Day 4 & 5: Branson, MO

Published on June 01, 2008 by Damon

The land where every show has a billboard including the churches and the local pet motel: the most famous billboard of all being Yakov!—the only one not happy to see the end of the cold war.  However, I’m sure  there are enough people who visit Branson that still remember what a red is.

Today, we went to the Hamner Barber Variety Show.  I realized that it must be difficult to compete in Branson.  A show doesn’t survive off of the Branson locals; there are not  enough to go around.  A show has a short window of opportunity to attract the vacationer who is here for a few days.  The most common mode of attraction is the brochure and the billboard.  No one does a billboard as well as Yakov.   While others have pictures of themselves that look like they were taken for a spot on TBN, Yakov has a billboard with feet sticking out of it and a board with babushka’d Yakov with a lit stick dynamite in his mouth.  They are unexpected and they stand out from the rest.  So much is the same in Branson, the unexpected could go  a long ways.  The principles of "Made to Stick" come to mind. 

This morning we visited Woodland Hills Church.  It is a portable church that meets at Celebration City, a Christian amusement park.  Madeline L’Engle once said that to call a particular  work of art Christian is presumptious; all we can know is whether a work of art effects us personally and causes us to move closer to Christ.  I presume that is true of amusement parks.  In any case there is something at Celebration City that is moving people closer to Christ, Woodland Hills Church.

Yesterday we went to Noah the Musical at the Sight and Sound Theatre.  Our whole family went for $20.  People were giving away tickets at the door.  The 50 million dollar theatre and wrap-around set was overwhelming.  It is one the first times that I have seen a production where the set upstaged the actors.  They used both animatronic and live animals.  The trained goats were hysterical.  I want to know how you get two live geese to stand in the same spot for 20 minutes.  They did a great job making the parallel between Noah and Christ, despite the disco Jesuss at the end.  Who can complain; after all we are in Branson, where theaters double as churches on Sunday morning.      

Tomorrow we are off to Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede.