BRANSON, MO — Has America’s number one family theme park, Silver Dollar City, lost its spirit in the wake of woke culture? Please, no!
A family friendly theme park, visited by millions, still dominates the tourism scene in southwest Missouri. I loved growing up visiting the park. The first time was in 1976 at age 10. My season pass cost $15 and my height, weight, birthdate, hair and eye color were typed on it.
I kept it in my dresser drawer with other valuables. I turned 11 that summer. Loved Rube Dugan’s Diving Bell. Terry Sanders was new that year, warning tourists of “them killer baby ducks” on Lake Silver.
I also later enjoyed the “Lightnin’ Chair” stage production at the Riverfront Playhouse, and the Carrie Nation version of the Silver Dollar Saloon. (A teenage boy’s dream was to have a garter retrieved from the fishnet stockings of a colorful saloon girl!)
The red shirt fire crew put on a show for us as we waited in line for Fire in the Hole.
Even the cave tours felt different. There was magic in the air. So many memories. “You have a great past ahead of you” banner welcomed us into the park.
Best of all for me were the street characters, a cast of 1880s costumed interactive street characters that brought the theme to life. Guns and banter and hillbilly family feuds. Hatfield’s vs. McCoys. An undertaker to stalk people, measuring them for their coffins! A rain maker street show. On and on. I love the memories. The train robbers were hilarious and ad libs were rampant, tailoring the experience for each crowd.
Corporate Takeover lost its spirit?
I worked for Silver Dollar City as a street photographer for in the early 2000s, and as a server for the Showboat Branson Belle. Wonderful jobs. Then as a server at Dixie Stampede. Great money at the boat the stampede show. Great tips. Fun times.
Yet the generation of interactive ad libs came to a screeching halt when the Herschend family that founded the park in 1960 turned over decision handling to their corporation, Herschend Family Entertainment Corporation and moved it to Stone Mountain, Georgia to handle their multiple entertainment assets.
Street characters today on the park are muzzled as to what they can do or say. I know we live in a politically correct world, but I would enjoy the return to the spirit of Silver Dollar City when it was founded. (Hey, stagecoach rides would be fun. Yee haw!)
Rides, rides, rides
But now, it’s all about the rides. That’s cool, I ride the coasters when the lines aren’t as long as a train track, but the spirit of the park is now a spirit of hustle and hurry. Older folks have their electric scooters, trying to navigate the hills. It’s still fun, but you who visited in the 1900s know what I mean.
A former train robber character recently told me he’d be fired the first day if he did what he did in back in the day. Everyone has to be scripted and careful. No gunplay really. And no north south yankee rebel stuff.
I know our past is rich in colorful stories. Baldknobbers and outlaws. Prohibition and alcohol. We seem to fear our past too much and yet we are repeating it. In our cities and on university campuses, racial hatred against Jews reeks of the Holocaust days. History’s wheels turn in reverse for the worse as prices tick higher and higher.
Because of the chaotic and polarized world we live in, SDC should remain a bastion of morality and zany fun. Don’t let a woke world of political correctness suck the spirit out of Silver Dollar City, America’s last stand against anti-family values of bigger theme parks like Dizzy World and Dizzy Land.
These are my thoughts and opinions after working and visiting Branson since 1976. I am not a cranky old man. I am a red-blooded American with conservative family values, nearly 50 years of visiting the park, several of those as an employee, and a love for God and family entertainment.
Suggestions from my peanut gallery
- BRING BACK WORLD FEST (I loved the interaction with cultures from around the world).
- CLOSE SDC SUNDAY AND MONDAY to honor employees
- Open later Friday and Saturday and focus on the rides after dark.
- Have a beer and wine license like the theaters do
- Offer more variety for food, higher end food and wandering street vendors with snacks walking the park to eliminate so many lines.
- Bring back interactive costumed street performers who ad lib and riff with the crowds. People are isolated with devices and they need interaction, not just shows and rides.
- Have storytellers for people who sit around waiting for their younger friends on the rides.
- Have long time SDC visitors like me take groups on personal tours of the park for free. I’d like to volunteer to do that when I am on park.
- Keep older people employed if they want to continue to work on park. “Uncle Gene” was a retired SDC blacksmith that later greeted at the entrance. The bosses told him he couldn’t come back due to his age and he died shortly thereafter with no incentive to get up in the morning.
- Keep employing 14- and 15-year-olds. Keep them active and part of the process. Teach them work ethic and public communication skills.
God has blessed the Missouri Ozarks with tourism. Branson is losing its identity of hillbilly crafters and artists, and older visitors who took bus tours are no longer around to boost the economy. As we reinvent the theater scene, let’s keep God, family and hillbilly fun at the center and not lose our identity further in the world of woke and gadgetry.
WHAT DO YOU OTHER FOLKS THINK ABOUT MY SUGGESTIONS? DO YOU HAVE OTHER SUGGESTIONS FOR BRANSON TOURISM?
Johnny Rooster has lived most of his life in Christian County, buried in the hills and hollers. He picks off ticks in the springtime and mows the uneven ground in a little John Deere. His best friend sharpens his saw blades for free.