD I picked up for $3 at an Ollie's Bargain Mart. Back to the movie...the gang from Bayside High take a road trip to the Neon City for the quickie wedding of Zack and Kelly. Slatter, Screech and Kelly are all along for the journey. Jessie is absent from the proceedings and isn't even mentioned until the end of the film when she makes a cameo along with a few other players from the SBTB universe. It's fun seeing the gang get into adventures too big for a sitcom. Eventually, they all end up on the run from the mob and a car chase ensues showing Freemont Street before it was closed off to traffic and covered with a giant television set. The legendary Stardust Resort plays host to Zack and Kelly's wedding party and there are plenty of shots of what the the casino, lobby and porte cochere of the hotel looked like before it closed in November of 2006. There is also a scene that was shot at Debbie Reynold's Hollywood Hotel & Movie Museum which closed in 1999 and is now a Clarion Hotel. In addition to the great recent vintage Vegas footage, this is a fairly well done, fun TV movie that's worth checking out if you are (or were) a fan of the series. Vegas Film Festival rating: 3 1/2 dice out of five.

Airplane! Slots - Striker Rich!

This might be the coolest thing ever in a casino - a slot machine based on the movie Airplane! It neatly captures the characters from the film in cartoon form as well as other moments from the movie and some universal icons of air travel. One of the nice touches on the wheels is the tray of already eaten poison fish. (I had the lasagna.) Auto pilot Otto serves as the game's Wild Space. There are plenty of chances to interact with the machine in bonus games, none of which I hit while I played. I did however win $10.00, and since I was only fooling around with the machine to see how it all worked - I cashed out and bought a sandwich with my winnings! Below are a couple of videos of the game...